[45R]

Anyone ever see a slide or bolt take someones thumb off? That chance almost presented itself to me over the weekend watching a new shooter hang on to a Glock 40 pistol. I politely encourged her to use a new hold. After watching her shoot safely I offered my MkII.

She had a blast afterwords.....her boyfriend thanked me also.

[Hot brass]

The first time that I shot a 1911 45 the slide came back and took a couple of chunks of meat and skin from my hand and the trigger pinched me. I swore right then and there that that was it for me and 1911`s. I now have three. All with beaver tails. I absolutely love the 1911.

[jsalcedo]

My First gun was a Ruger MKII.

Before I realized what I was doing I had my thumb resting on the rear of the bolt.

That was a very painful lesson. It is surprising the amount of power a .22 blowback has when its trying to take your thumb off.

[Ukraine Train]

I've never had it happen but my friend got a long cut along the side of his thumb from a Baretta. I made sure to learn from his mistake.;)

[rayra]

Stopped from happening once. Met a coworker at the range, first time shooting with him, he was eager to try his new 1911 (his first semi).
Watched him get set, pistol in strong hand, wraps off-hand ON TOP of strong wrist. Right behind the slide. WHOA!, I SAID WHOA HORSEY!
Would have smashed / tore up his left thumb terribly.

'uh, gee, thanks'.

I think it embarassed or rattled him, first 3 strings were horrible. Settled down after that.


EDIT - never more than a rubbed-raw spot from my own grip-safety tang, and my old man taught me the right way to handle a Garand.

[Pumpkinheaver]

I had a friend that took an inch and a half of meat/skin out of his thumb the first time he shot my Kimber, even with a warning he did this. I also had a girl friend that cut her hand pretty bad on the slide of my glock when she was shooting it.

[Okiecruffler]

But I ended up with sutures after the first range session with my Davis 380 which was also my first auto pistol. Quickest way to learn that lesson. Learned another lesson when I stuck my finger in the breach of my SKS to see what was holding the bolt back. :what:

[cracked butt]

I saw a guy get the infamous M1 thumb at a DCM match. It almost made the 60 year old man cry. His thumb bled on one side, and the other side swelled up real big and got all purple and nasty looking:eek:

[Mike Irwin]

Seen two very ugly things involving probable newbies and guns over the years...

One was a guy was shooting a revolver, and just before he pulled off the shot moved his off hand so that it was cupping the area around the cylinder gap. The high-pressure gas laid his thumb and two fingers open with some very nasty cuts and gas burns.

The other was involved a Steyr AUG. Guy picked it up and pulled it up to his left shoulder and snapped off a shot before anyone could stop him. Unfortunately, it was set up for right-hand ejection. The shell coming out lacerated his cheek and broke several teeth.

[TechBrute]

I've never seen a thumb taken off, but I've seen my share of slide bites. Never on me or anyone that I'm shooting with, but there are a fair share of new shooters out there

[Brian Dale]

"Slide bite" from a Walther PPK once when I was a teenager. First time with an auto, IIRC; grasped it too high.

[foghornl]

Drop by the Rifle forum, and search for "M-1 Thumb".

And I have a scar on my right thumb from where I was cleaning my brother's Remmy 1100 after using it one time. Forgot that the fresh shell from the magazine had to hit an internal "bolt release" to chamber the fresh round. Bolt instead tried to chamber my thumb....

[chevrofreak]

I have a video of me shooting my Glock 17 with my thumb behind the slide.


Video here (http://jet3.hasweb.com/~chevyboy/chevrofreak/videos/misc/firing%20Glock%2017%20with%20thumb%20behind%20slide.wmv)

Not quite what you're talking about though ;)

[ceetee]

I've never been bitten personally, but...

One time a few years back, I was at a local outdoor range whan I saw two grown men and a boy about ten or twelve years old come in. The grownups were gong to share a Marlin lever gun, most likely a .30-30, (I wasn't that close to where they set up). They had brought along a youth model lever gun in .22 for the boy. Both rifles had scopes mounted.

My first thought was, "Hey, now that's cool... they're going to pass on the tradition!"

