Accidental discharge?

Accidental discharge?

  • yes, I have.

    Votes: 213 36.1%
  • No, I have not.

    Votes: 377 63.9%

  • Total voters
    590
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.

pablo45

Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2006
Messages
543
You don't have to comment if you do not want to. I just want to see how many out there have experience this and learned from it. Unintentional, negligent, however you would like to put it. A weapon that was fired without you wanting it to go off. Or you just not knowing it was chambered and thinking it would dry fire.
 
Last edited:
The more appropriate term would be negligent discharge. An accidental discharge involves an equipment failure (something very very rare).

I've had both an AD and an ND. The AD involved a defective magazine that kept the last round in place while locking back the slide. The ND was my getting preoccupied with a new flashlight attachment and a magazine change where I negligently slapped a loaded magazine in and negligently pulled the trigger. Hole in a couple of walls in the upstairs bathroom, ringing ears, startled family downstairs resulted.
 
I haven't had my negligent/accidental discharge yet.

And that's what it really is about. I haven't had one yet either, and though I hope not to, I pray that whichever Rule I broke, I observed all the others, so that nobody is hurt.
 
I was accidentally negligent. Thanks to Rule 2, the toaster is fine. Not so much the drywall though.
My bad.

Don't try this at home.

I've had three actually. The one with the toaster was the most memorable.

The first was in around 1971, with an el-cheapo .22 revolver that misfired, and then I did something, not exactly sure what. It fired. Powder burns on my fingers from that one.

Second was the 30-30 in the kitchen in around 1976. "Forgot" it was loaded.
Most specatcular because of the specators present.
Fortunately no tragedy, but MAN, that is embarrassing.

Third was in around 1995, a Jennings .22 pistol that slam-fired when I was "testing" it to see if it would feed rounds from the mag. Hole in the panelling. No wonder it only cost $40 at the gun show. It eventually had a minor kaboom, destroying the extractor. So, I sold it to the DC Police Dept. for $100.

A fourth, that I don't really think counts, was a FAL slam-fire when I was chambering a round on the range while the gun was pointed in the direction of the targets. I only put that one in the category of a "possible" ND because I already knew better than to feed a single round into the chamber of a FAL, and just let the bolt slam on it.

I hope I'm done with those sorts of boo-boo's.
 
Define accidental discharge? If it means an unintentional discharge while that violating safety rule(s), then no for me. I did let an unintentional round go off while doing a rapid engagement drill.
No negligent discharge.
 
A negligent discharge happens as a result of operator error/input. It doesn't matter whether there was intent or not. If you did something to the gun and it fired, that's a negligent discharge.

If the gun fired without any outside input by you (ie. mechanical failure/defect) then it could be an accidental discharge.

I haven't had either one (knock on wood)
 
I have never had an ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGE...There is no such thing as an accident. There is, however, "Cause and Effect"...I have had a couple of those (Cause and Effects). All my fault. Just glad I have always followed the four safety rules...No harm done except a hole in the floor and shattered nerves and pride...
 
I think it's safe to say that most "gun nuts" , myself included will, sooner or later, have an accidental discharge.

JUST REMEMBER RULE #1. ALWAYS POINT YOUR MUZZLE IN A SAFE DIRECTION.
 
once, and hopefully never again. It was with my .308 (wrong forum but it answers the question).
Got out of the truck, inserted magazine, chambered a round, closed bolt and must have put finger on trigger (though I don't recall consiously doing it). Muzzle was pointed up and away. Boom! I must say it ruined the rest of the afternoon as I just sat in the tree stand kind of sulking over what happened, replaying the scenario in my head 1000 times until dark. Then I slinked down and went to the house. For a while I even thought that the gun malfunctioned, but it has not since. Wow! What an attention getter.:(:what::(:what::confused::eek::confused::eek:

I still think about it everytime I move my 1911 from condition 4 to 1, which of course involves passing through condition 0. Gun is ALWAYS pointed down and away, and you should see my trigger finger: I think it would break if it were any further away from the trigger.
 
