How often do accidents happen in Comp?

Coming from a cycling background, IDPA is WAY safer.

At any given day of bike races, there were usually about 200 or so people competing in 8 to 10 events. On average, 15 to 20 people crashed at some point and got bruised and cut. One or two would be bad enough to warrant an ambulance ride to the hospital.

In the dozen or so IDPA matches I've been to, I've yet to see anyone bleeding and no one went away in an ambulance. True, it's an individual sport instead of a group sport at high speed and close quarters, but it does not change the number of injuries involved.
 
Baddarryl:

I served twenty years in the Marine Corps; one of our training requirements was to qualify once a year with the rifle. So I have twenty weeks shootinh and pulling butts. Pluss, I shot on the base rifle and pistol team for five years. On the team I shot two months before the divisiion matches and four weeks at the division. Each day that I shot I had my day in the butts also. Not once did I experience an accident.

Semper Fi.

Gunnery Sergeant
Clifford L. Hughes
USMC Retired
 
I've seen or know of personally:

1. Two legs shots from Serpas holsters.
2. Had my chin split open by a fragment off steel.
3. Saw a rifle round ricochet off a lane next to ours and truly whack someone in the head. Another round came in on the same path and bounced off the top of the sun shelter.
4. Had a guy draw his 1911 and ND a foot away from my toes and a inch of the SO. I was score keeping.
5. Saw a 38 Super round bounce of a tire (don't use) and slap someone hard in the chest.

Seen three or so close call sweeps of the pack. Eek! :eek:

This is with years of shooting, BTW.
 
Baddarryl:

I served twenty years in the Marine Corps; one of our training requirements was to qualify once a year with the rifle. So I have twenty weeks shootinh and pulling butts. Pluss, I shot on the base rifle and pistol team for five years. On the team I shot two months before the divisiion matches and four weeks at the division. Each day that I shot I had my day in the butts also. Not once did I experience an accident.

Semper Fi.

Gunnery Sergeant
Clifford L. Hughes
USMC Retired
Click to expand...

Thank you for your service and all of the very good advice you give on TFL.
 
You are absolutely right, but he said the shots were "from" the holsters, meaning the gun in the holster. If he had said shot "by" the holster, you'd have a point. Under the circunstances, you don't.
 
I had an Unload and Show Clear accident in the late 90's at an Area 6 Match. The ejector in my gun hit the primer of the bullet I was unloading at the end of the course of fire. The round went off out of the chamber, the bullet hit the ground and the brass case had a piece of it whizz by my chest scratching it under my shirt. Blood did slowly flow, and a trip to the emergency room was in order to get a Tetanus shot. I did get a DQ because of where the bullet landed. I did get the gun fixed. I still do shoot competetion. You should have heard the comments from the HR Department at my company when the "Gunshot Wound to the Chest" report was filed by the insurance company!
 
1971 man shooting to my right had his right elbow shattered with a 45 hardball when his buddy shooting to his right had a gun malfunction.

1973 newly refurbished range had rubber tires as a berm at 25 yards. We lined up as the first shooters since they had redone the range and our 22's came flying back at us causing a couple of minor rips in our clothing and bruises on our chest, belly and one shin. Match was held up till they got a crew with a truck to come in and remove the tires.

5 years ago I closed down the shooting at our club when I realized that a group of guys standing next to the clubhouse propane tank were getting sprayed with 22 fragments. Some bone head didn't like the 25 yard targets and stuck a t bar into the ground at 15 yards and hung a target on it. Then handed his grandson about 10 or 11 a rifle, handful of ammo and left the range.

Never saw grandpa again but I had a word with the boys mama and she was ****** at her father. Place wasn't a village park with a playground or a baby sitting facility and there was nobody there to watch the kid or to instruct him.

First incident was amateur gunsmithing, second was p-poor facility planning and the third was pure bad judgement by grandpa. Not an accident in the bunch from my point of view.
 
Was scorekeeping (actually taping a target) last month when the clip board slipped out from under my arm and landed on my exposed toe (wearing sandles). Busted the sucker.

Was policing brass after team practice and someone unknowingly had an additional round in their pistol. Pointed the pistol at the floor beside me and squeezed the trigger. I got hit just below my eye with a piece of concrete, but just bled a little.
 
Everyone gets hit by shrapnel once and I still have a scar from one that actually drew blood while hitting me in an area where I was wearing a shirt.

I have seen one Remington moment that could have been dicey. Which of course started the usual discussion.

