Flukey gun related injuries

De-sliming the cosmoline off a Makarov pistol magazine, and catching the spring right in my eye. Does that count? Hurt like hell.

M16 buffer on the cheek bone. Was putting it back in the stock when I had an urge to sneeze. It was under tension when it happened and slipped from my thumb.
@Riomouse911 , looks like you might have to Margaritaville it a couple of days with flip flops...just don't step on any pop tops.

Dropped a ruger 10/22 loaded mag, round went off bullet stuck in my leg.

I got a peep sight to the forehead one time, I was 5-6 and the butt slipped off my shoulder. I have to ask dad what rifle it was again, it's like my mind keeps forgetting it for a reason lol.

I own a Mosin Nagant. Every range trip results in bruising.

Actual injuries, though? Had a Korean AK mag that sliced my thumb pretty good clearing a round that jammed in the feed lips. The only malfunction I ever had with my Saiga. Thirty seconds with a file and it never cut me or jammed again.

Converting that same Saiga involved grinding and then filing out a rivet. Which shook open the vice it was in. Caught the corner of the stock right in my right big toe. Cracked both that little bone and my toenail, the latter right in half. The break hurt like nothing else for a week. The toenail hurt for a couple days, stopped hurting, then picked up again when it abandoned the front of the nailbed. Grew all sorts of weird for six months or so.

M1 thumb while dickering about with an M1 at a gun store when I was young.

Pain and embarrassment is a strong teacher.

I once had the recoil spring plug on my tokarev take flight at mach 3 and hit me in the eye.

Another time, I was loading my SKS (before I had stripper clips) and game myself the Soviet equivalent of garand thumb.

I'm sure if I were to stop and think a bit I could come up with a long list!

Spings to the eye: check. Twice as I recall. I dislike taking springs out of magazines.

Somehow closing the cylinder of a revolver on my right index finger: check. Had to wrap a piece of paper towel and and adhesive label around it because it was my trigger finger and would not stop bleeding. Naturally this messed up my trigger feel so shooting was crap the rest of the day.

Slide bite. I have extra large hands. I have to consciously make sure I'm not going to get bit when I shoot something new to me or one that I seldom fire.

Dropped rifle on my left foot. Didn't want it to slam into the floor so I unthinkingly slid my foot over. Landed right on the arch. Naturally it had a steel butt plate. Did I mention I was barefoot?

Same thing with another rifle, but this one was muzzle down. I was wearing boots fortunately, but a rifle muzzle is a wonderful force concentrator. Of course it hit smack over the nail of my left big toe.

Hot brass: Once had a piece of .45 brass bang off the firing lane stall divider and wedge itself between my eyebrow and frame of my shooting glasses. Lot of heat in a piece of .45 brass...

If you're going to shoot then sooner or later you're going to have (hopefully all minor!) injuries.

Worst one I saw- training colombian soldiers in fast roping- it is important when you hit the ground to get away from the rope, and don't look up- because everyone else is coming down that rope right behind you. This low performing soldado both failed to get away AND looked up. He ended up knocked out and with a few busted teeth- from a M60 machinegun barrel from the next guy coming down. But no one else did it again, so gratitude to him for demonstrating the penalty of not following directions.

I know of a guy that was in car wreck on the way to a range. He was the passenger and had the rifle barrel in the floorboard and the stock hit his stomach hard enough during the wreck to bend the barrel, and to kill him.

medics didn’t really notice because the driver was hurt pretty bad, the passenger got out and thought he was ok only to pass out and die from internal bleeding while they tended to the driver.

Riomouse911 said:

We’ve all seen an accidental scope cut on a brow from a big kicking rifle or a slide cut from shooting a semi auto with the thumb in the way, but has anyone seen or had any completely flukey gun related injuries that are out of the norm?

Tonight I was putting away the 10” barrel assembly from my Ruger Mark IV. It was up on a high shelf and as I turned I wasn’t paying attention to the orientation of the assembly. It ended up pointing muzzle-skyward and the bolt fell out and clobbered me wings-down right on the bony top of my bare left foot. Naturally it hit both a nerve and opened a small vein, so the dang thing is throbbing and is already turning purple all over. I am sure it’s gonna feel great tomorrow!

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Stay safe.

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Did a similar thing. My SKS sling caught my shirt and fell sight first on my big toe nail.
It was just about healed from being stomped on by a horse I was shoeing.

Not me but a friend. I wrote about this year's ago but the search feature isn't working so I can't copy & paste.

Shorter version.
Me, brother and friend went shooting in the desert.

Friend decided to roller skate afterwards.

Friend fell on his butt. The 22lr in his back pocket went off leaving a hole in the exterior part of the pocket and a RED welt on his right butt check about 2" in diameter.

The bullet lodged just a little below flush in a ply wood wall probably around 10' maybe 20ft away. He was skating at a public park next door to the town houses I was living at and the basket ball courts that was converted to a roller hockey rink occasionally.

