Do you make dangerous mistakes when shooting or handling you pistols?

I am still upset at myself for not correcting a guy maybe 30 years my age at the range last week. He mussle swept me for several seconds for what it seemed to be a brand spanking new hi-point 9mm rifle. I held my breath because of his age and the apparent new rifle with the stickers intact. No excuse, I wish I politely mentioned the 4 rules. He probally would have understood. Don't make my mistake.

Anyone who is around guns for any length of time makes a mistake from time to time with improper muzzle control or unintentional discharges. If they say they don't they are either lying or blissfully ignorant of their mistakes. That is why there are several layers of protection. Guns are only loaded at the appropriate time, they are in good working condition, if there is a safety it should be engaged until ready to fire, the muzzle is pointed in as safe a direction as possible, and the finger is off the trigger until you're ready to shoot.

It is only when multiple errors are made that you get a serious incident.

I have done dumb things like dropping the hammer on a pistol when I ASSUMED the gun was empty. By the grace of god, I have never had an accidental discharge that way. I have had a couple of AD's at the range (one with a Chinese copy of a Margolin 22 with a wonky safety catch, and one with a Romanian PPK copy whose safety turns out to fire the gun if you apply it while holding the gun sideways, "gangsta" style) but both times I had the guns pointed downrange. I consider myself lucky, not smart, and I keep reminding myself to be more careful.

rpenmanparker said:

I’ll accept a few rules to get the automatic target trollies, air conditioning, lack of sun and wind and so on.

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While I’m sure all that leads to a more pleasant experience where do you think you’ll need your gun, indoors or out?

When I was a kid I really learned the manual of arms for my shotgun in the pitch black of pre- dawn standing in freezing water with cold hands, no light and you drop a shell into the swamp that’s one less duck you can shoot.

We were shooting my dad's Luger that he had recently purchased. After placing it on safe, I pulled the trigger without taking it off safe. Which did nothing. Then I turned off the safety and it went bang without my finger even being near the trigger. Since all other safety rules were in effect, no harm.

I purchased a new Savage 112FP and while shooting, I cycled the action, on the down stroke of the bolt, a round went off. Golly gee. Again since all other rules were being followed no harm. Someone here helped me fix the rifle of its incorrect trigger adjustment.

I have the slightest twitch. I think it's a caffeine thing. So I've had a time where I twitched the trigger while on target but not aimed and another time I pulled the trigger intentionally once and inadvertently double tapped. Because of that I never put my finger in the trigger guard unless I am down range. Because if I do, I know the firearm is going off.

Also, when handling my weapon I clear it several times by racking the slide if it's an auto and always check for daylight. Revolvers and rifles I always break the action open and check for daylight and check for brass.

With all of that I have never had an ND (other than the before mentioned times that I was on target.)

A few years ago I saw a buxom young woman get hot brass down the front of her shirt. I was very afraid for a moment, but she set her handgun down before she started shaking it out.

My shooting buddy got one stuck in his glasses once, but luckily it wasn't touching his face.

Personally, I wear loose shirts, but my pain tolerance is unusually high, so hot brass doesn't bother me much.

Not after my first AD!

That is why we have more than one rule of gun safety. So even if you sweep someone with a loaded gun, your finger should be off the trigger. This is why if we miss our target, we know there is nuttin' at risk behind it. This is why we treat every gun as loaded , even tho we know it's not.

Easy for folks to come on a gun forum and claim they never made a mistake in safe gun handling. Go to a hunting forum and you will see folks claiming to have hunted for decades, and never missed or wounded an animal, while taking hundreds with clean one shot kills.

I made my share of mistakes of both over the years and I too am not proud of them. But I hope I always walk away with a lesson learned.

As stated above, safety practices should have redundancy built in. For example, a ND should not cause a disaster if you keep the gun pointed downrange.

I know this is a handgun thread, but I used to be pretty bad with my shotguns. When out hunting I'd put the safety on and lean them up against a tree or cornstalk to take a leak, and it seems about every time they'd fall over and sweep me or someone I was out with. It took longer than it should have for me to start opening the chamber when I leaned my shotgun against something.

Good job on manning up, admitting you made a mistake and thinking about it to learn from it. Ingrain this into your thinking now. We've all been there, mine was a wasp that flew up the back of my shirt and stung me. I kept the rifle downrange, but also had the advantage of having it beat into my head in the military.

You had a situation and made mistakes. Nobody got hurt. You realize what happened. All good. The idiots among us would shrug it off. You're not an idiot and aren't shrugging it off. Let that continue in your thinking.

