S&W MP 9mm, firing out of battery??? A 22 yo just shot himself.

Status
Not open for further replies.
H

Horsesense

Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2003
Messages
565
S&W MP 9mm, firing out of battery... A 22 yo just shot himself.


A local boy just shot himself in the thigh last night. The story goes that a live round would not extract and that he had pulled the slide back and the next thing he knew he was shot.

The MP belonged to one of his friends and his friend took it apart and put it back together and couldn't make the first round eject, so he brought it to his buddy to look at.

The police investigated and kept the empty casing, which leads me to believe that maybe it did fire out of battery, the kid has a burn on his left hand from blow back.

What do you think? Could a S&W MP fire out of battery under any circumstances, including firing pin being installed wrong?
 
I just tried this with an empty casing and I could not get the gun to fire when out of battery. Any more than about 1-2mm or rearward movement is enough to keep the trigger from engaging.

Now anything is possible but if the gun was undamaged I am not sure how it could happen.
 
Could have been a hang fire.

Could have been an accidental discharge.

Could have been a negligent discharge.

The only thing that's a fact right now is that we don't have enough information about the incident to draw a conclusion.
 
I try not to point guns at myself, especially if I'm having a problem with a live round in the chamber.

Rules #2, #3, broken with the usual results.

Also,

A 22 yo just shot himself.


A local boy just shot himself in the thigh last night.
Click to expand...

A local man made a series of mistakes and paid for it.
 
What do you think? Could a S&W MP fire out of battery under any circumstances, including firing pin being installed wrong?
Click to expand...

Doubt it, but this story is a good reason why you should not point a loaded gun at yourself.

This isn't really a reason to start trying to blame the gun.

Glad he's not dead, could have ended much worse.

As for the cops keeping the casing, that's not likely because they suspect the gun, that's pretty standard stuff until they verify that no crime was committed.

And powder burns from having your hand over the ejection port is also not really indicative of out of battery firing.

No this was a bad mistake plain and simple.
 
Well and that's assuming that what the 22yo said actually happened. But I agree with psyopspec - not enough info, and the little we do have could have been fabricated to cover up something more stupid than negligently handling a loaded firearm.
 
Agreed with everyone above. Hope this idiot doesn't think he has a paycheck coming to him.

DO NOT POINT YOUR GUN AT ANYBODY OR ANYTHING YOU DO NOT PLAN TO DESTROY

JOe
 
Given that it was disassembled/reassembled and then malfunctioned, I'd suspect that the gun was in a questionable state...or not cleaned properly. It's quite possible something wasn't put back together right, something was missing or not cleaned right, who knows.

Glad the guy will be okay. Don't point a weapon at anything you don't intend to destroy...so very true and so very important to follow.

When I had a live round stuck in the chamber of one of my pistols, I didn't bring it to a buddy to look at. I took it to a gunsmith with a lot of experience, put it in the indoor range lane pointing down range, and told him the situation. He went and got the round out for me.

I was very nervous from the moment I put the gun in the case until the gunsmith got it out. I kept thinking that the thing would go off in my trunk driving there or something :p

I've been considering picking up one of these:
http://www.safedirection.com/ballisticcontainment/academypad.html

Anyone have any experience with them? Hopefully not (in a bad way), but they seem like a great idea...the one time you need it, the $165 would be soooooo worth it.
 
I've heard or read some people say it is bad to unload a chamber by covering the ejection port with your hand to catch the ejecting round because of the possibility of the primer striking something and setting it off when you rack the slide back. I haven't entirely bought into that, as I still do it that way, but I do try to be gentle.

Maybe it could have been a slam fire if the firing pin was stuck and the slide was released or slipped out of his hand on a loaded chamber.
 
Booger hook on the bang switch is what caused this, out of battery or not.
Click to expand...
+1

Just another Smock, Glock ND because the guy pulled the trigger while wrestling with the slide while it was pointed at his leg.

A S&W M&P, just like a Glock, cannot fire out of battery because the trigger linkage isn't hooked up to fully cock the striker until it is in battery.

rc
 
Last edited:
It was mentioned the police kept the empty casing. Did they not keep the gun itself for examination by an expert? Seems odd if they didn't.
The truth may never be known except by the two young men themselves, all kinds of stories get cooked up to cover up something stupid.
 
During the attempted ejection of a live round, if the operator puts his hand over the ejection port, he can cause the round to not eject and perhaps be propelled back as the slide moves rearword and cause the primer to hit the ejector, causing the round to go off. Usually this results in a bad case separation as the round is no longer surrounded by the chamber.

I don't know if this is what happened, but it is possible based on the facts stated above. Poor adherance to the safety rules is still the prime problem.
 
Sounds like a ND to me.

I'm not buying that it had anything to do with a malfunction with the gun.

Why was the barrel of the gun pointed towards his thigh anyway! The gun should have been pointing in a safe direction, I think this young man needs to catch up on the rules of basic firearm safety.:rolleyes:
 
Let me tell you what happens when a pistol of that design fires out of battery.

The magazine is destroyed.
The receiver walls are bulged, bent, or broken.
The sear bar is bent and ruined.
The slide is blown off the receiver (Glock and S&W polymer)
The slide is bent outward and the extractor may be blown out.

If those things didn't happen, the gun did not fire out of battery. It may have fired accidentally in some way, but a good bet is that it fired because someone pulled the trigger. "Out of battery" is a catch phrase often used by people who are looking for an excuse for their own stupidity.

Jim
 
Yep, it sounded fishy to me. He was very lucky, no major damage, he was patched up and sent home. Exit wound about the size of a quarter. Stupid is supposed to hurt....
 
I've heard of Glocks being able to fire when out of battery (www.thegunzone.com) and I believe the HK USP will do so as well. I've never heard of the S&W MP being able to do so. I have a Springfield XDM and the instructions specifically say that if slide does not go into battery the shooter is not to smack it foward (as you would on a M1911 style gun). this leads me to believe the XDM may fire out of battery as well.
 
I found out today that the gun came apart when it went off. It's still in peaces and in a zip lock bag.
 
Sounds like many rules were broken by the gun handler. If he had a live round stuck in the chamber in some sort of malfunction, why did he point the gun at his leg?

The story goes that a live round would not extract and that he had pulled the slide back and the next thing he knew he was shot.
Click to expand...

How could it have fired when the slide was "pulled back"? Also, why is he pointing the gun at himself while clearing the chamber? Sounds like he learned gun safety the hard way... I'm glad he did not kill himself or hurt someone else.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

A
  • Locked
S&W MP .40 Problem
Replies
3
Views
501
kd7nqb
K
N
  • Locked
FTE Problems w/ S&W MP-40
Replies
6
Views
630
nwilliams
nwilliams
S
  • Locked
My Glock drops the striker out of battery.
Replies
2
Views
344
HammerBite
H
T
  • Locked
S&W M&P not returning to battery, cycles sluggishly
Replies
17
Views
2K
the naked prophet
T
Z
  • Locked
Desert Eagle Problems
Replies
7
Views
1K
Hawk
H
Back
Top