Things that make you go 'D'Oh'

My biggest D'OH moment had to be back in the 1970's and grabbing the bag of 6 bird I was going to load up my trusty MEC reloader with and grabbing the wrong end of the bag.

So, for you young'uns out there, in the 70's we shot good old non-magnetic lead shot.
Also, back then shag carpet was a real big thing. You actually would rake it the little threads of shag were so deep.

Never did figure out a way to get 10 Lbs of lead shot out of the dang carpet. Every time I vacuumed the room it picked up a few dozen more bb's. Very noisily, I might add.

Really, they should make those chronos with the "screens" wired up so you can set them up away from the unit!

I bought a .32 ACP Rhinemetalle Dreyse several years ago on a whim. The problem arose when I couldn't figure out how to disassemble it. Since "Real Men" never read instructions, it must have been two or three years later before I bumbled onto a clip on YouTube. Easy. That was probably 20 years ago and it's buried somewhere with other .32s. When I find it again I can only hope that clip is still out there!

All I am saying is your not really a hardcore reloader unless you have bagged at least one crony already.

FWIW both were used ones I bought cheap. I bought a third one from a member on here and it is still going strong after three years. Apperently the lesson took.

Has anyone packed up and driven off, leaving their steel targets at the shooting spot, and come back two hours later and find them still there?

Yeah, me either...

Remembered another one.
Many years ago took off to hunt in the Navajo res up by the NM border with a couple of friends. Earlier in the week I had cleaned and readied my m70. Put it in a hard case in the closet. Weeks earlier I had gone to the desert with friends to blow the bejeezus outta a old hulk we found abandoned. Cleaned the Uzi and put everything back in a black hardcase.

So in the excitement of leaving for the hunt, I grabbed the other identical hard case. 4 hours from home I open up said case, expecting a 30-06, bipod, 20rds and boresnake and am confronted with a 16" bbl Uzi, 2 mags and 100 rds of ammo.
And they haven't let me live it down yet.

Demi-human said:

Has anyone packed up and driven off, leaving their steel targets at the shooting spot, and come back two hours later and find them still there?

Yeah, me either...

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You're shooting at the wrong range.

One of our members left a PACT timer sitting on a barrel at a match. Two months later we're using that same range again and his PACT was still sitting on the barrel. He thought he had lost it.

Bingo. Everyone at our range would have enjoyed shooting your targets, but they'd still be there.

In fact, you could just leave them out there forever, and never worry about packing them ever again.

Another bonehead move on my part...

A neighbor of mine bought a new Glock 17. He asked me to show him how to completely strip it down and reassemble it after he had put a few hundred rounds through it. I kind of bragged up my experience with this and went about taking it apart and explaining everything and showed him how to put it all back together only I screwed up installing the slide lock spring and the slide lock lever. I basically turned his Glock into a “single shot”.

This wasn’t discovered until he went plinking with some buddies of his. I felt like such a dumb*** when he brought his gun back to me and asked me what was wrong.

I sheepishly corrected my error. I felt so bad I gave him a new magazine and a hundred rounds of ammo.

Texas10mm said:

You're shooting at the wrong range.

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The forest is a double edged sword.
Secluded, but not as much as I would think...

I could have been cited for littering.

Zerodefect said:

In fact, you could just leave them out there forever, and never worry about packing them ever again.

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The cabin is nice, that’s what I do now.

Back in the early 1990’s when silhouette shooting was all the rage there was a style of shooting called the “Creedmoor pistol position”. This is where you lie on you back with your knees up and feet flat on the floor, you lean your shooting-side leg over a bit and lay the pistol against your calf. Your non shooting hand would support your head, because you needed to lift it to see the sights/targets. It was a very effective way to shoot 200 meter rams with long-barreled Contenders, Wichitas, XP-100’s etc.

In a moment of utter non-clarity I decided to try the Creedmoor for a 150 yard shot at a steel target using my 4” Model 19 .357 Mag using full house 158 gr ammo.

I held the revolver with enough room for the end of the barrel to clear my calf...cocked it, set the sights high over the target using my finest Kentucky Windage to compensate for the distance and a touch of breeze, let out a bit of breath...BOOM!

My right calf went numb and then started burning. I sat up and looked at the 2” shredded rip in my jeans, then at the blood that started seeping around the hole in my pants.

For a moment I thought I had shot myself, but I quickly realized I had placed the barrel/cylinder gap about half an inch from my jeans. The blast shot lots of little unburned powder particles and denim threads into my calf at Lord knows what speed. I was able to pluck the threads out and get some of the larger black flakes out with tweezers over time as it healed, but it took ages for the little black specks to finally absorb or fade away. 27-odd years later I still have a bit of white speckled scarring and a numb spot at the site where I lit myself up.

That was my biggest D’Oh! moment...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_silhouette_shooting#Positions

Stay safe.

Was field stripping a handgun to clean it and found a live round in the chamber. Fortunately it was a gun that didn’t require pulling the trigger before disassembly. Apparently the extractor didn’t grab the rim. The lighting was not good and either I idiotically failed to visually inspect the chamber or just didn’t see it in the low light. Fortunately that event haunts me every time I clear a gun and make double sure there’s nothing in the chamber.

