Accidental discharges

Had an AD yesterday with a 1911 in my bedroom. I let go of the slide, and it went bang. I was too shocked to be scared.

No casualties, with due apologies to the three bookcases I, er, "stopped", because those rules were drilled into my head. It's amazing how much more personal they are now, though.

Steve
 
Haven't had one myself (knock knock) but this past weekend I was on a camping/shooting trip on some friends private land in Pennsylvania. His father stopped by our camp site and we were shooting my pistols and my friends 10/22 at some cans and such. This guy owns a "pistol" and has been around hunting rifles all his life. My friend (his son) says to him, Dad you gotta try this 45 (my para-ordnance P14-45). He's pointing down range etc.. he pulls the trigger and fires off one shot. The gun goes off again and next thing I know he's swearing that the gun hurt his thumb! Turns out that the only "pistols" this guy has ever shot are revolvers! From what I can gather, he was trying to let the hammer down after the first shot and it must have slipped on him, fired a round and the slide hit his thumb. Gave him a nice bruise. I told him, "I thought you've fired pistols before" He says: "only revolvers" I say: "That's an autoloader" He says: "It's more than that!" (Whatever that means). "That gun is dangerous" (I'm thinking: No buddy, you're dangerous.) That's the last time I let someone shoot my pistol without running them through the operation. With a novice, I would but it was mostly my fault because I assumed that when he said he owned a pistol he knew how to shoot a semi-auto pistol and I wasn't thinking "revolver".

I'm glad to be home alive. :) I will never try to put a 1911 into condition 2! (hammer down, one in the pipe)


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The first step is registration, the second step is confiscation, the final step is subjugation.
 
I like SD better, stupid discharge. Mine was with a DA revolver. Dry firing, loaded the gun, forgot, then dry fired some more. Luckily, I was in an old house with plank walls that had been sheetrocked, then paneled, who knows how many layers. The 158 gr. roundnose didn't even come out the other side.

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Wayne D
NRA Life Member
 
A couple of years ago, I had an AD with a Springfield Armory 1911. I had a local gunsmith do a trigger job to lighten it up a bit. I placed a round in the chamber ( Like I was not supposed to do, but it was my first gun so I thought I knew it all.), and dropped the slide on it. POP! I put a .45 cal hole through my bed. The round went into the floor and stopped. I was so shocked, I couldn't find where to look up the non emergency police #. Good thing I was covering something I intended to destroy, instead of the dog or something stupid. It was a one shot stop too :(
 
Batman, you just described my Thursday shooting session. I put exactly 100 rounds through after the trigger job with no trouble, then that 101st got ahead of me.

I'm in the problem-solving phase now, and I'd be interested to hear what you had to do to clean up your problem?

Steve
 
Thanks for relating your stories-my turn now. (I don't feel as bad now). I've owned a Ruger Redhawk and a Buckmark for several years, never had a problem with them. I had decided to get a carry gun, and planned on a .45. I'd never shot one (OK, I'm a little slow), so I rented a couple at a local shop. One was a Kimber compact, that the dealer warned me had a very light trigger pull, a former owner had it lightened, to about 2 lbs. Put a couple of magazines thruough it with no problem when I had a "double". Squeezed off one round, ended up shooting the second into the ceiling of the range (still downrange). I'm guessing my finger was on or just coming off the trigger as the action was cycling, and the impact of the slide was enough to drive my finger back into the trigger. Sounds good anyway, not exactly sure what caused it. Looked around to see if anyone noticed :), didn't see anyone looking my way, put another 50 rounds through it without a repeat. Good wakeup call. Was around a friend a few years back that had a bad hang-fire in his new Colt Sporter. He had just bought the gun (his first) and put maybe 10 rounds through it, when it misfires. He lowers the gun and is reaching to cycle the action when the gun finally fires (probably 10-15 seconds). Finger no where near the trigger, would have said BS if I hadn't seen it myself. Fortunatly the gun was pointed at the ground, only casualty was underware. I now buy into waiting the 30 seconds that some of the ammo manufaturers recommend before clearing a misfire.
 
brianidaho, it's good to know that the "wait 30 seconds" isn't just legal stuff from the ammo manufacturers. I always wait.

I've only had one stupid discharge when I _thought_ I was dryfiring at one of my wife's
figurines that was on a shelf.

When I was on an IPSC league, one of the league's best shooters put a .45 through his leg while practicing a fast draw. He had his finger on the trigger and fired before the gun cleared the holster. There was no blood, and no need for treatment when he went to the hospital. The bullet went in and out of his leg, and was hot enough that it cauterized the wound channel as it went through. I guess he's lucky he wasn't practicing Mexican carry.

Dick
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