zdinnd

Mods please move if this is in the wrong board.


We have all seen the threads about superior caliber, best holster, best knife, and the countless 'what ifs'. But what about the 'don't do this!' Other than the 4 rules and by some, what is considered common sense , there isn't really a lot of literature of what NOT to do.

Ive found that people learn best by making mistakes, although when firearms are involved mistakes turn from learning experiences to hospital visits and encounters with law enforcement. So I think we should share our less than flattering experiences for the greater good.

Truth be told I made a doozy today. If anyone has ever read Ted Nuggents book "Guns, God and Rock&roll" then they can recall the chapter were he goes over all of the AD's he has had. Today in my apartment, I was trying to outdraw the TV cowboy and I learned the extremely hard way that 4 is not 5. The shot shook the small room and the TV crackled and went up in a hot flash of smoke. In an adrenaline fulled daze I grabbed the fire extinguisher from under the sink and let loose. I grabbed the cord and yanked it out of the wall, although in hindsight that was a poor choice. After any immediate danger had passed I stared at the absolute mess and at the pile of 4 gold dots on the couch cushion next to me. My weapon lay on the coffee table, and as I popped open the cylinder in disbelief, there was indeed an empty round.

I cleaned the mess and waited for my wife to return home. Safe to say she was not pleased. So I hope that someone can learn from this. Check, check again, then use your finger and touch where a bullet would sit. Count the chambers out loud as you touch them. What ever! Just please please be careful! As my father told me when I was a kid, "No matter how bad you want to, you can never take that bullet back."


So what mistakes have you made over the course of your lifetimes?

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JohnHenry

Glad no one was hurt. How did you empty the gun but only get 4 rounds out instead of the 5?

As a corollary to the carpenter's rule of "measure twice, cut once", I like to "check twice, pull the trigger once".

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Kimber CDP II Compact, SA XD SC40, Ruger LCP

Favorites: "If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a soldier."
Admiral Gary Roughead, CNO: "I never, ever, want to see my sailors or Marines in a fair fight."

zdinnd

I swung the cylinder open and turned it up, 4 rounds came out into my hand and i didn't do anything more than glance at them.

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limatunes

I really wouldn't call it a mistake, but at the range I had a double-feed. I cleared the dropped the magazine and racked the slide and a round fell out like I expected. In my mind, my firearm was empty.

I have a rule. My gun never get's put down without the chamber being open, muzzle down range, so that myself and everyone around me can see that it's empty.

I racked the slide and another live round fell out. Somehow it fed that second live round into the chamber even without the magazine being in place.

It was a very sobering moment for me. In my mind the firearm was empty and that is the most dangerous place to be. That is why it is safer to assume that all firearms are loaded ALL THE TIME, whether you BELIEVE they are empty or not.

While doing dry-fire exercises, in our home, we insist on only pointing the firearm in safe directions (of which the TV is NOT one of them..) and never at anything that we do not wish to destroy, being conscious of what is beyond.

And the reason that a lot of people don't talk about the mistakes is because while we DO (hopefully) learn from our mistakes, it's better training to concentrate on doing things right, every time.

The saying, "Practice makes perfect," is incomplete. In actuality only PERFECT practice makes perfect.

To obsess and talk about the mistakes is to relive them. To obsess and talk about the perfect practices is to get them right.

Most of us have heard that our brains can't process negatives very well. Someone says, "Don't look," we all turn around and look. I've seen it again and again on the range. Someone says, "Don't hold the gun like this.." and they waste twenty seconds showing a new shooter how "not" to do it.

Ten seconds later, there they are, holding the gun wrong.

We humans just have a brain-filter malfunction when it comes to processing negatives and so we try to keep things on the positive (since that's all we seem to process anyway).

All guns are loaded, ALL THE TIME.
Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target.
Point the firearm in a safe direction.
Be aware of your target and what is beyond.