Watching them set up, though, it became obvious that it was the first time any of them had handled a firearm before, and I hoped the rangemaster (nice guy, ex-marine gunny) was up to the task. He led them through the basics of range safety, showed them how to post their targets, and at the next cease-fire, they set their targets out to 50 yds. I remember hearing them tell the boy something like, "Now we'll shoot first, to show you how to do it right, then you can shoot, okay?"

He was really enthusiastic, really eager to learn from his Dad, and ready to have fun.

I guess nobody had warned them about recoil because with the first shot, Dad got a nice crescent-moon-shaped cut right between his eyes! He went off to the rangemaster for help, and his friend told the boy, "He just wasn't holding it tight enough... watch me!" Bam! One more member of the "Crescent Moon Society."

Dad came back, Band-Aid in place, just as his friend went off, blood streaming down... the poor boy was just standing there with tears coming to the corners of his eyes.

I turned to my own shooting, and on the next cease-fire, I noticed they were gone. I can only imagine what the little guy was thinking...

[Ivanimal]

My Ruger p90 in 45 gave me a nice slide bite....once.:fire:

[Skofnung]

I took a friend out to the range for the first time. He is from the former Soviet Union and had never fired a gun. After doing the saftey thing and shooting a little with a .22 rifle, he decided to shoot my Glock 21 (.45 ACP).

When he picked it up, he put his support thumb over his strong hand. I told him not to do that, as the slide would cause him much pain. He complied and fired around 20 rounds out of the gun, themn moved on to another gun.

A little later, he picked up the G21 again and started shooting. I was watching him as he fired 5 shots, slow fire. On the 6th shot, he crossed his left thumb over again, and before I could say anything, he fired.

Needless to say, it hurt him.

[Ryder]

Had a slide mounted safety on a 380acp stub the end of my thumb once. That woke me up in a hurry! Yeowch!!! Some serious force going on there.

I've taught several non-shooters. Invariably they will attempt a bad hold so I watch them very closely for this the whole time they are shooting. I've so far been able to prevent any emergency situations by yelling STOP.

Some of these people have really bad short term memory! I get a little more "descriptive" of the hazard each time I have to repeat the same thing. Just trying to impress the seriousness of this on them.

I've seen a few people hurt themselves who should have known better but nobody has lost a thumb that I've ever heard.

[Greg L]

I've got a nice little scar on my left thumb courtesy of my P-11 & my stupidity/not paying attention :D .

Learned another lesson when I stuck my finger in the breach of my SKS to see what was holding the bolt back.

Yep, had to learn that one the hard way also :D .

Greg

[Okiecruffler]

May be the hard way, but you learn it quick.:D

[BluesBear]

About 2 years ago I was at our usual outdoor shooting area with my brother and his best friend. Best friend askes if he can shoot my pistols. I said sure any one that you want. He fired a couple of magazines through my COmmander and did fine. I did notice though that he has seen too many cowboy movies as a kid because he'd point the muzzle straight up, bring it down to sight lever and then fire.
He asked to shoot my Contender with the .44 magnum barrel. (you see where this is going don't you?)
I had him dry fire it about a half dozen time so he'd get used to it. Those of you who have fired a Contender know what gret trigger pulls they have.
Well friend loads up and takes his stance. Muzzle up, slowly brings it down...
My guess is that somewhere around 52 degrees above the horizon he decided to position his trigger finger closer to the trigger.







boom :what: ooops








He lays the pistol back on the table and turns around, doesn't say a word.
It only bled for about 4 minutes. After it stopped you could see a perfect imprint of the rear sight where it was connecting his eyebrows.

To this day he has never said a word about it.

[Sheldon]

I think some people forget too quickly when you explain to them that the slide/bolt is actually moving back and forth everytime you pull the trigger, because it happens so fast they cannot see it. My brother had my Ruger MKII 22 pistol chew his hand up pretty good.....ONCE. He remembered just fine after that happened. I've taken newbies to the range and that is one of the things I try to hammer home and watch for. I don't want to scare anybody from getting into this hobby.