How did your Unintentional Discharge happen?

[JohnKSa]

I've been thinking a lot about ADs/NDs these days and this question keeps going through my mind.

If you've had more than one, you can vote for several options. If you've had more than one that fits in the same category you're going to be under-represented in the results.

 

[shermacman]

Uh, I need a catagory for "Breath-taking Stupidity"...I lieu of that, I will select "decocking accident". Cuz it was sort of a decocking accident...sort of...

 

[Chipperman]

I had one when I was about 12 years old. I didn't vote, because the scenario did not really fit into any of your choices.

Mine happened because of a failure to understand the mechanics of the firearm.

It was an old Winchester gallery gun in .22 WRF. It's a tube-magazine-fed pump action with an exposed hammer. I had come inside from shooting and was unloading the gun. From prior experience playing with it unloaded I realized that I could hold the trigger down and pump the gun. The hammer would follow the bolt down as the pump closed.

I thought I could do this safely to unload the gun, since the hammer just slowly followed down. I did not think there was enough force to fire a round. I had even done it without incident before when unloading for real. This time, however, the gun fired on about the second or third pump. Thankfully, I had it pointed in a safe direction. It put a small hole through the exterior wall of the house. Nobody was home, so I just patched and painted the hole. To this day, not one person in my family knows of this incident.

Since then, I have always been very careful about the four Rules, and also making sure I understand the mechanics of the firearm.

 

[photo_guy]

I was ready to say I have not had an AD but, as you defined the poll choices I guess I did. I had one instance where my gun double-fired once when I was at the range. I was never able to find out what happened and it never occured again. Must have been operator error.

 

[g56]

I have only had one AD, it was on a back up pistol when I was loading it, the safety was on, I inserted the magazine and jacked one into the chamber, for some unknown reason the safety flipped off and it discharged, I tried repeatedly to duplicate it but never was able to. The gun was unsafe and from then on that backup pistol has gathered dust in the safe.

 

[g56]

I might tell about a Highway Patrol trooper that I knew, he shot his testicles off with a 45 acp.

The officer involved was a very experienced shooter, known for giving shooting demonstrations and for fast draw demos, he was always extremely cautious when doing a show. He was at a local police department pistol range practicing his shooting with a 1911, for some reason he wasn't thinking, he put his cocked and loaded 1911 on half cock, and shoved it in his belt in front, the pistol discharged, he got that ball of flame in the lower abdomen, shot his testicles off along with a lot of other serious injury, he got back in his patrol car, radioed to the dispatcher that he had been accidentally shot and was driving himself to the hospital, he drove to the hospital, walked into the Emergency Room, laid down on a gurney, they took him to surgery and he was in intensive care for a couple of weeks, but he did live and was able to return to duty.

He doesn't understand why he did what he did, he knew that half cock wasn't safe and the 1911 can fire if the hammer slips off of half cock, that was a pretty high cost for a moments lapse of common firearm safety rules. He has been dead for a number of years now, I know I won't ever forget that story.

 

[Marnoot]

Thankfully, I haven't had any NDs since I've been an adult, and sure hope I don't; though I know it's likely and religiously follow the 4 rules. When I was about 10 or 11 though, I did. I was intensely interested in how my Dad's lever action Marlin .22 fed a round from the tube magazine into the chamber. So in order to observe it, I covertly obtained a round, and began dropping it down the tube, and loading it into the chamber; and subsequently ejecting it.
After a few permutations of this, it was chambered and somehow I accidentally pulled or snagged the trigger. It shot into the floor, thankfully no one was downstairs at the time, but subsequent probing showed it failed to penetrate the floor, stopped by a joist perhaps.
My parents thought I had popped a balloon; but I fudged on the truth a little and said I didn't know it was loaded. I received a lecture on the 4 rules, checking the chamber, etc.. But I was scared enough by the incident to be much more responsible with guns from that time on.

 

[TechBrute]

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.

 

[MyRoad]

"unintentional double-tap" -- happened twice, same day, two different Glocks. I was trying to practice the subtle trigger reset thing, and as the day wore on I started to get recoil flinch which caused the second shot to fire as the gun rose from the recoil of the first round (using a G36 and a G32). I was at an indoor range, both unintentional shots went into the ceiling. Luckily the ceiling is designed to catch bullets -- made obvious by the hundreds of holes in the soft sound baffling and no rain getting in.

 

[larryf1952]

...I was intensely interested in how my Dad's lever action Marlin .22 (operated)...

My Dad owned a Marlin Model 39A lever action .22, and that's what I learned to shoot with. I have it in my safe now. We lived near a river, and we'd sometimes take walks through the woods that lined the river bank, shooting at tin cans and an occasional rabbit. He'd let me carry the rifle, with muzzle always pointed at the ground. I was probably about 11 or 12, and we were out one day for an afternoon of target practice. I spied a can I wanted to plink, and as I brought the rifle up out of the fold of my arm and started to swing it up to firing position, I recklessly let the muzzle cross my Dad. Instead of waiting until I had lifted the gun, I had also started to pull the hammer back to cock it, as I knew that there was a round in the chamber. My Dad's back was turned to me, and just as the muzzle cleared my Dad by about a foot, my thumb slipped off the hammer, and the rifle fired. I immediately began to bawl like a baby, thinking about what might've happened if the gun had fired a moment sooner, and I was shaken for a long time because of that incident. Dad was cool about it, and he used it to reinforce the gun safety message. I'm 52 now, and to this day, I've never had another AD.

 

[12 Volt Man]

Knock on wood..............

it hasn't happened yet.

