hard post to make about a stupid mistake

[Brian Parrish]

When I taught Combat Handgun in the Corps, I use to tell the students. "When you handle guns long enough you probably will have an accidental discharge, hopefully it is down range!".

I have a friend who was an armorer for the US Army in Viet Nam and has kept at it ever since. He takes exception to me when I say this. He has never had one. No negligent discharge of any kind in over 50 years.
"No excuse!" he says.
I scratch my head. It IS possible.
He does not dry fire practice!
He does not care about marksmanship either.
My NRA certified instructor back in 1999(?) shot a hole in the ceiling at the Grandview Firearms Training Center in front of the owner and a room full of clients. I never saw him again. I always felt it was a mistake to fire him because he was so personally connected with the people and brought in a lot of business.

Kind and Good to You,
BrianD

 

[AJ]

I have a friend who was an armorer for the US Army in Viet Nam and has kept at it ever since. He takes exception to me when I say this. He has never had one. No negligent discharge of any kind in over 50 years.
"No excuse!" he says.
I scratch my head. It IS possible.
He does not dry fire practice!
He does not care about marksmanship either.
My NRA certified instructor back in 1999(?) shot a hole in the ceiling at the Grandview Firearms Training Center in front of the owner and a room full of clients. I never saw him again. I always felt it was a mistake to fire him because he was so personally connected with the people and brought in a lot of business.

Kind and Good to You,
BrianD

A lot of folks that I know that are gunsmiths, owners of gun shops and collectors hardly ever to never fire a firearms. It just amazes me that they do not.

I visited some friends at a local PD when I was stationed in Southern Ca. In the locker room were holes in walls, overhead and lockers. All were circled with initials and a date in the circle. They were accidental discharges and left there to remind the officers to be careful!

 

[Mainsail]

first thing I did was load 10 rounds and head to the back yard.

This is my favorite part.

Jealous

 

[seasoldier85]

I was going to post this a few days ago and changed my mind, but since you brought it up...
I was in my walk in vault looking over the kids and saw a 12ga. shotgun that was retired from bedroom duty. It was a little dusty, so I grabbed a rag to give it a wipe down. I opened the action (it's a pump), checked the bore, closed it up and began wiping it down. BANG! Nice one inch hole in the ceiling and a ringing in my ears. Apparently I had never unloaded the magazine after removing it from the house. I don't know where my mind was (thankfully it wasn't on the ceiling at that point), but I always check my weapons for clear when I pick them up. Fortunately, rule two prevented a tragedy while I broke the other three. There are no "accidental" discharges, only negligent ones. Glad to hear no real harm was done to the OP or his family.

 

[raljr1]

I take my16 year old granddaughter shooting from time to time. She wanted to shoot the Luger I had, so as I was showing her how to load the gun and chamber a round. When I dropped the toggle, BANG, the gun went off. Fortunately I had it pointed downrange as I had drilled into hear head from the moment she first touched a gun. That unexpected bang sure reinforced that lesson.

Fifty years ago I had another ND when out hunting with my brother. We had just shot at some wild dogs on our club property, I was shooting a model 94 Winchester. When we finished missing all the dogs, I closed the lever. Apparently my finger was still in the trigger guard and the gun went off. I had the muzzle pointed skyward, so nothing bad happened.

If you are around these things long enough a slip up can happen. THank goodness only your holster was wounded.

 

[AJ]

I was going to post this a few days ago and changed my mind, but since you brought it up...
I was in my walk in vault looking over the kids and saw a 12ga. shotgun that was retired from bedroom duty. It was a little dusty, so I grabbed a rag to give it a wipe down. I opened the action (it's a pump), checked the bore, closed it up and began wiping it down. BANG! Nice one inch hole in the ceiling and a ringing in my ears. Apparently I had never unloaded the magazine after removing it from the house. I don't know where my mind was (thankfully it wasn't on the ceiling at that point), but I always check my weapons for clear when I pick them up. Fortunately, rule two prevented a tragedy while I broke the other three. There are no "accidental" discharges, only negligent ones. Glad to hear no real harm was done to the OP or his family.

I was assigned to Naval Station Long Beach, Ca. as an security/firearms instructor. We had a SWAT team member clear his M1911 and dry fire it into a clearing barrel. Only problem was he forgot to drop the mag before racking the slide. He dropped the mag after racking the slide and dropped the hammer. You guessed it, he had loaded another round into the empty chamber and the gun worked as advertised and went bang. Took his M1911 away from him and gave him a Ruger Security Six to carry as a side arm.

 

[AJ]

Our local range had a accidental discharge. As I hear it a shooter was shooting a lever rifle in .22 LR. He open the lever and he and a range officer verified the chamber was empty. He moved the rifle off the firing line and put it in his rifle case. To get it in the case he had to close the lever, he then noticed the hammer was back so he pulled the trigger.....it went bang a shooter a couple of stations down said "I think I have been shot!". No one checked the tube to see if anymore rounds were in there. The shootee was somewhat lucky as it was a through and through with no damage to bone or arteries.

 

[Goldstar225]

I appreciate your willingness to stand up and speak about an embarassing incident as a lesson for others. Mine occurred 50 years ago when I was 17 and involved a pump 12 gauge that I thought I had emptied but miscounted the ejected rounds. I came close to killing my best friend who was walking across the room and was 3-4 feet away from passing in front of the muzzle. I have been anal about checking the chamber/magazine/cylinder ever since.

