Everyone, tell us a story!

[P97]

Years ago I dropped a .30 carbine Revolver in the floor and it fired. The bullet went through my thigh and while I was in the Hospital the Nurses kept coming in and looking at my Privates. I told the Doctor, and he laughed and said that another patient was practicing, quick draw, and shot part of his off. They got us mixed up and was checking me.

 

[boredelmo]

HAHAHAHHAHHAAH THATS HILARIOUS.

"Excuse me doctor, all of the nurses are sexually harassing me."

You musta gottena pretty big ego.

 

[BigFatKen]

Scary story: Be careful what you hunt with a 5.56mm

I wrote this to a historian in Ft. Benning:

One time in RVN, I was leading a short range patrol (SRP) and I see what I radioed in as round nosed shovel marks; not made by an entrenching tool. It appeared that someone had made three indentations in the ground and gave up digging. Perhaps they are NVA who heard us coming and are close by preparing an ambush. The indentations were two extended hands wide and three long. When I saw more, I re-called Six and told him never mind, no enemy but a trail through the jungle that appears to be made by a small bulldozer or unknown big equipment. It was only after we found many more marks in the trail that we realized that we were following an elephant. Taking an early stop, I deployed the men short of our goal on a nice little hilltop. We stayed awake two men out of four which we had never done before as we were under slept . When I heard the “elephant” moving all around us, I deployed my LAW. .223 vs elephant is not a good match up. I knew that this action would render it less waterproof if unfired, but felt that it was necessary. We heard noise, now and then, all around us but were never engaged by anyone or any thing. Some time later, one of our men in the Company was killed by a tiger. It was stalking us all that night I believe now.
BFK

 

[bruss01]

As a bored kid with too much time on his hands over the lazy small town summers, I got into mischief occasionally. In one of these episodes, I got into my dad's fishing tackle box. There were lures and fishhooks and bobbers and line... and about 2 dozen mossy old .22 cartridges, who knows how old. We didn't have a gun (that I knew of) but I thought I could have some fun with them anyway. Having always liked loud noises (cap pistols) and having discoverd that you can set off a WHOLE ROLL of caps at once by putting it on the sidewalk and smashing it with a 5 lb paving brick, the proscribed course of action was clear in my young mind.

So, very methodically, I proceeded to set up these cartridges, one at a time, standing vertically on the sidewalk, and proceeded to smash them with a 5 lb paving brick. Nice little "bang"! Amazingly, no one ever said anything to me about that and no harm came from it. Ah... childhood! BTW they ALL went "bang" despite their age and sorry condition.

 

[Richmond]

do it in front of an audience

Back in the late 80s I was: a much younger criminal defense attorney; had a full head of hair; and was shooting IPSC, action pistol and IMSA silhouette competition. I trained daily.

One day I went to the range with my training partner/coach and law enforcement was shooting. The range officer said they were close to done, and that we we welcome to shoot, but that they were back at 50 yards shooting AR and shotgun, so did we bring any long guns. I said no, but we could shoot from 50 with them. There were some chuckles, and I got out my 629 .44. The range officer (who I shot with on occasion) told me I could have the end target, a standard LE silhouette, but commented that it was probably way too big for me. So I said, head shots? Head shot agreed. This brought some laughter and, "Ha, he's going to try to hit the head at 50 yards with a pistol!"

I loaded 5, carefully shot. The range officer asked how it felt and I said fine, but I pulled the last one down and to the right. Everyone, about 15+ officers, wanted to see so we all trooped up to the target with a lot of laughing and teasing until we got close enough to see - the proverbial four leaf, 4 into one hole, dead center in the head. The 5th one was down and to the right - about 1/2"! In the shocked silence the range officer said, yeah, you did pull a little on that 5th one, and I agreed.

After all was done, we said we would help with the clean up so everyone left but the range officer. When everyone was gone, he said, good grief, have you ever shot a group like that at 50 before? I replied that I didn't think that God Almighty could guarantee 4 into one hole offhand at 50 yards with a stock 629! He laughed and said, but neither of us blinked, just treated it like an ordinary group - that usually, that was the sort of group you shot, all alone at the range and nobody would ever believe you. I had just done it in front of a large audience, and just to be sure, he signed the target and posted it in the training room at the LEC for a couple of weeks before giving it to me. I still have it, of course.