This shows the importance of having a backstop.... and a few other important things too.

I'll never forget him pulling his pants down and asking me to 'check his @ss out'.

FL-NC said:

Worst one I saw- training colombian soldiers in fast roping- it is important when you hit the ground to get away from the rope, and don't look up- because everyone else is coming down that rope right behind you. This low performing soldado both failed to get away AND looked up. He ended up knocked out and with a few busted teeth- from a M60 machinegun barrel from the next guy coming down. But no one else did it again, so gratitude to him for demonstrating the penalty of not following directions.

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Similar to this. My last day in uniform was teaching fast roping out of a Blackhawk at night. In addition to getting away from the rope and not looking up, doing at night adds to flip up your night vision away from your face. Well an NCO that out ranked me didn't want to listen to a junior soldier's advice and jumped with his night vision in front of his eye "so he could see the ground coming." He ended up with a broken frontal bone right above his eye on the landing zone.

As far as I remember, the worst injury I have gotten from a firearm was a black eye from putting my eye too close to the scope of my first hunting rifle.

Twin blood lines on the web of my hand from a PPK/S slide, a few times.

Bullets bouncing off a backstop and hitting me in the legs, but no damage.

"Dumb" can take repetition to practice out.
Like "It's too hot to put a shooting jacket on"--so guess what your elbow looks like after going prone a few dozen times. Sigh.
Launched springs; launched slides; discovering those die-cut flat springs have sharp edges--the works.
Had an Italian SAA clone, went to work the plunger to eject empties and caught the edge just right and sliced my thumb a good one. Sigh.
Live and learn.

Cut my finger monkeying around with a Mini-14 trigger group. Should have been wearing gloves, but I wasn't.

Had a feed problem with a tube feed bolt action .22. The cartriges would jump the stop and feed back into the action when the bolt was opened. I was looking at it on the shooting bench. My safety glasses kept sliding down my nose so I removed them. I was the only one there so there was no shooting going on. The cartridges jumped and got pushed back from spring pressure and one detonated when hit the fixed ejector. I got gas and burning powder in my eyes. Luckily no pieces of the case. Got checked out and no damage. Just some discomfort for a couple days and eye drops. I,ve never seen that before. There was enough pressure to jump the bullet into the chamber. Very flukey. I was lucky.

I was taking the slide off my Makarov to clean it. Clear the gun, pull the trigger guard down and pull the slide back, lifting the slide off its rails and let it come forward to complete disassembly. Only I lost my grip on the slide and it shot forward off the gun but the blocky rear sight caught my hand just right and ripped a small chunk of meat out. Hurt like hell and there was nothing that could really be done. Just had to wait for it to heal.

My worst was the time when shooting at a block of recycled plastic "timber" the range was using after they shot all the bowling pins to toothpicks. Weighted down by imbedded bullets but still resilient, it bounced one back at me, HARD.

Scene: Shoot an IDPAish stage in low light, illuminating targets with weapon mounted light, in weak hand only.
A bullet bounced STRAIGHT back off that "timber" and hit me in the left middle finger right under the trigger guard.
An inch up and it would have hit the light or gun barrel, an inch right and it would have hit me in the face.
Immediate action: Shift gun to other hand, complete course of fire while dripping blood on the range floor.
It took a few minutes to round up a bandage, I don't think anybody else realized how hard it had hit me.
I headed home wondering if I could just tape it up in the bathroom and let it heal by "first intent." But I decided it needed more help and went to the ER, where they glued the peeled up skin back down and gave me an antibiotic.
It was two or three weeks before it healed up enough to shoot with again. It still shows the damage, with a scar at the edge of the flap of skin and a bit of a bump on the side of the first knuckle. Not quite the same touch sensation, either.

My fluke accident happened while sitting at the reloading bench. I was putting my safety glasses on when the surgical glove got caught in the hinge of the glasses and when I pulled hand away the glasses came half off before the glove let go. I tried to catch the glasses before they fell off and jammed the ear piece of the glasses into the tender skin under my right eye slicing it open about an inch. Kept this to myself until now.

JCooperfan1911 said:

M1 thumb while dickering about with an M1 at a gun store when I was young.

Pain and embarrassment is a strong teacher.

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Got mine early in my "teens" while looking over my dad's rifle.

Hakim thumb is worse than m-1 thumb (this from experience)

Remington 1100 Trap trigger finger.
If your auto shotgun has a shell catcher to save your hulls and avoid annoying the shooter on the next stand, it might occasionally bounce an empty back into the receiver. If you reach a finger in to snag the case mouth and flip it out, it might bump the action latch and close the bolt. If it does, the extractor will spear your finger and you will not want to pull a trigger for a while until the gouge heals.

Wrecked a street bike with a Beretta in a shoulder holster. The gun broke 3 ribs.

I Also fell on a colt 1911 once fishing. Dinged the gun and pretty sure chipped my hip bone

Both guns were fine btw