 

[M29since14]

There are so many crazy ways to get into trouble with a firearm that we would never anticipate that it’s a minor miracle those of us who have been active users for a long time haven’t made more mistakes than we have. That is why muzzle discipline is so critical. A ND may be embarrassing, but if nothing or no one is harmed, it’s mostly a stunning lesson in humility.

 

[seasoldier85]

I was assigned to Naval Station Long Beach, Ca. as an security/firearms instructor. We had a SWAT team member clear his M1911 and dry fire it into a clearing barrel. Only problem was he forgot to drop the mag before racking the slide. He dropped the mag after racking the slide and dropped the hammer. You guessed it, he had loaded another round into the empty chamber and the gun worked as advertised and went bang. Took his M1911 away from him and gave him a Ruger Security Six to carry as a side arm.

Had a similar event occur in Hawaii at West Loch. It's a long story, but basically this Marine was goofing around with his 1911 while on post. Did the same thing, racked the slide then dropped the mag. Ended up putting a round through his trousers in a most sensitive location. Admittedly, THAT was pure recklessness, not negligence.

 

[Maddog 521]

Check to see if it's unloaded

Check it again

Then you are ready

 

[SafeTFirst]

Thank you for posting arguably the most important thread on this forum.

 

[sophie]

So glad nobody was hurt. We practice and preach gun safety all our lives and somehow we drop our guard once in a while. Stay safe.

 

[Hair Trigger]

Click, BANG! Yeah, you saw that coming. Bullet went about 4 feet, thru the side of my Sneaky Pete carry holster that was laying on the counter, and hit the top of the slide on my sig365. Luckily the bullet fragmented, only leaving a small splash on the slide but no damage.

Close one !! Have you disassembled the P365 and checked the slide for internal cracks? That's a pretty close shot to do no damage at all, even if the holster absorbed some of the energy.

 

[SGT ROCK 11B]

Another 617 FTF story, how common are FTF's with Ruger and Colt 22LR double action revolvers?

I never had any with the Ruger Single Six for 40+ years and using all types of .22 caliber ammo including Magnums.

 

[scooter123]

It also points out that just because there is a dimple in the primer that doesn't mean that round was actually fired. When you empty a revolver that doesn't mean it's really "empty" until you have actually cleared the cylinder completely.

Note shooing 14,000 shotshells per year shooting Skeet means I get lots of practice with squibs. Most caused by not paying close attention when loading shells on a Progressive and emptying the shot or powder bottles, but dud primers also happen at a rate of 2 every 10,000. The drill is always the same. Clear the chambers and run a range rod thru the barrels EVERY SINGLE TIME. Competition Skeet is a national community and every year there are stories about shooters who thought looking into a barrel was "good enough". It's not.

Folks there are NO SHORTCUTS in being safe.

 

[ruger 22]

I lived on a lake in my teens and found that only the really good swimmers drowned.

 

[kelljor]

USN SNAFU

Some years ago, when I was in the Navy, I was assigned to stand watch on what was called the ASROC deck (ASROC was an anti submarine weapon; it had a high security classification at the time). This deck was at the middle of the ship away from the Quarter Deck (where the gangway was). The lone sentry carried a 1911, chamber empty, full mag in the gun.
The procedure for relieving the watch was: the current watch pulls the weapon, drops the mag, open the slide and locks it. He then sets everything down on a table and gives the holster to the new sentry. New sentry picks up the weapon, drops the slide, pulls the trigger, inserts the mag and holsters it.
This particular morning (just before 4AM) I was the off going watch. I did my stuff, then the oncoming watch picked up the gun, inserted the mag, dropped the slide, pointed the gun up and pulled the trigger. Oops. I will say the sound of a .45 going off in a room the size of a guest bathroom is deafening to say the least.

Dont know where they came from, supposedly everybody was asleep, but we were surrounded by armed security (all gunner's mates I think) in a matter of seconds.
The round took out some electronics conduits; IT guys had a job to fix it the next day. The oncoming watch lost a stripe, and fortunately nothing happened to me. But after that when I was relieved I stood next to the oncoming close enough to reach him and watched closely until the weapon was safely holstered. I have never forgotten that incident, and to this day many years later I have never had a DA of my own.

 

[SWFan27]

As a 617 owner myself, I never assume they all went bang. Bulk target ammo always has some rounds I have to spin around after they did not go bang the first time. They normally go bang the second time.

If I buy 500 rounds, there are usually 5-10 rounds that have issues with the primer. I guess there are bare spots where the firing pin hit them the first time. I am glad to hear that the OP was not injured.

 

[smithman 10]

Same here

When I taught Combat Handgun in the Corps, I use to tell the students. "When you handle guns long enough you probably will have an accidental discharge, hopefully it is down range!".

When we were teaching gun safety and concealed carry I used to tell our students there were two types of shooters:

1. Those who had already had an unintentional discharge of a firearm.

2. And those who were going to have one some day.

Not sure this is 100% true but seems to me if you use firearms long enough you'll likely fall into one of those two groups.

Makes remembering Rule Number 1 all the more important.

By the way, I happen to fall into category number 1.