Still shaking...

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In my case it was an Iver Johnson TP-22. Yeah, I know, but I was much younger and broker in those days. I worked in a bad part of town and kept it in my pocket. Anyway, I was getting ready for work, put in the mag and racked the slide. BANG! SLAMFIRE! Luckily for me the house's brick chimney was on the other side of that wall.

Experience is a wonderful teacher, but damn! Ain't the lessons hard?
 
I allways point all autos straight down if
they go boom they just hit dirt, had a Cobray
M-11 semi go full auto once , fired 7 shots before the firing pin retainer pin fell out,
the hammer broke where it catches sear, Cobray said it was a bad batch of hammers and replaced it free, plus 3 circle clips
that hold the hammer pin in, REAL PIECE OF
S$%T gun! yeah stuff happens, I just put a few holes in floor and wall, spouse was the main trouble tho! :}
 
I had a US ARMY 1911 do that to me - with a little extra. Not only did that .45 slam fire... But went full auto! All 7 rounds in about 1 second.
Thank heavans this was at a range and not in the field.

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"There is no limit to stupidity. Space itself is said to be bounded by its own curvature, but stupidity continues beyond infinity."
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
The Critic formerly known as Kodiac
 
Mine was after I installed a Commander Hammer on a stock 1911A1. Worked the slide about 100 times and the hammer stayed back every time. That was from slide lockback and hitting the slide stop to slide forward and pulling the slide back and letting it fly home. Hammer stayed cocked.

Insert magazine with one round, work slide to chamer the round - - - kaboom, hole in basement partition and chip out of cement block wall.

Commander hammer back off the pistol and the original hammer back in place. mache schnell

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
The scary part is that I am still waiting for something serious. All of my handguns are assumed to be ready to go. Same for the rifles, only w/o one in the chamber. Hate unloaded firearms. Of course, that also means high alert whenever I handle one.
 
I haven't had an ND yet, but I have scared myself several times. I have a nasty habit of cycling the cylinder on my 629 in the middle of shooting, either by cocking it and then lowering the hammer to fire double action, or by pulling most of the way through DA and then stopping to reposition my grip. It is ALWAYS pointed down range when I do this! Once, I fired the last round, then click on a spent round, then (after relaxing my grip), BOOM! This one made it most of the way to my forhead. Can't tell you how many times I have unloaded the cylinder to find a live round. I'm glad I ALWAYS empty the cylinder IMMEDIATELY after firing.

My brother came over the other day and saw my new P229 in .357 SIG sitting next to me. I had been admiring it, so it was not in the fanny pack. He proceeds to pick it up and pull the trigger! A quick "Hey man, be careful!" stopped a near ND. I don't know what he was thinking ( I think he's used to a safety???), but my awareness level will be way up around him now! CJ
 
I'll confess, but I'll not adding to the offering plate. ;)

This past January 28th, I was in the living room of my home. Mom had just purchased a *flinch* Jennings .380. I should have known better.

I took the magazine out, and was looking the gun over. I finished, put the slide back in, and went to put it back in it's box. In doing so, I glimpsed the instructions on "caring for your new gun". I took them out and began to read the dis-assembly instructions. I thought to myself, "it wouldn't be hard at all". I took the gun from the box, pulled the slide back, pushed the sear in, and pushed the slide back foward. Nothing happened, it didn't come off like it should had. I again, pushed the slide back, pushed the sear, and BAMM!

One .380 round entered my right hand between the index finger and middle finger on the palm side. It exited on the right side of the back of my hand, just above the wrist.

On it's path through my hand, the bullet shattered the meta-carpals of my middle finger. Thank God it was a FMJ and not a HP! Anyway, mother jumped, and I walked to the sink cussing myself for being so stupid and realizing that I'd never live it down. Which I haven't--I'm teased every day about it. "Hey trigger"..."tell me, just how DO you clean again?", etc... I laughed at myself then, I do now. After preaching and preaching about gun safety, I had just had my first AD and stood staring at a limp and broken hand.