4570Tom said:

Quite a few years ago I packed up to go and do some shooting. Don't remember how many I brought, but the primary one was a bolt action 270 that I hadn't shot in awhile. Took it out of the safe, ran a dry patch through it, and put it in the soft case for transport. Put some ammo, muffs, and some targets in a daypack and I was ready to go. In that era, much of my shooting was done on a the family woodlot. Old logging road was how it was accessed. Needed a vehicle with clearance to get there, and my Dodge Spirit didn't qualify. So I hoofed it in, carrying guns and gear, which included climbing a not-insignificant hill. Eventually got there, unpacked my stuff, and discovered that I had left the bolt for the 270 sitting on the bench at home. Sigh...

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I have got half way to the range (an 18 mile trip one way) and realized I left the guns at home. So, don't feel alone!

I got to the range one day with my range bag full, pistol,mags, ammo, targets, stape gun, eye and ear protection, cleaning kit, tool kit, etc. I get everything unloaded and try to staple a target up and realize I am out of staples. Thankfully a fellow shooter had a few staples he could spare.

I've done the "out of staples" thing. Pretty irritated at myself until I remembered I had a roll of masking tape to tape holes in targets; pretty good backup.

As a teenager I rested my dad's scoped Ruger10-22 on our wood deck rail to shoot a muskrat and missed. Then I realized why. I had the muskrat in the crosshairs but the muzzle was aimed squarely at the rail. Blew a hole right through it. Dad was proud.

Riomouse911 said:

Back in the early 1990’s when silhouette shooting was all the rage there was a style of shooting called the “Creedmoor pistol position”. This is where you lie on you back with your knees up and feet flat on the floor, you lean your shooting-side leg over a bit and lay the pistol against your calf. Your non shooting hand would support your head, because you needed to lift it to see the sights/targets. It was a very effective way to shoot 200 meter rams with long-barreled Contenders, Wichitas, XP-100’s etc.

In a moment of utter non-clarity I decided to try the Creedmoor for a 150 yard shot at a steel target using my 4” Model 19 .357 Mag using full house 158 gr ammo.

I held the revolver with enough room for the end of the barrel to clear my calf...cocked it, set the sights high over the target using my finest Kentucky Windage to compensate for the distance and a touch of breeze, let out a bit of breath...BOOM!

My right calf went numb and then started burning. I sat up and looked at the 2” shredded rip in my jeans, then at the blood that started seeping around the hole in my pants.

For a moment I thought I had shot myself, but I quickly realized I had placed the barrel/cylinder gap about half an inch from my jeans. The blast shot lots of little unburned powder particles and denim threads into my calf at Lord knows what speed. I was able to pluck the threads out and get some of the larger black flakes out with tweezers over time as it healed, but it took ages for the little black specks to finally absorb or fade away. 27-odd years later I still have a bit of white speckled scarring and a numb spot at the site where I lit myself up.

That was my biggest D’Oh! moment...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_silhouette_shooting#Positions

Stay safe.

Click to expand...

Those guys shooting revolvers in that position used a piece of leather to protect their leg.

Texas10mm said:

Those guys shooting revolvers in that position used a piece of leather to protect their leg.

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guess I was a high roller - I had a "bullet proof" piece of kevlar that was supposed to stand up to a 44 mag bullet - let alone a B/C gap....

Zendude: "Was field stripping a handgun to clean it and found a live round in the chamber. ... . Apparently the extractor didn’t grab the rim. ..."

I did that with a Makarov pistol that was supposed to have a .380 ACP (9x17mm) conversion barrel. Nooo. The barrel was original 9.27x18mm Makorov. The .380 was a very loose fit in the chamber.

Loaded a mag full of .45's out of a bulk box. Rack the slide, and as I'm bringing the gun up something falls out the end of the barrel. Never owned a .40 ever, but somehow got a round mixed in.

Deal on a 16ga A-5 (thinking it was pre-sweet 16). Look all over creation to scrounge up some 16ga shells. Load it, squeeze off a round and the empty won't clear. First I'd ever heard of a 2 9/16" 16ga.

When it first became popular to shoot 150gr or 3 pellets of pyrodex for "magnum" loads, tried to see how different it really was vs. 100 grains. Put 2 picnic tables end to end so the chrony was about 8' from the muzzle. Blew it right off the end of the table...spent 20 mins trying to figure out where I hit it. Then tried again with the same result. No impact marks anywhere, but the chronograph never worked again.

I was about 16. Been bird hunting since about 13 or so with my dad's 20 ga double barrel. The safety was a thumb operated one at the top of the receiver. I had saved my shekels and bought a new Ithaca Featherlite 12 ga. The safety is behind the trigger. First time out a magnificent rooster rises up out of the weeds right in front of me and angling off to my left. I pull up, track and lead perfectly and push the non existent safety which is not at the top of the receiver with my thumb...several times. Of course the shotgun is silent and I hear the rooster cackle as he flies off into the distance.

grampster said:

. I pull up, track and lead perfectly and push the non existent safety which is not at the top of the receiver with my thumb...several times

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Did very similar, as I was used to hunting with an 1100 LT20 or 12ga Wingmaster. First shotgun with rifled slug barrel was a Mossberg 500. On a deer drive, nice buck bedded in a honeysuckle patch about 20 yards. Saw antlers first, raise the gun...he sees me, jumps up, gets tangled...falls back down, then back up and ran away. I never did find the safety.

No buck fever there. Safety fever. LOL