I heard a story, from a Soldier who was there during the Panama Invasion. This is when we kicked out Noriega out of office. Soldier was in the middle of the street, at night, as troops were all settling in local houses, buildings, etc, going to bed. Soldier hears a God awful number of rounds being fired and then a very big bang from a house across from him. He, and the medics on the other side of the street run into the building. Inside that building, a M60 machine gunner had been settling down for the evening and decided to clean his weapon. (understand I don't have a M60, so maybe it was a different 308 machine gun). The machine gunner left the belt in the weapon, but removed the trigger pack. What I was told, was that the trigger pack holds the bolt back, and if removed, the bolt goes forward, and fires the weapon. And that is what happened, the machine gunner had this M60 by the barrel, it was shooting all the rounds in the belt, full auto, and some of the rounds hit the ALICE pack full of grenades in the corner! Big, badda, boom!.
Soldier said the M60 machine gunner had ALICE pack parts sticking out of him. Because the Medics were only seconds away, they plugged as many holes as they could in the M60 machine gunner and medevaced him to a medical facility. Soldier did not know if the M60 gunner survived. Hope he did. It was a miracle no one else was hit with anything as the machine gunner was part of a unit in that building.
Anyway, if there is anything to be learned, empty the chamber before disassembling any weapon for cleaning.
