Accidental discharge!

[bill larry]

Whoa boy...I called my dad tonight just to chat him up, and BS a little. I live vicariously through his gun purchases since I'm cash poor and he just went to the SAXET gun show this weekend.

We had a very pleasant conversation. Anyway, just before I got off the phone with him, he says "Hey Will, there's something I'm going to tell you, but you cannot repeat it to any of the family."

"Okay"

"I accidentaly shot a hole in the ceiling yesterday."

Insert stunned silence followed by insane laughter...I couldn't help it.

This is the man (he's 66) who has NEVER done anything careless or stupid with a gun, ever, until now. Vietnam vet. CHL holder. Gun safety maniac.

:banghead:

Apparently, he's been trying to smooth out the trigger on a gun he bought for my mother (a Taurus Model 85 snub revolver). He thought he unloaded it. Well, he did, except for one round, which somehow either got hung on the recoil shield or on the little protrusion behind the cylinder. So, he dry fired it. Click. He did it again. BANG.

So he punched a little hole in the wall in his bedroom, through the ceiling in the next room, and out into outer space through the roof.

Pretty good penentration for a .38, I told him.

At least my dad is not so stupid as to dry fire at objects (like the TV, or my mother) and never has. After I quit laughing, I realized that DAMN, not cool. My old man, the gun nut and safety cretin, had really fouled up.

<sigh> I hope it's not a sign of senility.

After talking with him about how it happened, I could kinda maybe sorta see how he did it, but really, I just can't see how he let it happen. It should't have happened.

They only reason he told on himself to me was as a reminder to me to be frikkin' careful with them shootin' irons, a lesson I will take to heart.

I sometimes dry fire at the TV, but you can bet I won't do it again!

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Which Rule?

Ah, let's see.

That would be Rule #2.

Yes indeed.

Of course, a TV might well be worth shooting.

 

[Leedavisone]

Roommate

Bob, my roommate in college (Wildlife Science majors at New Mexico State) once thought he would make a tranquilizer round. He drained the shot from a 12 guage shell, put a glass syringe in it's place, and blew a hole through our couch. Then later, Don, our third roommate came home, turned on the TV, and it was dead. Had a clean .22 hole in the side (That one was never explained). Finally, while quail hunting with our Winchester 12 guage 1400's, Bob was knocked down by a whopping recoil. The barrel had a large bulge from where the 20 guage he had loaded failed to eject and waited in the barrel to be pushed out. I think Bob is working as a consultant for the US government somewhere.

 

[shadowalker]

My grandfather something similar happen to him about 10 years ago. He was a WW II vet, expert marksman, and had been hunting for over 60 years.

He was demonstrating something on his LAR Grizzly Mag (45 Win Mag), he pulled the slide back three times but apparently not hard / far enough to clear the round in the chamber and failed to visually check / feel for a round.

The result was a 6 inch hole in a very heavy safe and a cat that jumped about 6 feet straight up. Luckily it hit the safe and didn't go through the window and down the street which it would have done if it were just 1 foot higher.

It only takes one time to have a really bad day.

 

[ChickenHawk]

At least my dad is not so stupid as to dry fire at objects (like the TV, or my mother) and never has.

Sheesh, I do that all the time! NEVER at anyone or anything alive (i.e. neither your Mother nor my cat) but what's stupid about dry-firing at the TV or other inanimate objects?

I remove the magazine, check the chamber is clear, then re-insert the magazine and dry-fire to my heart's content.

If your dad had followed that procedure he wouldn't have a leaky roof right now!

Stay safe,
ChickenHawk

 

[Outlaw Man]

A friend of mine just did the same things. He's pretty anal about keeping snap caps in his guns and always checking them again just before he dry fires them - especially since he's noticed that I ignore his claims of "it's unloaded" or "it's got a snap cap" and check it anyway.

I was in the living room watching TV and he was showing off some of his newest toys to another friend in his office/gun room that is next to the kitchen. He had checked all of the guns he had shown the guy except the one that he kept under his bed. It slipped his mind that one time - and that's all it took.