I've been shooting and hunting for over 55 years and have had one AD and two NDs over that time. None of them did any damage - to anything but my pride - because I have ALWAYS practiced muzzle control, even with unloaded guns. Both my father and grandpa would burn my bottom if I didn't!

The AD was a bolt rifle that went off while I was pushing through a dense thicket. One twig had to have moved the safety, another the trigger. The bullet splashed up the dirt 3 feet in front of me. I open the bolt when I go into thick stuff now.

The first ND was when I was unloading a new to me lever rifle on a frigid day in Colorado with gloved hands. Thick finger hit the trigger as I worked the rounds out of the magazine. The round went straight up, it may be orbiting the moon.

The next ND was while lowering the hammer on a .357 Black Hawk after deciding not to take a shot. It was about 10 degrees below nothing that morning and I had no gloves, my thumb on that cold steel was too numb to know what it was doing. Again, the round hit the ground about 3 feet in front of me.

Can't say I really learned anything new, but did get confirmation that muzzle contol is always vital. And I tell my grandsons about it too, they are pretty safe shooters themselves.
 
Just realized I've had both Accidental and Negligent.

ND was when I put a .45 round into friend's livingroom floor. Luckily I always keep muzzle discipline, trigger discipline has been learned the hard way.

AD was when my brand new Kimber went full-auto on me the first time at the range. First round was intentional, the 6 following were due to a bad sear. (Note and this was a NIB Custom Shop Kimber!)
 
They say its not if but when......

Colt 45 in a crowded office with three other firearms instructors. nice hole in the ceiling to remind me of it forever. Funny thing, not one of us remembers watching me put a loaded magazine in it while demonstrating a new "double action" system installed in the old Colt. Oh well, I guess my wife summed it up best, " thank God it was you guys (instructors) and not one of the other idiots or someone would be dead, at least you guys point it in a safe place.....

Hey, you live and you learn.

Take care everyone
 
It was on a Tuned WH77, with a trigger set LOW....
Thankfully I sight the target before the finger touched the trigger.
 
Voted Yes

Yes, I have experienced an AD and I'm lucky it happened at the range and not at home.

I overtightened one of the grip screws of my Bersa .380 and the end of the scew apparently came in contact with what they call the "hammer piece". The deflection of the hammer piece caused the sear to not engage the hammer so after inserting a loaded magazine and releasing the slide via the slide stop, the hammer followed the slide and caused a slamfire. Scary, but pointed downrage as it should have been. I'm just happy I did that at my gun club and not at home.
 
1 in 4 have had an AD/ND?
That's scarey. I would say there's a whole lot of folks here that aren't paying much attention to what they're doing.
 
Negligent discharge? Sure, all the time...

Oh wait, you meant with FIREARMS?!?!?

Only once. Had finger on the trigger while checking out a vacant rental property that I thought had an unwelcome intruder. Forgot Rule #1. I must have been more stressed than I thought. I was alone, thank God. Scared hell out of me.

Sidebar: Anyone who thinks the XD9 has too high a trigger pull, it ain't so.
 
I'm not sure how these qualify, but when I first started shooting I had a couple on both an S&W 41 and a friend's 1911. Both guns had approx 2.5 pound triggers, which led to a handful of accidental double-taps when I was trying to put a single round on target. I've never had a gun go off when I didn't mean for it to, just guns going off more times than I meant.
 
1 in 4 have had an AD/ND?
That's scarey. I would say there's a whole lot of folks here that aren't paying much attention to what they're doing.

deadin, there are those who have had a negligent discharge, and there are all the others who have not-yet had a ND. It's the people who have had more than one ND that are scary.
 
Does it count as a ND if....
You are at the range and switching guns with a friend. You are not sure if he finished off all the rounds in the magazine. Because it is more fun to shoot than manually check the chamber, you pick up the gun, aim downrange, and pull the trigger?

That's the closest I have come to a ND. The gun was empty in my case. However, IF it went BANG, I'm curious what you would call that circumstance.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top