What Stupid things have you done?

[wanderinwalker]

Luckily so far the only really memorable one was taking a new .22 with a freshly mounted scope on a trip to camp. Without ammo. At the tail end of the .22 shortage. Which normally wouldn't have been a problem, as we used to keep a couple hundred rounds of .22 there for just such occasions. Except we'd been working on cleaning out the excess "stuff" the place had accumulated over the years.

So yeah, my pretty new .22 and scope went for a nice long weekend ride and never left the trunk...

(My new solution to this problem is to take guns where the ammo weighs enough to be noticeable in my gear bag. Taking a .45 and bag feels light? Definitely forgot the ammo. )

 

[Captcurt]

Started to do a trigger job on a new, unfired GP100 and bounced the spring off the wall and into shag carpet. 45 minutes later I found it. Yes, miracles do happen.

Another time I was shooting a new Ruger SR22 that I had cleaned the night before. First shot and the slide went 20 feet. I had not closed the latch in the trigger guard. Looked for the main spring for 10 minutes before I could locate it in the leaves.

Told you that I could write a book.

 

[jmr40]

OK, I'll play. Like a lot of folks I've ended up with no ammo or the wrong ammo a few times hunting and at the range. Walked into the woods once and forgot my orange vest. Had another hunter walk within 10' of me and never saw me. Was wearing 1980's vintage military woodland camo so it must work.

The most unique involves a Marlin model 60 that I took to a gunshow to sell. I had a scope zeroed for the rifle, but often removed it to use irons. I'd slide it back onto the grooved receiver as needed. It was accurate enough. When I left the house I grabbed the rifle and as an afterthought went back for the scope. When I got to the gunshow it was starting to rain and I quickly slid the scope into place and used a screwdriver to tighten it down.

I quickly found a buyer, but he wanted to know if I'd take $10 less since the scope was on backwards. I was so embarrassed I gladly accepted his offer. We had a good laugh after I explained the situation.

 

[entropy]

Started to do a trigger job on a new, unfired GP100 and bounced the spring off the wall and into shag carpet. 45 minutes later I found it. Yes, miracles do happen.

That's not stupid, that's called gunsmithing.....
I've put enough of mine on this board over the years, you'll just have to look for them.....

 

[Axis II]

no crossbow arrows, no bullets, forgot climbing tree stand, forgot harness.

one I thought was pretty funny was we went to a public hunting land that also had a range to hunt and my buddy wanted to sight in his new muzzleloader. we have another friend that is all about doing things primitive. we get back to camp and I say I'm going to take a walk till dark and see if I can shoot a deer. I come back and the other guy has this 6ft flint lock stripped all the way down boiling water on a fire to clean the rifle. the other guy whos never owned a ML before says idk why he's doing that when piss works just as good! I looked at him and said what did you just say? he says yeah we can use piss when we don't have a cleaning kit cause of the ammonia. I said who told you that and he points to the other guy. I said did you really piss down your barrel and he said yep! he said he should have plugged the breach plug because it came out all over the stock. I thought he was b.s. me but the other guy confirmed that "back in the day" they would pee down the barrel to clean them in the field. he ended up pouring boiling water on the stock to get the pee off but I told him I'm not touching that gun!

 

[LoonWulf]

ughh...
Wrong gun/ammo
No ammo
No bolt
Left gun at MILs house
No boots, two left boots
No license/expired license (easy fix, just bought one/another one online) Now i keep a pdf copy on my phone
.....Im gonna stop there.....

 

[JONWILL]

Do you mean you won't buy a gun that shoots a wildcat cartridge? The pause at the end of the sentence just peeks my curiosity since I've been trying to load for the 5.7mm Johnson wildcat for the last 30 years.

I think he means he forgot to bring the ammo and none was available locally.

BTW the 5.7 Spitfire/Johnson is a great round.

 

[1911 guy]

I once went to the range with a fairly new Remington 700. With the little locking mechanism in the bolt. The key to it was in the cabinet at home. Guess what I don't use anymore?

Was in a tree and a squirrel was chattering to his buddy a few branches away. I was sitting very still, he didn't even know I was there. Got the urge to reach out and poke him. Leaned WAY out from the fork in the tree I was in (no tree stand, just climb the tree and haul your stuff up) and slipped. Fell exactly one branch down, in a perfect sitting position, legs straddling a branch. Bow and arrows laying on the ground, took me a minute to get my breath back. A little surprised i was able to have kids after that.

And now the dumb thing that could have gotten me killed. When I was a teenager I wanted a sling on my .22 rifle but didn't want to drill the stock because the rifle belonged to my late uncle. So I bought one of those slip on types with the loop over the barrel and basket type arrangement that fits the buttstock. Slipped it on the rifle, headed into the woods and slung the rifle over my shoulder. The loop slipped over the muzzle, sending the rifle butt first to the ground. It landed next to my left foot, muzzle firmly against my left side. If that rifle (Remington 580) had gone off due to impact, I'd have taken a 40 grain slug directly into the lungs with nobody around to try to help me.