For years, I could be doing a trial a couple of hundred miles away and have an officer come up to me and ask, say, are you the guy who shot all the shots into one hole at 50 yards? I usually had to explain that no, actually one was 1/2" off.

 

[Caimlas]

Nothing too fascinating, but I'll share a couple stories, I s'pose.

I'm not quite sure on the particulars of this one, as I'd just gotten into firearms seriously and my recollection is a bit foggy. Basically, I found out my neighbor was into firearms and shooting, so one day he and I went out to some land a friend of his owned and fired away. We shot a couple pistols, and his .223 AK for a while, then decided to take a 'couple steps back' from our targets and shoot his scoped .243 prairie dog rifle.

Now, he and his brother-in-law reload their ammunition. The three of us had spent many a night in our shared yard around a fire pit, drinking, smoking, and generally just BSing and having a good time. That's when we decided to go out shooting the following day. In hindsight, that should've been an indication of what was to come.

We back up to about what must've been close to 300 yards. It was early in the spring, and it turns out that his rifle wasn't actually sighted in worth a damn; neither of us were hitting what we aimed at, and this was the normal distance he shot and and I've always been a fairly good shot. We were shooting at milk containers filled with water, so we'd be able to see the impacts clearly. He takes the rifle and attempts to sight it in, largely by guestimation it would seem, using ammunition he and his BIL reloaded. Well, he wasn't having any luck of it. Then one of the loads makes a distinctly different *bang* sound - but we notice that one of the milk containers is hit. We look at each other, and are kinda confused. He unchambers the cartridge and it's not even .243 - it's .22-250. He had no idea how it got in with his .243 loads. I won't go shooting with him again for obvious reasons.

Second story:

This is a standard 'scope recoil' story. I was sighting in a borrowed .30-30 for my first deer season. It had a cheap 4x scope on it. The person I borrowed it from is significantly shorter than I am, and I've got a disproportionately long neck. I was trying to sight this rifle in while laying prone, so the distance to my shoulder from the stock was longer than it should normally have been, as well, resulting in me creeping closer towards the scope so that I could keep the stock snug. End result: one very bloody lower forehead (I've got a neandrathal style forehead - big and jutting), and a fairly deep cut into the muscle of my forehead. That area still doesn't feel natural - like something isn't working right - and there's a nice white scar left as a reminder. I try and mount my optics as far forward as possible, now, and prefer longer relief scopes.

Third story:

This story is actually a hunting story told to me by both my uncle and grandfather about a trip they took together to my grandfather's cousin's hunting lodge in western Montana. I'll recount this one as best as I can recall it; it's a good one, IMO.

They were invited out there for a deer hunt, partially because my uncle was thinking of moving to the area, and partially because everyone wanted to show up my grandfather, who has a bit of a reputation as a tireless outdoorsman, excellent shot, and the kind of guy who you generally don't want to get into a competition with - because you'll lose. Just the same, my grandfather's cousin and his Montana boys thought they could outdo a mere New York resident in woodcraft.

At any rate, my grandfather and uncle arrived at their lodge at around midnight the day the season started. The bunked up and fell asleep. A couple hours later, everyone else got up and headed out to their respectively scouted areas.

After about 5 hours of sleep (neither of them need much, the lucky bastards), my grandfather and uncle got up and quickly got ready to head out - keep in mind, everyone else had been gone for about an hour. My uncle, having scouted around the area somewhat looking for land to purchase, kind of knew the lay of the land, and thought he knew a good area to go. Right around 20 minutes before dawn, while they were still walking through the woods, they saw a 10-point whitetail when they walked right upon it. They startled it, and my uncle shot it on the run. They were still pretty close to the hunting lodge, so they dressed it out and dragged it back to my uncle's pickup truck, and put it in the (covered) bed.

