How did your Unintentional Discharge happen?

[atek3]

fortunatly my ND with a benchrest gun was on an empty chamber

I closed the bolt and brushed my finger against the trigger while putting it in the trigger guard and I released the striker. Fortunatly it wansn't loaded.

atek3

 

[USP45usp]

You know, God must look out for the stupid (that would be me folks). I have lowed a hammer on a 1911 while chambered (still do) without incident, I have been shooting after drinking and no incident, I have even decocked a CZ-52 on a live round in my living room without incident (I heard afterward that they tend to fail and you have to check them out first).

The way I look at it is that a gun is nothing more than a tool. I use saws at home or the drill press or whatever after drinking (while) and I just follow some simple rules... ear protection, eye protection, and chaps (if I am using the chainsaw). I know the power of them all and I know the safety rules for all.

I've found, just follow the rules and you will be okay. If you have a mechanical malfunction that isn't your fault so don't fret about it. I've had an SKS go fully auto on me, my fault since I was the one that did the sear job (and other things) but I got it corrected. I wouldn't put that down as a AD or ND, it was a TGFU .

Wayne

 

[berettaman]

I had to vote gun went off broken defective part.Of course it was a 1911 and it was the first time I'd ever stripped one.I thought I put it all back together right.This is when I learned to funtion test a firearm first empty,and then with only one round and so on.Thank god I was still smart enough to have it pointed in a safe direction.
Oh,some how I got the main spring in wrong and the sear wouldn't engauge the notches in the hammer.

 

[yesterdaysyouth]

i guess i have... no had.... this ability to shut off my brain..

i just picked up the gun, aimed it at a point on the wall, flipped off the safety, and pulled the trigger....

i'll never un-holster a loaded weapon in the house again... at least not for S&G's... the sound that a .40s&w makes out of a 3 inch barrel in a small confined space, will make a person remember that event forever...

in case you're wondering, it was a winchester 180gr. jhp, it tore through a box full of aluminum heatsinks, a box of resistors, and a few DIP resistor chips.. 3/8" of drywall, and stopped in the insulation.. most of the jacket was in the first box full of heatsinks, the lead was about 3 inches long and maybe 3/16" around when it stopped in the wall...i can see the hole from here.. :banghead:

 

[Sisco]

I was 14 years old, home alone, decided to get Dads 9mm Llama out. I knew this gun, had shot it and could field strip it. Dropped the mag, racked the slide and let it go home. Unloaded now, right?

Pointed it at the far wall of the living room and pulled the trigger. KABOOM!

When I opened my eyes there was a hole in the living room wall about 9mm in diameter. Turned on the light in my parents bedroom I could hardly see for the plaster dust. There was another larger hole in the wall there, about an inch above the dresser mirror. There was a gash in the ceiling about a foot long and another large hole in the opposite wall. Outside the house a chunk of slate siding the size of a baseball was missing. Don't let anyone tell you 9mm ball ammo lacks penetration!
I tried to make up a good lie to tell the parents when they got home but settled on the truth.

What I failed to do was physically check the chamber. The gun had always been a jam-o-matic, a round stuck in the chamber and a weak extractor left it there.

Besides learning how to patch plaster I learned to always, always check the chamber before assuming a gun is unloaded.

Side note: I still have the Llama, just found out about a year ago why it was such a jam-o-matic. It's chambered for 9mm Largo, not 9mm Luger. Never heard of Largo until then.

 

[WhoKnowsWho]

You forgot the "haven't had one" yet option. Only three years, I still check every time.

 

[joszx67]

Safety is FIRST so I wont get my FIRST.

Regards,
Joseph

 

[Sisco]

For those who say "Won't happen" let me tell this tale;
I have this uncle who will turn 70 this month. He's been shooting, reloading & bullet casting for over 50 years, never had a ND.

Until a few weeks ago that is. He had returned from a hunting trip and put off cleaning his rifle for a couple of days. Decided he better get it done, placed the gun in a cleaning cradle touched the trigger and sent a 7mm STW round into the basement wall about three feet away.

