dakota.potts
New member
They say if you shoot long enough and are around guns long enough, you will have a negligent discharge.
I don't know if that's true, but I had one today. Not in the way I thought that they happen, but in a strange situation. All safety rules were followed (except a key one I'll point out later) and the round went downrange safely into the berm.
I went to the range with some friends today and we all brought guns for the others to try out. One of the guys I was shooting with had a Rock Island 1911 with Pachmayr grips and an aftermarket compensator on the barrel. I was shooting that and something was feeling strange about it. It had had a couple failures to extract and miscellaneous misfeeds (he said it had had some spring work done) and the trigger itself was weird. He described it as very light, but rather than light, it felt very short - very little travel, but gritty. Didn't like it much. It felt like it broke later than it should and required an odd amount of effort.
In the middle of one magazine, I hit a point where it felt like the trigger should be breaking and it wasn't despite putting more pressure on the trigger. I broke my firing stance slightly and turned the gun sideways to look at the ejection port and see if the previous round had jammed or if the gun had not returned fully to battery. I'd turned the gun fully to the side and looked at it for only about a second when it fired.
I was in the middle of a string of fire and everybody had eyes and ears on so they expected shots. The bullet did land in the berm. It did scare the guy standing next to me as well as myself but it went in a safe direction. What makes the discharge negligent is obviously that I didn't intend the round to be fired. I'm still not sure what happened, but the most likely answer is operator error. I think I've developed a habit of keeping my trigger depressed to the rear after shots and consciously waiting to release the trigger to control the reset. Obviously that caused some issues here. I share this not because I'm proud of it (it's pretty embarrassing) but because it emphasizes an important safety issue. I thought I had been ingraining in myself to never have a finger on the trigger unless I was ready to shoot, but hadn't stopped to think that the middle of a string of fire and stopping for even a second would be the case where I wasn't ready to shoot. Had I not been following other safety rules ( being aware of my backstop, keeping the firearm pointed in a safe direction) the situation could have been much worse than an increased heart rate and some embarrassment after the fact.
I don't know if that's true, but I had one today. Not in the way I thought that they happen, but in a strange situation. All safety rules were followed (except a key one I'll point out later) and the round went downrange safely into the berm.
I went to the range with some friends today and we all brought guns for the others to try out. One of the guys I was shooting with had a Rock Island 1911 with Pachmayr grips and an aftermarket compensator on the barrel. I was shooting that and something was feeling strange about it. It had had a couple failures to extract and miscellaneous misfeeds (he said it had had some spring work done) and the trigger itself was weird. He described it as very light, but rather than light, it felt very short - very little travel, but gritty. Didn't like it much. It felt like it broke later than it should and required an odd amount of effort.
In the middle of one magazine, I hit a point where it felt like the trigger should be breaking and it wasn't despite putting more pressure on the trigger. I broke my firing stance slightly and turned the gun sideways to look at the ejection port and see if the previous round had jammed or if the gun had not returned fully to battery. I'd turned the gun fully to the side and looked at it for only about a second when it fired.
I was in the middle of a string of fire and everybody had eyes and ears on so they expected shots. The bullet did land in the berm. It did scare the guy standing next to me as well as myself but it went in a safe direction. What makes the discharge negligent is obviously that I didn't intend the round to be fired. I'm still not sure what happened, but the most likely answer is operator error. I think I've developed a habit of keeping my trigger depressed to the rear after shots and consciously waiting to release the trigger to control the reset. Obviously that caused some issues here. I share this not because I'm proud of it (it's pretty embarrassing) but because it emphasizes an important safety issue. I thought I had been ingraining in myself to never have a finger on the trigger unless I was ready to shoot, but hadn't stopped to think that the middle of a string of fire and stopping for even a second would be the case where I wasn't ready to shoot. Had I not been following other safety rules ( being aware of my backstop, keeping the firearm pointed in a safe direction) the situation could have been much worse than an increased heart rate and some embarrassment after the fact.