 

[Blkhrt13]

Every gun I ever sold or traded I want back. My first wife, not so much but she sure cost me. The list is long a he distinguished. Luckily few have been mistakes involving firearms except the sale there of.

 

[tritonguy]

Thought I would be the only one with this one, but looks like LoonWolf beat me to it. Used to deer hunt in swamps on a river. On opening day I took the new pair of hip waders I had just bought, but not yet tried out. When I got to the boat ramp and tried to put them on, there were two left boots! Had to hunt in tennis shoes, so only got to use one of the few dry stands where the deer never go.

 

[Hardtarget]

With guns/hunting we can say safety is every shooters responsibility. Here is my point....rabbit hunting with a younger cousin. We jumped one but cousin did not get his shot off. He said"now what?" I told him to put his thumb on the hammer to un-cock it". While he is doing that, I'm deciding where to go next. I should have been watching him! The gun fires and the blast almost took my head off! He had put the butt on the ground and without controlling the hammer...he pulled the trigger! Hammer flies from under his thumb, gun fires, I almost got shot in the head! Scared me to death! I didn't let him reload. We took the guns to the house and just roamed around. That was in '63 (maybe)..made me 13 yrs. old... and we NEVER told our parents.
So...my dumb thing was not paying attention to what he was doing with his gun.
After reading this thread...I think its a wonder some of us are alive. Me for sure!

Mark

 

[Alte Schule]

When I was ten I was invited to a Snipe Hunt. Brought my Crosman CO2 BB Gun and a laundry sack. Sure was disappointed.

 

[tarosean]

Do you mean you won't buy a gun that shoots a wildcat cartridge?

I think he means he forgot to bring the ammo and none was available locally.

Correct, it was a 30hr drive back to my house. So returning for ammo wasn't going to happen. Even almost 30yrs later I double and triple check my bags and will only use ammo I can buy just about anywhere.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

My buddy John, while engaging in a casual game of who loves Jack Daniels more, mentioned to his friend Shane (a Marine sniper), that he had just purchased a nice nickel plated Berretta 92S (from yours truly), and would he like to examine it please and thank you? Shane accepted, John retrieved the Italian beauty from his nightstand, removed the magazine, cleared the weapon and handed it over. Shane admired said pistol for a moment, reinserted the loaded magazine and gave it back, slide open.......
Later, John would claim it discharged on closing, but I'm pretty sure he released the slide with his finger on the trigger. The 124gr JHP passed through the web of John's left hand (taking with it a sizeable chunk of tissue), and lodged in the wall next to the head of Jay, an innocent, albeit drunk, observer- spraying him with bloody gobbets of flesh. John and Shane, thinking they had just shot their friend in the face, ignored his protestations that he was unharmed- convinced he was going into shock....
Thirty minutes later, all 3 were in the ER, looking like a scene from a Quinten Tarantino movie. The overworked attending phys. looked at Johns perforated hand and pronounced it free of nerve and vein damage, but with insufficient skin left to stitch or staple, so he disinfected it and wrapped it in gauze. "Doesn't look like a gunshot wound to me," pronounced the grizzled triage vet, "Good thing, too, that's a lot of paperwork. Go home."
Oh, the stupid thing I did? Sell a vintage, like new, nickel-plated M92- sure learned MY lesson!

 

[Skoghund]

It was moose hunting about 5 years ago. My neighbor, who is also our hunting leader and works the dogs, instructed me to take up position on my ground as he would loose the dog on his ground and the drive should come my way. The dog has a Garmin Astro collar and all the guns can follow the hunt on their Astro hand sets. The dog picked up a moose and i saw on the Astro that the moose was moving in my general direction. So Its time to load the rifle. When i go to close the bolt, no bolt, its still in my gun cabinet.
I had boar visting my feeding place at about 23.00. I have built a very comfortable hunting tower with a leather office chair to sit on. The tower also has a LED spot light that shines a green light to illuminate the feeding area. The comfortable chair and green light seem to have a strange tiring affect on me. So i bought a large can of a well known energy drink to try and keep me awake. Not a lover of these energy drinks, so only drink them when sitting out for boar.
Anyway , i drink the large can of energy drink and walk up to the hunting tower about 22.00, well the boar had already been there and eaten all the food. I was up till day light watching TV with my eyeballs out on stalks till the effects of said drink wore off. Note to myself, don't drink energy drink till you've get to the feeding place.

 

[Davek1977]

I’ve done plenty of stupid things, but this is a story my dad told me about himself. He said when he was 12 or 14 years old, his dad (my grandad) had an old 10-gauge double. One day, my dad’s friend bet him a nickel or something that dad wouldn’t pull both triggers at the same time.

Well, dad took the bet. But he walked over and put his back against a nearby tree trunk. Then he put the shotgun’s butt under his armpit and against the tree trunk.

When it went off, it came straight up, blackened both of dad’s eyes, broke his nose, and broke its own buttstock. Of course when grandad found out about it, dad got a few more bruises.

“But I won the nickel” dad said.