"See, look how nice I've got the trigger working on..." BANG! It went through the wall and lodged in the back of the oven. His wife gave me one of those "he's your friend" looks, and I hadn't even flinched. I don't know why I didn't, but he said it was probably a good thing because it kept her calm. He managed to get the hole fixed before she could find out about the oven, which still works. He'll be sleeping on the couch for a while, though, if they ever get a new one. LOL

If you're going to break rule #1 make darn sure you follow the rest of them.

 

[warriorsociologist]

No offense to your father, but there is no such thing in my book, barring a very few types of mechanical falures, as an AD. All "ADs" are "NDs." Live & learn - and be thankfull no one got hurt.

 

[hankdatank1362]

"Show me a police department that doesn't have a couple holes in it, and I'll show you a building that hasn't been dedicated yet." - Ken Hackathorn

Everyone makes mistakes. Some are lucky and everything turns out okay. Some are unlucky and the mistake ruins their or someone else's life.

Hell, I tattled on myself here on THR after my first ND a couple months back. I felt lower than whale poop. The guys and gals here really lifted my spirits.

 

[pax]

Sheesh, I do that all the time! NEVER at anyone or anything alive (i.e. neither your Mother nor my cat) but what's stupid about dry-firing at the TV or other inanimate objects?

What is stupid about dry-firing at the TV is that the TV is not a safe backstop. It won't necessarily stop a bullet.

I'm a little anal about dry-fire safety. One of my best friends lost his old high school sweetheart -- his best friend's sister -- to a bullet fired by someone who was "dry firing" across the street. The bullet traveled through his exterior wall, through her exterior wall, through an interior wall, across a hallway and through an open door before it finally lodged in her brain while she slept next to her 9 month old baby boy.

The guy who fired the shot didn't know his gun was loaded. Understandable, I think: human beings make mistakes.

That's why the safety rules matter. The rules exist as a safety net to prevent tragedy after a human being makes the predictable and understandable mistake.

Unless you can literally walk on water, you should never ever ever dry fire while the gun is pointed at anything except a safe backstop which would indeed stop a bullet.

The Four Rules:

• All guns are always loaded (treat them so!)
• Never point the gun at anything you do not wish to destroy.
• Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target (and you have made the decision to shoot).
• Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

pax

 

[Mainsail]

I’m pretty stunned that anyone would find humor in this. And how do you not see a single round remaining in a revolver? I’m not trying to beat the guy up, but it wasn’t an accident, it was potentially deadly negligence.

When you put live rounds in the gun, you say to yourself, “The gun is hot”, and you put it in a holster. The trigger is inaccessible and the gun will never ‘go off’. Any time you take it out of the holster (and you’re not trying to destroy something) you unload it.

 

[SASS#23149]

Dry firing is DANGEROUS,folks.!!

I've read many many such posts,and have seen a dry fire ND at our range.
One poster admitted that he'd shot holes in the floorboards/trunk of several different cars over the years,but saw NO REASON TO CHANGE THIS HABIT of checking a gun for empty.!!!!!!:banghead:

 

[pax]

And how do you not see a single round remaining in a revolver?

That's easier than you think.

Glance at the unloaded revolver below. You just dumped a handful of rounds out of it, and you're glancing at it prior to putting it away or dry-firing it.

It's unloaded, right? Look again.

For the record, the pictures don't cheat. The gun in the first picture is exactly as loaded as the gun in the second picture; the only difference is that the cylinder is swung out the rest of the way. But it is really surprisingly easy to miss seeing something you did not expect to see there anyway.

That's why you should always, always, always look twice, and count the holes whenever you unload a revolver. And it is also why you should always use your fingers as well as your eyeballs to check unloaded in a semi-auto.

Eyeballs can lie!!

pax

 

[Ben Shepherd]

I have a piece of that bulletproof fiberglass stuff they put in armored limos, walls, etc. That I use for a dry-fire backstop.

 

[arthurcw]

I’m pretty stunned that anyone would find humor in this.

It’s called Gallows Humor. It’s just human nature. Some minds deal with horror by seeing the black humor in it. Mine does. It’s a darn fine coping mechanism. To me a ton better than jumping someone’s Sh… um… giving someone grief.

Now on a person who has no clue and is a careless waste of O2, then grief, hell, and sh… um… yelling are more the order of the day.