It was still quite early, so they decided to go out and try to get my grandfather's buck. They headed for the same area they'd intended to travel to originally: a ridge overlooking a small valley, with another ridge on the other side. They were walking along one ridge slowly, making their way towards the valley opening, when my uncle saw some movement some 400 yards away on the other ridge, right below the tree line. They took a look with binoculars, and determined it was a buck. My grandfather wanted my uncle to take it (naturally - you'd do the same for your son, wouldn't you?), but my uncle wasn't sighted in for that distance and didn't feel comfortable making the shot.

Now, my grandfather is still NRA qualified Master, shot the M1 in regional competition and placed 2nd (I don't recall more than that - I think it was at Perry?), and when he was in the Army during Korea, he was asked to represent the US Olympic team. (He refused, but the reasoning why is another long story which culminates in my existance.) So he's no slouch and quite familiar with .30-06.

So, my grandfather got down in prone and aimed above the dot that was the deer (using a 4x scope), and took a shot. My uncle said the deer just disappeared - fell down or ran away. They walked over to the other ridge while keeping an eye on where they saw the deer, and lo, there it lay, dead, with a hole right through the heart. Turned out to be an 11-pointer taken at about 350 yards.

So... about 11 o'clock they finally manage to get the deer back to camp, and put it into their pickup alongside their other deer. They went inside, and everyone that had come out to hunt opening weekend was already inside, drinking coffee and enjoying the fire: it was a wet, sleety day, with a fair amount of wind for Western Montana, and everyone thought they'd call it a day. Nobody had seen anything, not even does.

Someone - I don't recall specifically who said this, according to the story - thought, for whatever reason, to goad my grandfather and uncle, and give the 'mighty hunter Morgan' (grandfather's name) a ribbing for not getting a deer. So he asked, had they seen anything? My grandfather, being a perpetual gamemaster in almost all respects, couldn't resist the urge to take the posturing challenge. So he said, "Yeah, we saw a couple." The guy said, "Oh, didn't get anything, huh?"

Of course, my grandfather responded, "Nope," and then paused. "I've got an 11-pointer out in the truck." Well, everyone was taken aback by that, and fairly shocked, as they - the great sportsmen that they were - hadn't seen anything. Some of them didn't believe him, so the whole group trudged out to the truck to take a look. Seeing two deer in the truck instead of one, a couple of the guys got angry and trudged back in. My uncle, right on cue said, "Oh, and I got one too."

They left the camp pretty much right after that due to the air of hostility, and were never invited back.

(My grandfather and uncle are both hugely egocentric storytellers and, while they don't tend to exagerate their stories from what I and everyone else in the family knows, do tend to enjoy telling them. And they both tell them well and frequently, so my recollection of this one is particularly strong.)

Hope you found those enjoyable.

EDIT: Actually, I just thought of another, but not firearm related.

I was out one day - I was about 12 - with a couple friends, just messing around in a field. I had my compound bow with me, and we were shooting holes into various things - lots of trash, mostly. We saw a garter snake about 20 feet away, and a friend dared me to try and hit it. So I did, amazingly enough - right through the back of its neck, pinning it to the ground. A lucky shot, but of course I didn't play it up as anything but natural.

 

[History Prof]

So one night, this guy decides he is going to dispatch a rabbit who has been sneaking into the back yard at night and messing up his wife's flowers.

...

He tried to pull all the arrows out of the ground and dispose of the body before anyone saw what had happened, but obviously he didn't. Some people like my family just laughed. Others were less amused.

Two comments:

A; That's the funniest durn story I've read in a long time.

and 2; You're a durn good story teller on top of that.

 

[Freedomv]

A friend of mine told me of a time when he was just a kid he had an old top break revolver. I don't remember the calibre but think it was a centerfire .32.
At any rate he and his buddy decided to make a magnum load for it by dumping the powder from another round in to one case and putting the bullet back in place. A double charge!!!
The other kid had the pleasure of firing this "Magnum round" and when he did the top break action let go and the empty case ejected with so much force that when it hit the kids fore head it left the shell case head stamp imprinted in reverse on his skin.
Very lucky not to have had serious damage. I think that it would qualify for honorable mention in the Darwin awards.