To fix the shattered bones in my hand, they had to take some bone from my elbow. The surgery took place 1 week after the incident and went as planned. 3.5 hours later, my hand was reconstructed, and I now have a 3" scar on the back of my hand (17 stitches), an entrance/exit wound scar (11 combined), and about a 2" scar on the palm of my hand (15 stitches).

I also have a nice little metal plate, 5 tiny screws, and 2 twistie ties, holding it all together for 18 months. After that, it'll be up to me to get the metal removed. It'll stay unless the cold weather this year proves to be a nuisance. I'm anxious to see how big of a role that will play.

My hand is completely healed now and I have full range of movement with it again. I've gained a new respect for guns. I just grew too complacent I guess, and it took a wake up call for me to realize, once again, just who holds the cards in this life.

I was extremely lucky and fortunate. My mother was so close--had the bullet hit her, the pain I felt that day would be minute to knowing I'd shot my mother--accident or not.

A buddy once told me, "brother, until you've had an AD, you'll never know what it's like"... That was the truth.

I could try to explain the feelings I had that day, the feelings I have today and so forth, but until you've had an AD, no words can describe what it's like.

Anyway, I've taken enough time to describe this, I'll go back to my pew now. :o)

As for did it hurt? Not as bad as I thought it would. But if I could describe it, the best I could say is: It's like a firecracker going off in your hand, or like a car door being slammed on it. Just a constant, numbing, burn...
 
An RKI I mentioned this to said that the AD was likely caused by somebody trying to do a trigger job on that Tokarev. With no half-cock position, broken pr damaged sear allowed the hammer to fall all the way.
 
For a good ND story, read the October SOF "I Was There" article on page 20.

OK, now I'll officially step forward with an admission of having had "one" ND - Keep in mind I was 13 at the time. I'm now 41. My ex-Marine, gunshop owning step-father took his two boys plus my brother and I deer hunting one early winter day. He fitted me with a well used (I'm using that factor partly as an excuse) vintage .30 rifle, the make of which I don't recall. We're out there in the middle of nowhere and he sets me up looking over a partly snow covered (another excuse factor)hillside. An hour or two pass by and I see or hear nothing. Deciding to move around the hill for a better view (so what if it encroached on the view of my brother), I suddenly slipped on the snow and fell on my rear... bang!...sharp echos over the land... I sat there looking at the rifle trying to figure out how that happened. My stepfather eventually shows up and asks what happened. I think my reply was, "I thought I saw something." I know I didn't own up to it going off by mistake. I am now.

My shooting gun of choice is the 9mm Taurus PT 92 (Beretta P92, M9). Upon my first range visit with it, I decided to test it's ND factor. I put it through some close-to-real-world testing such as aggressive chambering and ejecting a fully loaded magazine. Then with the chamber loaded and trigger cocked: inserting a loaded magazine at various intensities, plus "bopping" it down, upside and against the shooting table and wall. Not one ND. Even with all that assurance, I still pause and consciously aim it downrange whenever I chamber a new magazine. (If you've ever experienced a D.I. standing over and screaming at you to mind your weapon safety proceedures, you'll pause too.) And I take an even longer pause when I chamber a round in my house. I still don't like that feeling.

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One word: Vigilant
 
Since the subject of AD/ND and missiles was brought up. During the Gulf War I was visiting another HAWK Missile Battery to get some replacement parts for one of our RADARs.

I was talking to one of the other Techs while I waited for them to finish ISCs ( Integrated System Checks ). Over the headset I could hear the endless drone of commands to push buttons, flip switches, and report results. The final stage of the test includes sending the firing sequence a missile simulator which is mounted on the launcher. I heard the familar "3...2...1...Bird Away!", then to my suprise, this was followed by the sound of a 17 foot 1400 pound missile leaving its launcher.

Apperantly, someone had forgotten to throw the switch on the launcher junction box to route the signals to the launcher that held the test modules. I've never seen officers move so fast in my life. The self destruct signal was sent to the missile which harmlessly exploded over the gulf.

I never did get those parts that day :)

Chuck

[This message has been edited by chucko (edited September 26, 1999).]
 
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