 

[MrDig]

I laugh but only nervously as an AD/ND happened to me, and am greatful that only the ceiling and the roof were damamged. ALWAYS point the gun in a Safe direction.
Do I feel Stupid about AD's? Yes. Am I going to Stop handling firearms because the happened? Absolutely NOT!!!

 

[arthurcw]

PAX,


Thanks for the pics. I'm not a revolver person but am planning to get one. That little "trick" never crossed my mind as a possibility. I will definitely be on watch for that.

 

[browningguy]

I'm glad everyone was ok, there will be a lot of people jumping on saying it's not an accident, it's negligent. By their definition their are no accidents in the world, because everything was forseeable if you only looked for the right things. And they may be right, still, I believe that accidents do happen.

 

[Mainsail]

If I have only one round in my Taurus 85, the weight of the one round causes the cylinder to rotate it to the 6-o-clock position.

 

[pax]

Mainsail ~

If you're holding it so the cylinder can swing free.

If you give it enough time to rotate.

If this, if that, if the other thing ...

The fact is, human beings make mistakes. It's what we do. Making mistakes is almost what it means to be human!

The whole purpose for the safety rules is not to prevent mistakes (preventing human mistakes is an impossible goal). The reason the safety rules exist is to function as a safety net and prevent the normal, expected, understandable human mistake from turning into a tragedy.

bill larry ~ Glad your dad is okay, and that he has developed good safety habits over the years. What a wake up call ...

pax

 

[sfhogman]

Pax, I was about to reference your picture but you beat me to it.

Thanks for the post, Will. Your Dad sounds like a stand-up guy. It's not easy to admit to an ND.

Jeff

 

[AmbulanceDriver]

This makes me grateful that my only ND ever was while at an indoor range, and w/ a .22.

I had a new to me Marlin 60, and had been having issues with FTF/FTE. I'd made the mistake of trying to count rounds fired, and after what I'd thought was the last round, I went to bring the rifle down. As the muzzle was angling up, my finger slipped from the trigger guard and onto the trigger, firing the rifle. This fired one round up into the baffles of the range (where it was stopped by the 3/8 steel plate they have above the baffles). I was really rattled though, especially as the little bits of accoustical tile raining down from the ceiling. It just reinforced in me the importance of trigger finger discipline while moving around, and the importance of making certain the weapon you THINK is unloaded really IS unloaded...

 

[bill larry]

pax +1

From what I gathered...that is EXACTLY how the discharge occured. Thank you for posting the excellent pictures as a visual reminder to all of us concerning revolvers!

Among other things I do before dry firing (besides checking and rechecking the chambers) is I count the number of rounds I have in my hand. My dad should've done that. "Gee....only 4 here, where's number 5?"

Thanks, sfhogman. I'm glad he ratted himself out ot me, it's a big lesson learned for the both of us!

 

[fatelk]

My mother's cousin, before my time, was killed because he and an army buddy were careless with a .45. His buddy checks the chamber, takes the magazine out (not realizing he just PUT a shell in the chamber) says something like "Think fast- quick draw!" and kills his friend.

Of course that's a rather extreme example of completely irresponsible and careless gun handling, but it has stuck with me my whole life. Not only was one man killed but the other has to live with that guilt the rest of his life. My little sister's husband was killed a couple months ago in a farm accident with a tractor. My sister and their daughter, and the whole family, are going through greif and anguish one can only understand by having been there.

I have had a couple accidental discharges before (haven't we all?) but thanks to the ingrained habit of always watching the muzzle, even when disassembled, nobody's ever gotten hurt.

 

[Eleven Mike]

My only ND was a burst from an M60, in Basic Training of all places. Sarge went pretty easy on me. They were blanks, thankfully.

Another guy wasn't so lucky. We were qualifying on the functions check on the M16A2, and waiting in line to demonstrate this to a Drill Sergeant. We were in the breezeway under the barracks - this was Sand Hill at Benning. We were supposed to be practicing while we waited, but one guy obviously was not doing that. When he got to the Drill Sergeant, he pulled the trigger as part of the functions check and fired a blank round. Surrounded by all that concrete it was pretty loud. The private assured the DI that he had cleared the chamber, which only made him more angry. That guy got smoked for the rest of the day.

 

[bogie]

Tell him not too feel bad. Everyone will have an accidental discharge eventually. That's why we don't point 'em at important stuff.