Hopefully you'll never have a repeat of your experience and the television will remain your only casualty.

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Limatunes' Range Diaries

boss mustang

1983, I was home on leave from the Navy. I had been out shooting my Mini-14. Rifle had a fresh Mag in the well. I get home and get set to clean the rifle. Instead of taking the mag out and cycling the action to ensure it is clear, I start manually pulling the bolt back and letting it slide home. I count the rounds laying on the bed. Yep, there are 30 of them. Rifle must be clear. I point the muzzle at the mattress and pull the trigger.

Ever fire a .223 inside of a bed room? That thing was darn loud!

The bullet travelled through the mattress, out the side board of the bed. Did I mention that this bed was an antique?
Next the bullet entered the wall of the bedroom, passed completely thru the wall exiting into my moms closet. .223 rounds make pretty small holes when they enter something, not so small holes when the leave.

The bullett continued to travel and proceeded to make some nice .223 sized holes in 5 of my moms dresses. It then enters the opposing wall of the closet, passes thru it and slams into an antigue steamer trunk where the bullet disintegrates.

For anyone that says a .223 is a weak round here is the count:

1 Mattress
1 1.5 inch thick piece of oak side board
4 sheets of drywall
5 dresses
and a nice dent in a steamer trunk.

Luckily no one else was home when it happened. An hour or so later my parents come home. I hear my mom say, "I smell gunpowder" They find me in their closet patching the holes in the dry wall. Suffice it to say they were not amused.

That was my wake up call to my poor gun handling. I have been extremely consious of safety ever since.

Paymeister

First, let me say that what happened was probably one of the best things that could have ever happened to a television.

My worst so far (by God's grace) has been repocketing with my DA/SA pistol still cocked after shooting a varmint in the chicken house. I don't believe I had anything else in the pocket, but a SA trigger and no safety is a lot riskier than I like.

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shooterX

I have had two AD's since owning firearms. The first was when I was fairly new to gun ownership. My Dad had given me a Argentinian copy of the 1911 without a grip safety, it's a piece of junk, but I didn't know that then. Anyway my folks were in town visiting and staying with me. My brother and his family were over for dinner, and my Dad returned one of my brothers Hi-powers to him. We were comparing the two guns and commenting on the similarity of the two designs. Once finished, I was going to put mine up, and reinserted the mag and hit the slide release. The gun discharged, right into the carpeted floor, shell casing still in the breach. Needless to say, I cleared the room in seconds flat. The gun now resides in the safe, as I wouldn't let anyone else ever own this piece of junk. I took my a safety course the following month, and purchase a Walther P99.
The seond discharge happened at home alone, was putting a pocket pistol away in the safe, removed the magazine, and then the phone rang. I put the gun down and went to answer the phone. When I returned, I picked up the gun and pointed it in a safe direction to easy the hammer home, thinking to myself that I had cleared the chamber before getting the phone, well the gun of cousre had not been cleared and I proceeded to put a .25 caliber hole through a mirror and the wall into the attic,, my wife was not pleased. Leason learned, triple check to make sure the gun is empty!

boscobeans

If you don't count the holes it's loaded....

That finger (thumb) that unlocked the cylinder has a nasty way of hiding one chamber.

bosco

Roland of Gilead

Couple months ago I was at the range (outdoors) and had the 12 ga. on the portable table pointed more or less downrange (maybe 30 degrees off of the backstop). No one else around except my 16-year-old son.

As I was looking directly down at the shotgun and starting to eject the #4 buck shells to load up with slugs, I suddenly noticed that my son had walked around the table and was almost directly in front of the muzzle. No finger on the trigger, no AD, but I'm pretty sure the safety was off.

I almost felt sick to my stomach a couple times over the next few days when I thought about it.

So, always look around more that you think necessary, and always keep the safety on until ready to fire.

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Cycler

Holy Carp!! A very good piece of advice for anyone who owns guns that you have to pull the trigger to field strip them.