What Stupid things have you done?

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Loaded up my pickup with my gear/guns for a trip to the deer lease. Slid my 2-gun rifle case down next to the tailgate, slammed the tailgate shut and took off. Driving about 60 down the granite gravel road I hear a bang and look in the rear view mirror only to see my beloved gun case doing end over ends down the road behind me. Lucked out, only a couple of barrel dings in the stock and sights were still dead on. Still have the case as a reminder and still use it from time to time.
 
1. without even the smallest doubt, the stupidest thing i ever did was start smoking.
2. got married
3. not continuing my education

One. Knew when to quit.
Two. Knew when to quit.
Three. Thought I knew when to quit. I was wrong.:)
(Edit to add firarms content.)
Out breaking clay one afternoon, a friend hands me a single barreled twelve guage. It is his grandfathers. He lets a bird go and I aim and pull the trigger. Nothing happens. When I look down at the gun I see a hammer. He says "Did you cock it?". Well, with the gun still pointed to the birds, I reach for the hammer, pull it back, and with my finger still on the trigger, it falls. When the goose load went off it sounded like a howitzer out of this short little coach gun. The recoil very nearly breaks my trigger finger and I fumble the shotgun all the way to the ground.

When I turn to apologize for my stupidity I see tears in my friends eyes, from laughing so hard. Then he says "That was even better than I thought it would be!".
He said his sides hurt from laughing way more than the ring of flesh missing from the front of my finger.
And thats how I learned to shoot clay pigeons.:)
 
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Testing out a piece of "bulletproof glass " I was given. I shot it at 20' with a 12ga. Spent 2 hours picking about 125 pellets out of my arms, face, and chest. None penetrated it tho.
 
Mr. Hill: anytime one wants to reduce the chance of being locked out of a car, especially when the engine is Already started, and you suddenly decide to get out to bring in the garbage can, get more coffee/Gatorade etc, this really helps:

Whether the engine has been started or not, I will Always 'roll' the window down about 8 inches before stepping out. It's critical with any sense of rushing, or distraction, irregular actions. There probably won't be any "First Officer" to help remember.
 
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Working in a car dealership, the FIRST THING you do when getting in a customers car is roll down the drivers window. We pound this into all the noobs. And yes, there are times when it don't go back up.....:eek:
The second thing we tell the noobs is DON'T TOUCH THE GUNS (or cash, or drugs) you find in the glovebox!
Heard this one secondhand, cant testify to its veracity, but its good so.....
Two geniuses are returning from a late-night froggin expedition when the headlight fuse blows in their 70s vintage F-150 (I don't know if those trucks had only one fuse for both hi and lo beams, but apparently they were without illumination, whatever.)
One of these gentlemen gets the epiphany that they have some .22 rounds in the truck of about the same size as one of those old glass automotive fuses, so it should suffice to get them home. Unfortunately, they only had live rounds- and apparently couldn't be bothered to yank the bullet and dump the powder.
You guessed it; the round got hot enough to blow. I'm sure the velocity wasn't great, but it was sufficient to penetrate- the drivers scrotum! He ended up flipping the vehicle offroad, nearly killing himself and his passenger. Luckily for them, a passerby called the EMTs in time.......
Might not have been so lucky for the gene pool, now that I think about it.
 
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Yeah... I've heard that story about the fuses in the truck before too... Seems to me that a .22 cookoff wouldn't have enough velocity to penetrate much of anything. I remember reading an article in (I think it was) Handloader magazine back from probably the '80s where they tested how much penetration a cookoff actually had. From what my steel trap brain (as in... rusty and squeaky) recalls, a layer of cardboard was not even penetrated by centerfire rifle rounds cooking off, and what was doing the (little) penetration was fragmented brass. Not that a .22 LR is a low pressure round, but there just isn't much mass to... anything in that cartridge. If a .30-06 case didn't have enough mass to penetrate cardboard, I wouldn't think the little thin skin on the .22 case would have enough mass to be able to do much no matter where it hit anyone (other than the eyeball, which is why I DO wear safety glasses when handloading/shooting/mowing lawns/using the deep fryer/etc.).
 
-Driving to the range with guns but no ammo
-Driving to the range with ammo but no guns
-Firing my Marlin 60 at the NRA range and the magazine tube launched down range. Range was called cold and I got a slow clap from everybody
 
Got back to the truck after an afternoon turkey hunt only to find that I didn't have any keys. This was before cell phones. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because there is no reception where I was to this day. I had to walk 2 miles up a hill to the nearest phone.. I had lain my keys in the seat and had covered them when I was putting on my camo. I always leave my window cracked enough to open the door with a hook now. There is no shortage of wire for a hook. I am an electrician.:rofl:
 
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I had a nice no-warp/no-rust/fit-great M14 fiberglass stock that was unattractive.