Vern

 

[ksnecktieman]

My brother's (ten years older than me)story. Grandpa was getting old and did not walk fast or long. After a long walk for pheasants in central Iowa in the late sixties. They finished a walk 1/4 mile from the car, of course, brother carried the dead birds. He walked back to the car, and unloaded his hunting coat of birds, and his light twelve A5 of shells. He drove to where grandpa was, and as soon as grandpa kicked the last shell from his sweet sixteen A5, Larry popped the trunk open, and one of the birds, not quite as dead as they thought, flew away, with both of them having empty guns.

May follow with more, if enough stupidity is described here

 

[shotgunkevin]

For Christmas, I had bought my buddy 2 boxes of .308 Hornady TAP 110 gr. He was slowly using them up over the course of several range trips, always firing at some sort of reactive target: 2 liter pop bottles refilled with water, big candles, a bottle of hand soap, etc. Always something that a .30 caliber high velocity round would make a memorable mess of. So he got down to the last couple of rounds on one trip, and as he was loading them into his FAL, he remarked something about the "deadly, pretty red tip", and I agreed, and said something about never wanting to see one headed my way. So he loads up and fires a round onto a 3 gallon kitty litter jug filled with water, set about 10 yards away. Well, a fraction of a second later a big red something goes flying right between us, chest high!

It turned out to be the lid of the litter jug.

(Man that is a lame story. I should write about the time my Glock blew up.)

 

[DRZinn]

Kinda sorta gun-related.

Training op in the mountains of Pendleton playing OpFor for the Battalion. Had to send up a red star cluster pop-up for some reason, and let the boot do it. Well, he lit that thing off, it went about 20 meters out, turned around, and came shooting right between me and another Marine about 5 feet away. Impacted in the hillside.

 

[gm]

Shot a h&r 12 gauge singleshot shotgun with slugs and birdshot. This particuliar day, I decided to put the buttstock about an inch from my gut and shoot it one handed because the bidshot was fun and lite.I slid in a slug not really thinking and got the shock of my life VERY careless on my part.

It recoiled straight back at a slight angle upwards and didnt really smart right away but 5 seconds later,bigtime stinging pain.The mellon sized black and yellow bruise on my gut stayed with me for a month.

 

[BigFatKen]

Sarasota Archery Club

So we got infested with squirrells and I wanted to get an air rifle, but the archers said "hey its an archery club so don't worry". Next thing a tree rat is pinned to a tree by an arrow to the near the tail and is making a racket.

Carcass was up there a long time.

 

[sixgunner455]

Vietnam tiger

BigFatKen --

I remember reading, years ago, about a patrol in Vietnam that had to cross a river. The pointman crossed, and was moving a little on the opposite side, when one of the guys pulling security on the other side saw a tiger about to jump on the pointman (who didn't see it at all). Guy who saw it, killed it with about six rounds from his M-16.

 

[The Rifleman]

I had a Uncle Sonny, that was a hard drinker. He drank Du Bois Budweiser - by the quart. He always threw the cap away - because he always intended to drink the whole qt.

Yes back in the 50's - 60's there was more than one family of Budweisers in the USA making beer..

My Uncle was invited to hunting camp. All he brought for a firearm was a .44 Mag like Dirty Harry had in the movies.

When he shot it, the recoil was so bad that it threw the gun over his head.
All of the guys at the camp took turns shooting it and nobody asked for a second shot.

My dad reloaded it while Sonny got a beer. Sonny went to shoot it again and didn't know that my dad put a empty chamber in the gun. He pulled up and aimed and the gun went click and he threw it over his head - just like he did when it was a live round.

You can tell people that they flinch and they will call you a liar.. But when a person acts like the gun is going to kill them - it's time to get a different gun.

The next year he bought a Remington Model 722 in .308

 

[Sharps-shooter]

Me and one of my friends (okay, my only friend) were out in the mountains shooting clay pigeons with a shotgun. We got down to where we only had one clay left, and he said, "why don't you shoot it with your rifle?". We thought that would be funny to try, so I loaded the rifle and he put the clay into that thing that throws them. He let it fly, and i sighted it with just my front site, and fired. The thing flew to pieces, and we were both hooting and hollering about it.