Otherwise it is not the most dangerous sport, by far. I have seen much worse in motocross.
 
Who are you guys trying to kid?

ND's with injury happen alot.

(1.) A SouthWest Pistol league expirienced shooter shot and killed himself within the las ten years. That was public information. (2.) The Las Vegas guy shortly after opening his 'school', had a student ND himself in the leg with a SIG, the owner wrote-up the entire ND as a quasi press release. (3.) Before it was sold, API in AZ had four NDs with injury that I know about. (4.) Between 1982 and 1989, I personally read the Medical Examiner's report on two seperate ND deaths at a range near me. (5.) A spectator at Silicon Valley multi agengy LEO SWAT shooting event was hit with a 115 fmj to the front of his BP vest circa 1999 or 2000. (6.) Jim Cirillo told me he took a 148HBWC to the calf muscle at a PPC match in the 1970s. (7.) In the early 1990s at a LE firearms instructor class that was held a month or two before mine, a soon to be instructor soaked-up a frontal gun shot wound from another, soon-to-be-instructor. (8.) I was at the indoor public range when a cock the hammer first & lay it back down for a fast pick-up shot type shooter, ND his own foot with a 2'' .357. It was a S&W M19. At this same indoor range, one employee told me he was on duty during four suicides. And he also said that the other indoor range a few miles away held the record for even more suicides and ND ijuries. I have been at two gunshows when someone ND one into the ceiling and one to the floor.

But I tell myself it won't / can't happen to me. Ha Ha.
 
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It is certainly true that there are NDs and NDs involving fatalities on a fairly regular basis at shooting ranges. The question was specifically about accidents during competition.

During organized shooting events/competitions, the number of accidents and the number serious injuries tends to be much lower because of the additional structure and safety precautions imposed.
 
Mentions of negligent discharge reminded me of an event that happened to a bud of mine.

He was competing service rifle at the Camp Perry National Matches. This ND happened during the standing stage where you shoot 10 rounds for score at 200 yards. He said a Junior next to him was “handling his rifle dangerously” and Junior’s AR15 rifle managed to ND a round in the airspace between Bud’s arm and body, I assume taking a divot out of the firing line.

Luckily no one was hurt.

Now what I think was happening was Junior was sweeping the firing line while loading his rifle and the rifle slamfired. I saw one competitor at the Nationals, shooting standing, who raised his AR match rifle up to his face, the rifle parallel with the firing line, he put a round in the port, put his hand through the carrying handle to hit the bolt release, with the rifle parallel with the firing line. If this rifle had slamfired, the bullet was going to be traveling in the direction of a bunch of people. At that time nothing was done, I hope if line judges ever see him in the future they have the authority to DQ the guy and get him off the range.

What people do not take into account is the possibility of a slamfire with rifles that have free floating firing pins. Anytime a firing pin rebounds off a primer there is a real finite probability of a firing pin initiated slamfire due to a sensitive primer.

Don’t load these rifles with the muzzle in line with anything that you don’t want to kill.

I saw a number of shooters put their AR15 muzzle on their shooting stool, put a round in the chamber, and hit the bolt release. Enough reports of AR’s slamfiring through the shooter’s stool surfaced that now it is illegal to rest a loaded rifle on the shooting stool.
 
I have seen a couple instances of bullet fragments coming back and hitting people, nothing serious.
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Heck, when I shot bowling pins, that was par for the course. I learned really quickly why the older guys had bushy beards and wore aviator glasses.

I've seen a few ND's during competitions, though none causing injury. The most recent actually happened outside the range, and the guy responsible was not only unrepentant, he demanded his deposit back because he wasn't going to be allowed to shoot. Jeez.

Several years ago, a friend was running a bullseye shoot at an outdoor range when an unaffiliated person showed up. The guy asked if he could shoot, and my friend explained that the range was sequestered for the shoot. The guy then went to the line and loaded up. Before my friend could stop him, the guy put the gun to his head and took his own life.

The incident was at first reported as having occurred during the competition.
 
Rodger that on NDs during competition. Sorry about getting carried away with the public ranges, training schools ND examples. I would not want any one to believe that NDs only count during competition.
 
They certainly "count" at any time in terms of the tragedy and loss of human life--I didn't state, nor even imply, otherwise.

However, the distinction in terms of where they occur is pertinent because of the way the question was asked. From what I can determine, accidents, especially accidents involving serious injuries or death, during organized shooting events are rare.
 
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