A Great Luger Story

Things haven't changed. Stupid is still as stupid does. Not to mention the story thankfully has nothing really to do with Lugers.

Well there you go.

There has been more than one actor who has been killed by a "blank" bullet. Like most high-school students he was an idiot. However, most of us were at that age.

Deleted cuz I dont care about some dude enough to argue with him. Whatever.

Wax bullets were totally a thing back in the day. Here's one (boring, journal) contemporary account from 1961 of them:
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5044&context=jclc

They were used for Force on Force back before we knew of safety. Because, unlike Sims or UTM, no way to guarantee you aren't loading live rounds. Worked well because it was a revolver era, so the low power they cycled at didn't matter.

Yes, they hurt. No, I haven't been shot with one, but many stories of injuries. including small bones broken. It was a terrible idea, especially in an era of poor PPE, but it led to the safe systems we have now.


Related-ish safety story, 1970s police training at their academy training center, all using blanks (no projectiles). Designated bad guy knows a cop is on the other side of a door, fires to indicate a shot through the wall, but the blanks are powerful, no BFAs, so he turns the gun sideways, so the muzzle blast doesn't go at anyone. Cylinder gap gas is still enough it — through the dryall — blows out the cop's eardrum. Evacuated on a stretcher. Did I mention it wasn't a safe time to train?

NIGHTLORD40K said:

Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son, was killed by a wad from a theatrical blank.

I was the prop master for my senior year high school play about the Revolutionary War and had to aquire and prep 20 "flintlock" cap rifles and pistols, along with associated swords. The guns used the little flat red packets of gunpowder ripped off of a cap roll. I would tape down three packets over each other to the "pan" for a nice little bang and some smoke.

Im sure they would rewrite that play today to eliminate the battle scenes all together. I can only imagine the horrified leftist Millenials realizing that this country had to be fought for at some point, and not just handed to them.

Click to expand...

Actually...the Brandon Lee shooting went a little deeper: There had been a scene previously where there needed to be projectiles visible in the cylinder, so they had some dummy rounds loaded up sans powder but for some incredibly stupid reason had left live primers in them. Somewhere along the way the gun was triggered and the bullet driven into the forcing cone just far enough to let the cylinder spin and then, incredibly, when unloaded and reloaded with the blanks for the next firing scene it wasn't noticed that one of the 'dummy' rounds had lost its' projectile. Blank then fired the real bullet and the rest is sad history.

There was a fellow named Jon-Erik Hexum who was joking around and put a blank loaded pistol to his head and killed himself with it. Some stage blanks are no joke at all....plenty powerful enough to be dangerous up close....which is why many productions these days use CGI to add muzzle flash to an otherwise inoperable pistol when they can for safety sake.

NIGHTLORD40K said:

Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son, was killed by a wad from a theatrical blank.

I was the prop master for my senior year high school play about the Revolutionary War and had to aquire and prep 20 "flintlock" cap rifles and pistols, along with associated swords. The guns used the little flat red packets of gunpowder ripped off of a cap roll. I would tape down three packets over each other to the "pan" for a nice little bang and some smoke.

Im sure they would rewrite that play today to eliminate the battle scenes all together. I can only imagine the horrified leftist Millenials realizing that this country had to be fought for at some point, and not just handed to them.

Click to expand...

Why does every topic here have to devolve to this? Have there not been people of all political philosphies who have fought for America throughout its history? Your comments are demeaning, foolish and offensive. Your stereotyping is not only uncalled for, it is just plain ludicrous and wrong. Have you no sense of the vast majority of American soldiers who have returned from our wars and refused to ever touch a firearm again? And no, I don't think you are joking.

Its a shame you can't share a simple story, where lessons were learned and no one was harmed, without safety nanny's getting triggered.

Waveski,

For what it is worth, I took your story for how it was intended and appreciate your sharing. And despite some of the feedback you received, I doubt I am alone in that regard.

BOARHUNTER

Seemed a perfectly valid story, even if we say (or as I did: share more tales akin to it) how dumb and dangerous it was.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" or something.

I am safety conscious enough occasionally people tell me to shut up, but still think it's okay to share tales of dumb stuff in the past. To learn.

I think most of us can think of dumb and stupid stuff we did in the past. I know I can... couple times in fact!!!

The youthful incidents are amusing yet mindful reminders how we learn. Sometimes we can look back and be thankful-lucky and laugh. Other times...not so good.

I was about 10'ish and one of my friends was learning to shoot from his pop. One of the rounds from the 20 ga. didn't go so his dad brought it back and disassembled the shell for reuse of the shot. One of the primers from his reload station was left out so he took it and wondered "what happens if you hit it from the top with a hammer?" Yup...it went off. He went running around because the ignition was pretty loud being 2-3 feet away and left him temporarily deafened. "I can't hear!!" About 5 minutes later we were all laughing having learned a valuable lesson about hitting things from the ignition side of ammunition.

Anyone remember the Outdoor Life This happened to me column? I loved reading those stories.

I'll just file your story under this happened to me.

This actually happened to me. When I was in the Navy we used to play jokes on each other to break up the monotony. We did some seriously stupid stuff.

I had a working knowledge of signal flares, shot hundreds of those working with landing safety officers, and took a few apart to see how they worked. I would say they were around 4 gauge metal cases with a metal cap. The cap was wafer thin and pretty light. In the case was a felt wad on top of two magnesium disks with fuses on top of a powder charge. When fired the fuses (very fast burning) would be ignited by the powder and the disks turned into balls of fire.

I had a guy in my duty section that was a big dude. He was always putting people in head locks and generally making a nuisance of himself and showing off. He got me in head lock one day and I told him if he ever did that again I was going to shoot his sorry but with a flare pistol. He took that as a challenge and did it again. So I shot him.

I took a flare pistol cartridge apart, removed the magnesium disks, put the felt wad against the powder and put the cap back on it. I calmly walked up to him a few days later with a flare pistol in my hand and loaded it in front of him with the dummy cartridge. I told him his life was over. Then I shot him from about 15'. A 2' flame came out of that pistol and scared the carp out of both of us. He never got hit with anything, flame or cap (too far away) but you should have seen his face when that thing went off. I'm pretty sure he thought I was a little crazy after that but the head locks went away.

True story.

I might add that a flare pistol cartridge is believed to have started the fire on the USS Forestall.

Forrestal and Enterprise fires were flight deck things from Zuni rocket issues. The Oriskany fire was from a flare. Accidentally lit (some reports have the sailors effing around with it, causing the thing to go off) then tossed in a locker to avoid burning the deck, but the locker was full of many more flares so... not a good idea.

I enjoyed the story.