 

[molonlabe]

Sort of a cleaning accident while disassembling something. That's all I'm sayin and stickin to it.

 

[Zark-9]

Still waiting for, and carefully guarding against, the first one.

 

[Zaire]

It wasn't me who did it but a friend shot a hole through my Moms washing machine. Luckily it didn't hit the tub and was still usable. It did go through the wall and break the tank on the bathroom toilet. Gun was Glock 19, ammo was Federal AE 124gr. FMJ.

 

[Lennyjoe]

My only AD happened in 1998 at my house. I was in the bedroom closet, the wife in the kitchen on the phone with her brother and my girls were in another bedroom on the other side of the house.

The weapon was a S&W 686 loaded with Remington Gold Saber .38 special +P ammo. For some stupid reason (still dont know why) I locked the hammer back. As I let the hammer down with the thumb I didnt ride it down with enough strength and the hammer struck the primer and "BANG".

The wife was screaming to see if I was alright. I was sitting on the bed with a look of disbelief, ears ringing and eyes watering from the blow by. Wifey thought I'd shot myself and was afraid to come into the room for fear of finding a bloody mess.

After I shook off the initial shock, I replied that I was alright and I had done something really stupid. I followed the bullet hole thru the bedroom wall and found it in the bottom cabinet where we kept the drink glasses.

The wife got back on the phone and told her brother what happened (he wondered why she dropped the phone) and his reply was, "Hell, I've done that before"

I will never forget that accident and it compells me to adhere to the 4 rules to the T.

 

[Farnham]

My Dad owned a Marlin Model 39A lever action .22, and that's what I learned to shoot with.

Exact same rifle I had an ND with when I was learning to shoot with Grandpa. We were shooting prairie dogs (and feeling cocky, cause that little Marlin could shoot! )and at the end of the day, Grandpa hollers and says, "let's go to the house." I tried to lower the hammer slowly on a loaded chamber, and BANG! At least I had it pointed down in front of me. Scared the bejesus outta me!

Nothing since then, and that was 20-odd years ago, so maybe it taught me something.

 

[crawfordew]

I'm either extremely careful or extremely lucky, never had one.
Gene

 

[BHPshooter]

Mine should be under dry-firing stupidity, but I suppose "trigger pulled on purpose -- thought it was unloaded" is the most accurate answer.

I was dry-firing in my basement bedroom while watching a movie. After over an hour of this, I loaded the gun just as someone called me upstairs to answer a phonecall. I came back downstairs after about 15-20 minutes, and began to get settled back in. I thought, "Oh, I was dry-firing." I continued to watch the movie, then squeezed the trigger. I never heard the shot, but since I wasn't using the sights, just trying to practice a steady squeeze on the trigger, I saw the ball of flame come from the barrel, and the hole appear in the door. The bullet (a 9mm JHP) was stopped in a stud in my closet.

:banghead:
Wes

 

[wasrjoe]

Hasn't happened. I doubt it will.

 

[Zach S]

I voted "Pulled trigger by mistake (automatic squeeze/reflex)." I was digging around in the top of my closet for something, and my Kimber slid off the shelf and headed to the floor. I caught it, putting a hole in a subwoffer and the box it was in.

 

[taliv]

looking at the poll results, i must say, i'm a bit skeptical. i've been to a LOT of shooting ranges, and I have yet to see one of any age without a well-ventilated roof. it seems like that sort of AD happens at an alarmingly high frequency relative to the dicking around with the gun at home and "oops i thought it was unloaded!" variety.


granted, it's not a scientific poll, and maybe it's possible that the combination of people who like guns and the internet has pre-selected out all those predisposed towards shooting the ceilings at ranges.... but again, i'm skeptical.


I for one, have never had an AD because i "thought it was unloaded". (that's what rules are for, right?) but i've accidentally double-tapped one on numerous occasions (often launching the accidental shot dangerously over the berm) and both of my H&K rifles can fire two shots with one pull of the trigger if you do it just the wrong way. (maybe I should say, 4 shots with 3 pulls of the trigger)

anyway, am I missing something here? do you guys really have 4 times as many "thought it was unloadeds" as you do trigger doubles? that's just friggin scary.

 

[JohnKSa]

I suspect that many folks with trigger doubles didn't open the poll because they don't really think of a double as a unintentional discharge.

So far the ones that have surprised me is no trigger snags on foreign objects and I'm surprised that someone has set a gun off by dropping it.

 

[Jim K]

I will fess up to a couple, but one does not fit into the survey. To put it simply, I was checking out a revolver with live ammo (MISTAKE!) and forgot that the Colt cylinder turns the opposite from a S&W cylinder. No harm except a hole in the shop drywall and a couple of hours of saying "Huh?" a lot.

Jim

 

[Chris Rhines]

I suspect that many folks with trigger doubles didn't open the poll because they don't really think of a double as a unintentional discharge.

Yeah, that's me. I've had an AR-15 double on me before (actually, it fired on release - not quite the same thing.) I was testing a new trigger job at the time and knew that a double was possible, so I only put two rounds in the magazine. I don't know if that counts as an AD, ND, or what?

I also once managed to inadvertently bump-fire a Garand during a match. That was uncool.

- Chris

 

[JohnKSa]

Jim,

I'd call that one "thought gun was unloaded". You knew the gun was loaded but didn't think the live one was going to end up under the hammer. Sort of like "dryfiring" a Glock with a full mag and then accidentally getting the slide back far enough during cocking/reset to pick up a round. Maybe that one should be called "didn't think a round was chambered". I'll bet I can't edit it though...