I was at his house the next day when he told me about it. He couldn't believe he left the gun loaded in the first place. Couldn't believe he didn't check the chamber in the second. 50 years of good habits and following the rules and it still caught up with him.

I couldn't believe it had happened to him! Ask him when he did it, he said "Yesterday, still can't hear worth a damn. Oh, yeah, your Aunt doesn't know anything about it and she don't need to either".

 

[donkee]

Thankfully, only once. I was out trap shooting with my Uncle's 12ga Stevens bolt action (don't laugh, he left it to me and I can regulary put down 23 out of 25 with it). I pulled the trigger forgetting to take off the safety, pointing down range, I pushed the safety forward and BOOM! Took it into the gunsmith, hasn't been a problem since....

 

[HankL]

UD covers both AD and ND. AD would include parts breakage etc.

 

[jojo]

I had just finished cleaning my CZ50 when a realtive walked in and asked to see it. I new it to be safe so I handed to to them and went on about taking apart my Firestar. When he handed it back the hammer was cocked. Instead of letting it down, like I always do, I (still seeing it as safe in my mind) pointed it away and pulled the trigger.....BAMM! Thankfully I only eneded up with a hole in the garge wall and a small spot in the yard.
Never again will I ASSume anything with my weapons.

jojo

 

[stevelyn]

Same as Shermacman, breath-taking stupidity during......(ahem) "decocking".....sort of.........basically.
I was taking a breather while deer hunting when I was about 14-15. I had stopped about half way up a hill I was climbing. While resting, I put my foot on a log and was resting the butt of my .30-30 on my thigh muzzle up. While looking around I started playing with the hammer and trigger cocking an decocking the hammer. On about the third or fourth repetition the woods above the Back Fork of the Elk River echoed from the sound of a Winchester. I imagine my face was momentarily frozen with an astonishingly stupid look on it.

 

[pbhome71]

Double tap on a Garand at a local match. It was not slam fire, since the primer had a normal indentation. I was not sure what caused it.

 

[JohnKSa]

My double was also with a Garand.

The gun was inspected and no flaws were found. I attributed it to my technique. I was benchresting the gun and firing with a very gradual trigger pull. I think I just managed to bump-fire a second round. The second round did not hit paper.

 

[denfoote]

I'm not on the poll!!

Loaded six into a pre 1973 Ruger Single Six and quickly discovered why you are supposed to load five!!

 

[squirrelsniper]

It was a decocking accident. I was about 11 or 12 and was squirrel hunting with my father. I had the gun cocked, didn't get the shot I wanted, so I had to let the hammer down (no manual safety on it BTW) and I just let the hammer slip out from under my thumb. Of course my father had already been drilling the gun handling safety rules into my head for years at that point, so he was behind me and the rifle was pointed at the ground. The round struck the dirt about 4ft in front of me, and of course I got a good lecture about seeing exactly why it's important to keep a gun pointed in a safe direction at all times.

In hindsight, seeing as I had done the correct thing by having the rifle pointed safely at the ground and no one was hurt, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me, as it showed me just how important keeping the gun pointed in a safe direction is.

 

[juggler]

Just had this conversation yesterday. I'm one of the "pulled the trigger on a supposedly unloaded gun"
I was outside cleaning a Kahr and a Glock. Those of you familiar with these firearms know that you have to drop the hammer to remove the slide. So I do the normal....lock the slide back, confirm no round in the chamber, slide forward, hammer down, remove slide. Clean the Glock, reassemble, rack the slide a few times and hammer down put on the table.
Unless I'm carrying it or shooting it I leave guns unloaded. There was no mag in the Kahr so I rack the slide look in the chamber, slide forward hammer down BOOM!! Guess I didn't look close enough.
Don't know why the round wasn't ejected when I racked the slide, but the fact remains that I didn't look close enough
If it wasn't for myhabit of not pointing muzzles at anything Idon't want a hole in, who knows where it would've gone. This one left quite a gouge in the top of a heavy table and off into the wilderness......not far, since I was pointing down about 45 degrees.
Like others have stated, the wife had no need to know. Still hasn't mentioned the gouge in the table, but it IS outdoor furniture.
Something you don't forget. I now check twice each time.....this event occured at least 5 years ago. None since then.