I said, "too bad you don't have another clay, or i'd shoot it too," which was probably a fib.

 

[bumm]

My wife and I both grew up around guns, but I was always a bit uncomfortable that they were always left loaded at her house. This was completely natural on her family's Nebraska farm, though, and unloading a gun after hunting made no more sense to her brothers than draining the gas out of the car. Anyway, there came the day when a cousin from California visited, and while everyone was talking upstairs, a huge BANG! echoed up from the basement. Everyone ran downstairs to see this fellow standing with a deer rifle, watching water squirting out both sides of the still running washing machine. Fortunately, no one was hurt. I later told my father in law that I wish I could've seen the look on the fellow's face. My father in law got a thoughtful look on his face and said, "He looked like a poisoned frog..."
ONE MORE...
My neighbors across the street left for a weeks vacation right after the father got home from pheasant hunting. He told his son, "Put these birds in the refrigerator downstairs," and they left. A week later, they arrived home, and found out the kid put the dead pheasants in the old refrigerator that wasn't plugged in...
Marty

 

[S.P.E.C.T.R.E.]

I belong to a service organization, and at the latest meeting, I sat with one of the older members (“Frank”) that I usually hang out with. He’s a gun guy like me, has his carry permit, and did a stint in the Army in the 60’s. We’ve talked about a lot of things, but he told me two stories that I’d like to share with you guys. I have no way to confirm these stories but Frank is not the kind of guy that exaggerates, and that’s why these stories struck me as amazing.

Story One – The Bunker

Well, Frank served in the Army on a base in Germany on the Czech border. Occasionally, the Czechs would get frisky and pop off a few rounds at their American counterparts, but they weren’t allowed to return fire unless the rounds came within 3 feet of you. Now, the two border posts were seperated by about 1500 feet of mined no-man’s-land with barbed wire fences on each side. One day, Frank was sitting in a concrete bunker/MG emplacement chatting with a Leiutenant. All of a sudden, machine gun rounds started splatting against the outside bunker walls. Frank looked at his Lt. and said “that’s three feet, isn’t it?”. The Lt. nodded and Frank opened up with 100 rounds of .50 cal goodness. The machine gun fire on the Czech side abruptly stopped. Then word got back to them…the reason the Czechs were firing was that two people attempted to cross the minefield into Germany. One made it across, and the other had been cut down by the Czech machinegunner. Neither had stepped on a mine, amazingly.

Story Two – An Act of War

Well it turns out Frank was observing some mock fighter-bomber runs near the Czech border. The fighters were not to get any closer than 10 miles from the border. Their exercises were taking place 15 miles from the border. Anyway, two Phantoms came near Franks position low and fast (high speed low drag) and tried to fly under some powerlines. One came in too low and had to pull up hard and get some altitude fast, and as a result peeled off of his wingman. Disoriented, he did not realize he was heading directly into Czech airspace. Frank consulted his map and radioed the pilot, saying he was heading the wrong way. The pilot hauled a huge u-turn and beat feet back to friendly space. Later that week, Frank was dropping off some papers to an officer in a planning room. He happened to see a report on a map saying that a ****load of fighters had scrambled the same day the Phantom got too close to the border. Fortunately, none of the top officers knew of the incident, and were puzzled as to why the commies went ape**** with their fighters.

Story Three - Uh oh sniper!

My Grandfather was an Army grunt during WW2 and helped mop up in the Phillipines and New Guinea. He was marching through the jungle one time and he actually saw a bullet go through the shoulder of the guy in front of him (the guy survived). Also, he hated Japanese snipers because they tied themselves to the trees. You couldn't tell if you got them, but they would sometimes find them hanging by the rope.

Also he got a Bronze Star for saving his platoon from a Japanese ambush by covering their escape with his BAR...at times he was so close to the enemy he could hear them work the bolts on their rifles.