Rather than just painting the silly thing, I decided to remove the coating ... which quickly turned into a TRY to remove the coating exercise in frustration. I finally decided that what I probably needed to complete that job was a bin of nuclear waste in which to submerge the thing for a few months. <sigh>

The stuff with which they coat those stocks makes me wonder if it is in some way "related" to Suncorite 259.

Every time I look at that poor stock I mentally kick myself. :(
 
I did nothing stupid that can be proven, since my youth was before cell phones cameras and YouTube!
One incident that I was merely the unfortunate recipient of was when acting as Range Officer at a bowling pin match. Shooter had downloaded all his 38 Spl ammo to bare minimum for faster recoil recovery. What he hadn't expected was pins refusing to fall over from the drastically under-loaded ammo. One round bounced off the bowling pin, came flying back and nailed poor me in the family jewels, dropped me like a bad habit. Horrible at the time, but hilarious years later. Saved the bullet somewhere, and that guy apologized to me for a week straight.
 
Do many people here put portable ammo and hearing protection in one of those yellow/black plastic (16-18") boxes from Lowe's? With shooting glasses Always in the box?

It's very easy to leave the large hearing protectors on the right seat of the car (worn at range while stepping into the car) then later remove them. Expecting them to still be under a couple of wadded t-shirts, next time they are not there.
 
I know that all of us have a list of stupid things that we have done. Let's come clean and have a few laughs. I could write a book on this subject.
The most stupid thing I ever did was marry my first wife. She got the kids, my car, the bank account, my guns and the furniture. I got my clothes and all our debt. That was almost 50 years ago and I am still cussing myself for letting her have the kids....
 
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I sprayed out the innards of a Marlin 60 with brake cleaer.

The trigger group turned to black goo and welded itself to the receiver.

Bother.
I suspect that's what my brother-in-law did to his Marlin Camp 9; I had to rebuild the trigger/magazine group for him. :p
 
Went duck hunting with a couple buddies when in HS. Steve had a 1962 Pontiac Catalina station wagon (made a GREAT hunting car!). We get back to the car to head for town and Steve sticks his 12 ga. into the car muzzle down and BOOM! gun discharges through the floor and shoots the starter off the block.
The hardest part was 4 young guys pushing the car back onto the road. Getting it started by hand pushing it on a gravel road was easy in comparison. Have you ever tried to push start a '62 Pontiac wagon?

About 20 years ago, my brother and I were out jumping stock dams for ducks. I had a new-to-me Browning Superposed and my brother his trusty Rem. 11-87. We jump stock dam #1 and it was chock full of northern mallards. As our shooting ettiquette goes, I was on the left, so I take ducks on the left and Bro takes ducks on the right. When the mallards jump to flight I line up the furthest left green head and CLICK! no recoil, but the green head falls! Swing to drake No.2... CLICK! no recoil, but the green head falls! Boom! down goes duck #3.
DOH! I hadn't loaded my gun and my brother habitually started shooting left to right. I thought I had the softest shooting over and under ever made!
 
70s vintage F-150 (I don't know if those trucks had only one fuse for both hi and lo beams, but apparently they were without illumination, whatever.)
As I recall, those vehicles did not have fuses for the headlights. The headlights were on a circuit breaker with bi-metal contacts that would pop when over heated and would re-connect as they cooled. On a cold winter day (or night) they could (and often did) flicker when there was a short/unwanted ground. Ran into this multiple times as an Air Force General Purpose Vehicle Maintenance dude in the mid-seventies. AFSC 47252. If it was painted blue and had wheels, I probably fixed it.... At least once.
 
In my brilliance, I left my home in southern Arizona for a USPSA match in Payson Arizona...an 85 mile drive. All was good, the weather was beautiful, and I was excited to shoot the 1911 I had just finished building.

My two partners and I met the rest of our squad of shooters at the range and went to SAFETY to get our match gear on and when I opened my range bag, I found a whole bunch of Glock 22 magazines, a Glock 22 holster, mag pouches, and a bunch of 40 cal ammo...but NO 1911 mags, no 45 ammo, and no 1911 holster. I grabbed the wrong stinkin range bag.

I was carrying my off duty Glock 19 and only had 2 spare mags, and the 9mm ammo that was in them. I figured I was going to be running the clock instead of shooting that day.

Thank goodness one of my buddies had his duty gun with him (Glock 22) and I shot that.
 
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