Had an uncle, whose brother had the bright idea to take their dad's ten gauge double duck hunting.....not a horrible idea in and of itself....but they were both about ten at the time. The story goes, they snuck up the grade of a pond full of ducks, and basiclly fired the shot gun as a team, one resting the stock and barrels on his shoulder, and the other shouldering the gun and pulling the trigger. As disasteriously as this could have been ....as is.....they didn't know the reason no one used this particular shotgun much anymore was it had a tendency to fore both barrels at once! So, they crest the bank, one aiming, one shooting.....the one pulling the trigger discharged both barrels blowing his straight backwards off the grade and into a heap a the bottom, while his brother stood there ears ringing, confused, looking for him. Odd thing is....I dont remember if I ever heard whether or not they actually killed any ducks with that stunt LOLOLOL Guess I don't know "if they suffered to kill ducks!!" LOL

 

[Davek1977]

Oh, another one...I must have been about 14, and at the time, was using my SKS as a deer rifle. Had one of those crappy 4x20 reciever cover scope and mount on it, and I thought it'd work just fine. Anyway, I did harvest a few deer with it, but one opening morning, we were on our way to a different area of our ranch,a nd stopped at a gate when we saw a herd of mule deer on the side hill. It was agreed that my cousin was going to shoot, and if he missed, I was to go ahead. He shot, and the buck bolted, as they called it a miss....I caught him in the scope, fired, and he dropped out of sight. We proceed to start looking, and I find a deer laying right where I thought the buck should be....but this deer didnt have antlers! I appearently got excited, and assumed I had the right deer in the few seconds I had to shoot.....about that time my cousin claims his buck, which he HAD hit with a fatal shot, it simply ran 25 yards or so and dropped out of sight and died...right about where the doe I shot orginated from....anyway, all was good as I had a two tag license, one for any antlerless and one for any deer, but it was embarrassing none the less....aside from the perfect shot placement on a moving deer LOL

 

[TrickyDick]

I was fiddling with my SA 1911 while sitting in my car waiting to go into work. Just basically taking it apart and cleaning off the dust from carrying it. So when I reassembled it, I did it where you put the entire slide together, then put onto the frame. Well, when I did this, it was super stiff and wouldn't rack. So as I turned the barrel collar to take the plunger out, the plunger flew out so fast and cracked the windshield of my car.

Told my wife it was a rock from the road.....

 

[Mousegun]

Just yesterday, I looked for my Springfield XDS where I usually keep it and it wasn't there. I pretty much turned a lot of things over before remembering that last week I decided to make it a night table gun.

 

[caribou]

I turned in an Alaska State Trooper for assaulting my teenage daughter while she was talking to another trooper.
Both audio recordings 'missing time', my lawyer never challanged the tamperd evidence that I was indicted and convicted with, so I lost my case, went to jail for a spell, did probation, all flawlessly, still in court over it, and more to come. Been 6 years now, but I aint done yet.

 

[LoneGoose]

Caribou, many of us have our fingers crossed for you.

One time I bought three Ruger 10-22 rifles, because they were on sale at a ridiculously low price. Thought I'd pick up a few bucks re-selling them unfired. A year later medical problems caused me to relocate and downsize. Sold those rifles to the LGS at a ridiculously very low price.

 

[stoky]

Trying to be squeaky clean, traveling through some states with really stupid laws, I locked my rifle in a hard case for the trip.
Got to hunting camp and.............you guessed it.............no key.
Luckily, the silly little locks were easy to pick.

 

[Mauser lover]

Okay, sorry for the old story, and, as is the nature with old stories, I don't remember all of the details.

I was disassembling (rather, reassembling at this point) a Ruger .22 autoloading pistol (sorry, don't remember the mark) and was having a tough time compressing a spring/plunger. Well... as you can probably already imagine, the spring and plunger flew across the shop. Spent some time looking for it, found the spring, then spent some more time looking for the plunger. I had remembered hearing the part *ping* against a metal cabinet on the wall about seven feet away, so I was looking under there, primarily. Finally, and somehow, for some reason, I took my nitrile gloves off, and there was the plunger, in my glove. It had bounced off the cabinet to my right, come back and lodged in my glove. I had felt it when it came back, but somehow the thought did not register that it even could possibly have been the plunger bouncing off the cabinet.

Lesson learned. Never disassemble Ruger mark series pistols beyond bare minimum field stripping.

 

[gunlaw]

• Accepted my current contract.
• Obtained an MBA rather than going to law school.
• Got engaged to a woman who was crazy (and later found out she had the certificate to prove it).

In comparison, forgetting your gun doesn't sound that stupid.

I went to law school instead of getting an MBA
Not gun related but went to the golf course and forgot my clubs

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

I went to law school instead of getting an MBA
Not gun related but went to the golf course and forgot my clubs

Drove 3 hours to an archery shoot and forgot my quiver of arrows. Figured I'd borrow some from my buddy who was also there but he'd forgotten his too.

Went bird hunting in January up here and when I got home realized that, in Kansas, the hunting license expires at the end of December.