 

[mfree]

First round I ever shot was almost into my left foot... I was 8 (?) or so and shootign with my father behind my grandparent's house out in the sticks. I'd held the rifle up , shook too much to hit anything, and relaxed into a muzzle down position. .22LR went "thunk" in the mud about a foot from my shoe.

Chalk 1 up for finger accidentally in trigger guard. The rifle's meager weight was enough to shift it in my grip and depress the trigger against my finger.

The only other one was a no harm no foul. I have a habit of "having fun" at the range and trying to burn ammo as quickly as possible... I figure it keeps me sharp so long as I'm hitting the target. Well, one day I was slowing down and doing deliberate aimed fire with my CZ75 at about 15 yards, doing pretty well, trying out a technique I'd just heard of keeping the trigger depressed till back on target so the reset is more consistent. I fired, gun was up, pointed towards the top of the backstop, I let the trigger reset, *BANG*. Oops, didn't make it back on target. I sat the gun down for a moment and pondered life, the universe, and everything, went to the bathroom and washed my hands, and resumed shooting. Gun pointed downrange, at indoor range, everything cool except for trigger control.

Chalk another 1 up for "pulled trigger accidentally, overestimated trigger pull"

 

[taliv]

heh funny thing about reading this thread...

i pulled my 1911 out last night to do a little dry firing while watching the steelers show the world how football is played. i must have checked that chamber like, 10 times before working up the nerve to pull the trigger. i was peering down into the trigger mechanism to make sure no bullets could have snuck in there. and sticking my fingers into the chamber and down through the mag well.

i finally pulled the trigger and BOOM! nah, it didn't go off, of course. i think i mashed the first one though.

 

[cfabe]

While shooting a friends Saiga 7x62x39 with a bipod for the first time, I unintentionally bumpfired it. That gun had one heck of a light trigger and short reset, and would double or triple unless you pulled the trigger in a very deliberate manner. I'm not sure I'd really put that in the same category as an AD, the gun was pointed downrange at a target at the time.

 

[JohnKSa]

NO snagged by foreign objects? I've got to admit this floors me.

I figured we'd get a few holster snags while reholstering at least.

All in all, it looks like we are our own worst enemies--that's kind of what I expected, I guess...

Definitely got a lot more due to negligence than due to true accidents.

 

[Trebor]

Slamfire due to broken spring that holds firing pin to the rear on a Mark II. It was at a range and the gun was pointing downrange when I dropped the bolt.

Ruger Mk II? I'll keep that in mind.

 

[firesafety3]

Glad to hear that most stories shared did not end in injury or worse.

I lost a great uncle years ago. He had duck hunted a few days earlier and had put the single barrel 12 ga. behid the seat of the truck. He had failed to unload the gun before putting it there. To take the gun out he reached behind the seat, grabbed the barrel and pulled it toward him.

Evidently the hammer snagged on a seat spring or cloth and snapped back.

Also had a cousin killed back in the mid 70s rabbit hunting with a friend who wasn't very familiar with the weapon he was holding.

Neither of these were true accidents, the firearms performed as designed. These two incidents, as most gun related "accidents", were performance errors by the handler of the weapon.

As my son got older I shared these stories with him so he understood the consequences of irresponsible handling of firearms. He'll be 14 tomorrow and one of the safest shooters I know, and definitely my preferred hunting partner.

 

[foghornl]

After watching the "Saturday Afternoon Western Block" shows on the TeeVee, I tried the fake 'hand it over, butt first, with finger inside the trigger guard, then quickly twirl it up and snap-fire a round' to pop one into the Bad Guy.

Forgot I had the .357 Blackhawk loaded with CCI 'Rat shot'

A LARGE can of spackle, a gallon of antique white paint, and a trip to the glass shop fixed the mess

 

[Hot brass]

I had to vote gun went off.
I was DRUNK at the time. Missed my foot