Have you ever lost a gun?

[Zerstoerer]

Slightly embarrassing self disclosure:

Lost my Ruger SP101 (9mmPara with CCI shot for the Rattlers) while hiking up this Mountain the other day.
I was carrying it in a shoulder holster underneath a vest. The backpack straps but some pressure against the holster, so that I thought I felt it 'to be there' until I looked and realized that the snap had opened and it was GONE.
Did not hear it fall to the ground or anything.
Re-learned two lessons that day:
1. Do not use any new Gun/Holster/Ammo/Whatever combo out in the field until you tried it 'dry' at home for a while
2. Do not rely on snaps, latches, safeties, whatever - if it is not attached to you via some lanyard it may disappear.
I do this with everything else while hiking or hunting but just did not think of the weapon.
Now I am seriously considering a Lanyard modification to the gun and will look like some British Officer with a Webley/Enfield slung around the neck in the future.
Not only was there the loss but the concern that some kids might find a loaded gun...

Eight days later my buddy (who once lost a Blackhawk in a river when the canoe rolled inverted) helped me look and found it between two rocks.
Thanks for stainless steel and dry desert heat - it did not even show a scratch from the fall.
How much you start to appreciate things when they are lost and found again!

 

[Gideon]

I guess that explains the military's use of lanyards. Glad you found it, that would be a bad one to loose (9mm sp101). Must have made you sick wondering who else might find a loaded gun out there...

Thanks for the reminder for all of us to be careful. I think a lot of guys would simply not post for fear of looking stupid but whenever I see one of these, it helps renew my motivation to be more than careful with weapons.

Thanks
Gideon

 

[Realbigo]

I had to carry w/ a dummy cord when I was a young Jarhead, and hated it. When I got out, and was working armed Security, I noticed one or the other guards w/ an empty holster and asked him where his piece was. Turns out he had just lost an almost new Sig P228 in a low income housing project. After that, a bought a curley phone cord type lanyard, and have continued to use one any time i'm expexting to have to run, climb, jump or the like.

 

[CSA 357]

Luckey You Found It, Im Sure It Happens Alot More Than We Hear About, Csa

 

[MMCSRET]

No, but I left a custom knife stuck in a log after field dressing a mule deer, went back after it the next weekend and got it right where I left it. It is worth about twice what the rifle I was carrying that day was worth.

 

[Legionnaire]

Glad you found it, for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is how collectable the 9mm SP has become!

 

[Code3GT]

I left mine in a courthouse bathroom the other day

 

[gcrookston]

I've never lost one, but when I was a kid growing up in Colorado I found a Colt 1905 which someone had lost on Grand Mesa, probably 70 years earlier... A little worse for wear.

 

[theotherwaldo]

I lent a pistol to one of my sisters, who promptly lost it.

Luckily it was only an RG-66!

It was the only pistol I had at the time that she liked to shoot.

 

[Z71]

I "lost" my little Bauer .25 auto once.

I sweated the deal, and searched high and low for the tiny pistol.

Turned out it had got put into a large pistol case with another pistol.

My father in law had bought himself an expensive Desert eagle .357 mag.

Lost it somehow. Searched and searched for it! Went so far as to destroy his recliner thinking it might have slipped down into the chair.

Eventually came to the conclusion it had been left in a Ford pickup he had traded off!

But no, it was actually in a shooting bag he had used while shooting the gun. It was "missing" for a couple of years.

When My father in law died I was tasked with going to his house and getting all the valuables out of his house while my wife (an only surviving child) took care of other business.

I loaded all the guns I could find up in the late father in law's suv. However I couldn't find one particular S&W .45 revolver. Just wasn't anywhere in his house!

I drove the rest of his guns to my house, drove back and looked again. Still no S&W 625 revolver. Called my wife and explained the deal to her. She told me to look in the door pocket of his suv. Sure enough. There was the revolver, not 6" from the drivers seat of the car I had been driving!

 

[TimboKhan]

I left a gun in a buddies safe one night before we went out, and spent the next two weeks looking for it. I simply could not figure out where it was! He finally reminded me after I sheepishly said "man, I think I lost a gun".

I wasn't real worried when it happened, because I knew it wasn't lost in the sense that children/hobos/crooks might find it and I knew absolutely it hadn't fallen out of it's holster. I was just embarrassed about my absent-mindedness more than anything.

 

[rogertc1]

Last year I made a gun room and put my collection all together. It was in clausets, under beds, kitchen cupboards and utility room. Took me 3 weeks to find my NAA Deringer. Still can't find my origonal box to my Chief M60 revolver (got in in1974).

 

[texfed]

I never lost a gun, But when I was a kid, during an airdrop, I saw one of the other guy's rifle sailing past me on the way down. Only thought I had at the time was 'someone's screwed'......later it hit us all that this could have killed someone for a bunch of different reasons.
The rifle was never found and the fellow that owned it .....well it wasn't a pretty picture...once Sarge got through with him!
That was over 40 years ago!

 

[Zerstoerer]

gcrookston,
Quote"I've never lost one, but when I was a kid growing up in Colorado I found a Colt 1905 which someone had lost on Grand Mesa, probably 70 years earlier... A little worse for wear."