 

[RH822]

My father was a avid hunter all his life. At around the age of 55 he could no longer walk more than 50 yards at a time without his legs giving out. So he applied for and received a handicap hunters permit which allowed him to hunt from a vehicle. So he bought a 1955 Willey's M38A1. He had been a wheeled vehicle mechanic in the Army for 26 years and he new that jeep inside and out, he called it his "Huntin' buggy". He hunted all over the Tri county area in that jeep, but his favorite hunting spot was in the creek bottom about a half mile behind my Aunt's house. During the hunting seasons he would be out there to either hunt or visit 4 or 5 days a week. When my wife and I would go over and visit my aunt she would say, I always know when Olen is going hunting. Because there is nothing else that sounds like his huntin' buggy coming down that lane. My father passed away 15 years ago. He went goose hunting, came home and died (that's the way I want to go). A couple a years later I took my family to visit my aunt. She told me that every once in awhile, early in the morning, before the sun comes up, she will wake up to a sound. She said, I'll listen, then smile and say to myself, Olen's going hunting.

RH

 

[bumm]

>She told me that every once in awhile, early in
> the morning, before the sun comes up, she will
> wake up to a sound. She said, I'll listen, then
> smile and say to myself, Olen's going hunting.
>RH

That's wonderful. Good memories are probably the best thing to leave behind.
Marty

 

[66912]

I will share two stories which stick out in my mind. The first....I grew up in the burbs of the greater Seattle area. Up the street was an older outdoorsman which my father labeled a "Commercial hunter" (Now that I am older, I guess this means he was a hunting guide.") Anyway, this gentleman had a larger plot of land than most in the area and he was proud of his ability to grow prolific vegetable gardens. Back in the 70's not many people around where I lived had composting areas from their gardens and garbage. Well one day I was walking home from school and I could hear the "BOOMS" from a mile away. When I got closer to this gentleman's house, I will never forget the image as long as I live, There he stood outside his compost pile amongst a 10 foot radias of miniature bomb craters. Apparently he chose a double barrel 10 gauge to dispatch a large family of field mice living between his garage and compost bin. Lucky for me, I was able to wait around long enough to see one of the little (I mean LITTLE!) vermin get both barrels at once. WOW! Ironically, this was the same man whom my father contracted out to teach my gun safety with my first .22 rifle. Don't worry, he got it right!

Second story....Scary, avoidable, but somewhat funny.
After a relatively long road trip, my girlfriend and I returned home and immediately began unloading the car. I was tired from doing all of the driving and chose to turn in early. I remembered that my 686+ was still out in the vehicle between the console and the drivers seat so I asked her if she would retrieve the weapon for me before she came to bed. She grew up in a shooting family so I trusted her gun handling. A 2" 686 makes a very loud noise when discharged within the confines of a vehicle. As I am running out of the house (With my 870!) I see here crying while still holding the weapon in here right hand. Confused, concerned, and cautious, I approach here to find out the story. Apparently, during travel, the firearm (In a holster) had become lodged between the seat and the seat belt strap. Cold, dark outside,and tired, she tried to dislodge the weapon with a yank and here finger in the trigger guard. Mistake....KABOOM. It scared her to tears. After calming her and myself down, we went to bed deciding to assess the damage in the morning. Morning comes, I am out in the vehicle for over an hour and I cannot find a hole, broken glass, broken plastic, NOTHING!?!. About a month later, the outside temp climbs toward the 90's. I turn on the A/C and nothing happens. Well this can't wait with summer rapidly approaching so I drop the vehicle off at the mechanic. Later in the day, I get a call from the mechanic and he finds the problem. I say fix it and I will be in the next day to pick it up. When I arrive, the mechanic has a dumbfounded look on his face about the problem. In his hand is the body of the control switch to the A/C unit in about 20 different pieces. He said he as NEVER seen a piece like this just disintegrate before. Immediately I new what happened. Smiling, I paid the bill and left in a hurry to get home. First thing I did was pull the carpet and found where the bullet had reflected of the floor plate and flew up under the dash and destroyed the A/C unit. Mystery solved.