Great post, in the summer months the yellow jackets can be very distracting where I live, I've seen some scary reactions caused by these pests at local shooting ranges.

Was at a local indoor range. (Where you put your life in danger each time you go). Two young couples were shooting. I guess the bowling alley was closed. They treated they shooting session like some kind of joke. One woman had a low cut blouse. A hot shell casing went down it, and she jumped back weaving the gun and laughing hysterically. What made matters worse was the fact that so did her friends. Just a big joke. Never once did one of them try and get her pointed down range. Never once did one of them stop to think about killing someone totally innocent. I would bet they then went out and were text messaging while driving around town as if that is a joke as well.

I'v been usig handguns since I was 8 (I'm 45), been an Armed professional (on and off) as far back as 1996. Very safe with firearms because I've lost people very close to me from gun "mistakes". I'v never had an ND. Yet, last week I had to clean two pistols. Both were on the coffee table, neither had mags in 'em. Picked up MINE (not the wife's), go to field strip it, uh..... there's a live round in the chamber. It happens.

I think by "overlap" y'al are referring to the redundancy of safety rules, right? How one safety rules is kind of a fail safe in case you break another? One of my trainers said - if you could be 100% certain you would never break rule #3, you could disregard rules 1&2 and still never have an tragic accident. It made sense but who's 100%? So, like the overlap

Good judgment comes from experience.

Experience comes from bad judgement.

We've all made mistakes at some point in our lives. Those of us that learned from them are still around, mostly.

doubleh said:

I'm sure everyone of us have made some boo boos over the years. Te trick is to learn and not repeat them.

I had to grin when I read the OP about the hot case down the collar. Having made my living as a welder for around forty years I'm able to not get too excited about the temperature of a hot case. It's what you get used to I suppose. My wife sticks her hands in hot dishwater that I can't tolerate and calls me a wimp.

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That made me laugh. Had a couple instances I remember about hot brass. One was in an M117 that had an M60 mounted on top. The gunner started firing and showered all of us inside with hot brass

The other was at the range when I had just purchased an HK91. It was a public shooting range with 8 benches. All were taken except for the far left bench. I loaded my magazine and started shooting. Started hearing screaming to my right. Learned at that time the HK91 was almost as dangerous to the far right as it is to the front. That Gun was throwing brass at high velocity 30’ in a high arc to my right pummeling the shooters at the far right bench with hot brass. It was enough to leave bruises and burns

Zendude said:

As stated above, safety practices should have redundancy built in. For example, a ND should not cause a disaster if you keep the gun pointed downrange.

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^^^this^^^

I walked downrange to a firing position of 7 yards and fired what i thought was 10 shots from my .22 pistol. I thought I heard the receiver lock back on what I thought was the last shot and turned and walked back toward my brother-in-law and my best friend. My trigger finger was outside the trigger guard and I just happened to look down and saw that the receiver didn't lock back meaning that there was a live round ready to go off. Needless to say I was really upset about that but it was a great learning experience.

I've had 2 NDs in my life. Both on guns I thought were empty. Luckily, my brain still had the other rules engaged, so it turned out alright.

The one thing that bugs the heck out of me.....
Seeing people drinking beers while they're out shooting.

It's not a huge deal to have a beer or two, I guess. People do it all the time. But for me, no, not any.

I have two that come to mind. I had just put a new grip on my contender pistol and was out on my home range attempting to shoot it. Problem was the hammer hit the grip and would not go back far enough to catch the sear. I fiddled with it a bit and then laid it across my lap and didn't take the round out of the chamber. I pulled the hammer back and let it go and fired a round across the field from my lap. That could have been real bad. A contender has a rebounding hammer that should not allow the hammer to hit the firing pin without the trigger being pulled but I found out at that moment mine was not functional. It took a trip back to T&C and they fixed it. Totally my fault for relying on the safety mechanism and not unloading the gun.

Another time I was shooting my Marlin Guide Gun with some friends outside and after loading up the tube and putting one in the chamber I was lowering the hammer to half cock to give it to someone to shoot and my thumb slipped and I mortor'd a round at about a 45 degree angle. Luckily I had it pointed in a safe direction when doing this. Mine is one of the newer ones with the hammer block safety that everyone hates and says should not be there. Now I use the safety every time I am loading it.

dh1633pm said:

We were shooting my dad's Luger that he had recently purchased. After placing it on safe, I pulled the trigger without taking it off safe. Which did nothing. Then I turned off the safety and it went bang without my finger even being near the trigger. Since all other safety rules were in effect, no harm.

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My colt woodsman would do that when I bought it. Luckily I found that out with the gun pointed down range as it should be. Since fixed.