Do you still have that gun? Could you post some pictures, just curious how the exposure to the elements affected it...
Did you have it evaluated for value/history?
Thanks

 

[makarovnik]

Was it a horizontal or vertical shoulder holster? I don't trust the horizontal models.

A friend once told me his pistol was stolen out of his car one night while he was fishing. I said "Come on, you had it in the boat with you didn't you?" He said yes. I said "You leaned over and heard a "kerplunk" didn't you". He said you know I thought I did but just figured it was a fish or a frog."

I like the lanyard idea.

 

[jjohnson]

Self Disclosure

Wow, self disclosure is a good thing if you're making a point.

I've never lost one - but would definitely go obsessive/compulsive over it if I did. I'm tempted to put a lanyard on mine now if I do any 'rough and tumble' stuff like take one riding trails on horseback. I know, the Brits always look funny with their lanyards in WWII movies but you have to imagine they use 'em because somebody lost one in a trench fight in the previous war and all Brits are being punished for it into perpetuity. I always laugh at the French police when in Paris - their pistols are attached by coiled cables that look like they were taken from telephones... but hey, they're French. 'Nuff said.

 

[onebigelf]

I left mine in a courthouse bathroom the other day

Now THAT is funny!

John

 

[mljdeckard]

I use lanyards on all guns I carry in the woods. My Glock had a hole drilled at the base of the backstrap, I just ordered an arched MSH with lanyard loop for my 1911. It's even more important if you carry them while riding a quad or a horse.

 

[rondog]

Almost. A couple three weeks ago I set my RIA Compact 1911 on the bumper of my Silverado, while doing some work out at the gun club range. Drove maybe 1.5 miles around the ranch, down dirt roads, over cattle guards, etc., until I remembered my pistol. Ran around back, and there it was, still clinging onto the bumper! Covered with dust and scared as hell, but she was still there! That's the closest I ever want to come to losing one.

 

[Treo]

I never personally lost a weapon but I was in a unit that lost one at Graf in Germany. Lose a weapon in the military and every thing stops, we walked from one end of the training area to the other for a month ( I literally mean 1 full month) looking for that weapon but never found it. Some German got quite the souveneer.

Questions for the OP

Was it a quality holster or a cheap nylon?

Were you doing anything particularly rough when you lost it?

How far did you get before you realized it was gone?

 

[tunnug]

years ago I was deer hunting when I saw a couple of older fellas hunting off mules, we shot the bull for a littlewhile then parted ways, towards the end of the day I saw them again and one of them asks me "did you find a handgun?", turns out a colt saa in 44.40 had fallen out of his holster and they had been looking for it for a while, I kept my eyes peeled the rest of the time there but it wasn't found, I always wondered who made a great find.

 

[JohnnyOrygun]

Not me, but my Dad did...

I have never lost a gun, I lost a gun brief case that was under my bed... no guns it in, but it had some of those plastic ammo containers. It just disappeared, I asked my wife if she threw it away and she said no, I believe her... its been six years and it still bugs me. But I digress.

In 1993 my Dad and I were in construction together, actually concrete construction. One day I was checking on a job and my Dad called... said he had lost his Colt Detectives Special (man I loved that gun) and asked if I would check the job I was on and see if it was around there. Well I looked around, but couldn't find it... we had poured about 100 yards of concrete that day. He was on another job where we were doing concrete construction (a really large department store) and had also poured concrete that day... Needless to say, he had lost the gun in the concrete and we never found it. It wasn't worth it to tear up 200+ yards of concrete to try and find it. Metal detector wouldn't have helped as both jobs had lots of reinforcing rebar in the slabs. I pity the poor guy who ever has to jackhammer out any of that concrete. Could really be dangerous... It was Dad's fault, he was carrying the gun in his boot, I told him it wasn't a good idea... even bought him one of those ankle holsters, but he didn't like it.

At any rate for Fathers Day that year I bought him a new S&W model 60, but it's not nearly as nice as the Detectives Special (it was the old model) Anyhow after my Father passed away last year, Mom gave me the S&W, so now I keep it by my bedside every night and think of Dad whenever I see it. Obviously, it is REALLY important to make sure your Concealed Weapon is properly holstered and secured, not just stuffed in your boot.

John

 

[rrflyer]

I never have but the place I used to go pig hunting has a couple .454 casull revolvers as well as a nice pair of Swarovski binoculars in a valley.

Story has it that the guy shot at the pig with his rifle and wounded it. The pig turned and charged and the guy dropped his rifle and pulled TWO! 454 Casull's fired one shot wildly out of each pistol and took off running. In the course of his several hundred yard jog both revolvers and the binocs he was wearing around his neck were lost!

They searched for days but never found anything....i never did either.

 

[WNC Seabee]

Yup. All of my guns fell out of my boat recently in a very deep lake.

I did once find a very nice Hoyt bow with a quiver full of carbon arrows hanging in a tree stand. My tree stand. My property. Now, my bow.

 

[OOOXOOO]

You laugh Seabee, I was fishing with a good friend and when I leaned over the side of the boat my S&W 442 squirted out of my pocket. I went snorkeling to find it fo hours. I still want to cry as I write this.