What's the dumbest thing you ever did with a gun ?

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Not a gun story, but almost...

Young and dumb(er): Took a .22 cal blank (for Hilti nail drivers and such) and put it in a hole in a piece of metal machinery, and hit the primer end with a Phillips screwdriver and a hammer. Either a piece of the case or the escaping gas ripped a gash in my forearm that took 6-8 stitches and a lot of paperwork (this being on the jobsite) to get over.

Lesson learned.
 
This wasnt me but I've been waiting for a place to tell this story.

Shortly after I took my first handgun training course, I was at an older friend's house/office. He ("M") was retired LEO who now ran an armed security company.

I was there with my girlfriend, she was sitting in the middle of couch, I was on the end further from the door. "M" was in the recliner opposite the couch.

A knock on the door yeilded a new guy to the security company. The employees supply their own weapons. New guy was straight from the gunstore, he had just purchased his first, and was coming over to make sure the boss liked it.

He sets a small box on the table, opens it, and clears away the paperwork. Clearly this was a brand new gun. "M" peered at it across the table and said that it would work. They started talking holsters.

My girl was looking at it so "new guy" asked if she wanted to handle it. (She had never touched a gun in her life.) She said she did and he handed it to her. She was doing Charlies Angels poses and "pew pew" shooting at the pictures on the walls.

"Hey babe, can I see that for a second?"

She handed it to me, I dropped the mag: full of hollowpoints. Rack the slide and a round fell into my lap.

"M" and I exclaimed, "YOU LOADED IT?!"

"M" held out his hand, I gave him the locked-open gun.

"M" said, "Guess who just signed up for every safety course I can find? (looooong silent pause) I'm going to hang on to this, I'll see you Monday."
 
First regret: I mostly ignored the existence of guns until I was 52 (in '07).
So many good milsurp and ammo deals were missed over the decades, but ammo might not have been stockpiled, even at those much better prices.
Still kicking myself.......

Second regret: Maybe selling the new Auto-Ord. M-1 Carbine was not a good idea, after the free factory repair. I was irked and very dismayed that a brand-new gun (my first purchase) could have a jammed bolt after only 150 rds. or so.
 
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the absolute DUMBEST thing I've ever done with a gun:

A NEGLIGENT discharge, while lowering the hammer on a revolver, during my first year of ownership many years back. Fortunately I always obey the rule that if a gun is in my hand it is always pointed in the safest direction possible.
Shooting is my favorite sport and guns are my hobby. I can't believe I was that careless, but am so grateful that no one was injured or killed due to my stupidity. I'll never forget it.
 
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At age 10 (1986) I loaned my brand new BB gun to buddy, and he went with a neighbor kid and shot out every piece of glass in a dump truck on an adjacent lot. I was there as well. I didn't take a shot at the truck knowing how wrong it was, but didn't make an effort to stop it either.

A couple of days later I was paying the price for that one. Mom was reading my 7 or 8 riot acts at the same time. I told her I didn't shoot. He reply? "Doesn't matter. You were there laughing and encouraging". More damage happened after I left apparently.

I had saved about $200 for a Marlin camp gun to deer hunt with (I know, not enough gun. I was 10 however). My parents were fine with me saving up my own allowance for a rifle. That night when my dad came home he asked me where my money was, I told him, and he promptly confiscated it. It went to repay my part of the damages. My allowance would be held until I paid the rest of my end.

Several months later my dad tells me he was pleased I didn't complain about having to give up my savings to repay the damages and the last $50 was on him. I never bought the rifle, but what I got from that money was way more valuable.

The worst part about the whole deal was at the time and in retrospect having my mom drive my to the work site and apologize to the owner. He had been having a tough time and didn't need that aggravation. He was very good about the whole deal, accepted my apology and wrote it off to stupid kid tricks.
 
Nothing major here. I did manage to fire a 9x19 round in a .40 gun without realizing. That case sure did balloon.
Click to expand...

Would you say the case was *puts on sunglasses* warped?
 
I have shot .22s many times without hearing protection and the noise didn't bother me. Not thinking about the effects of a confined space I fired a .22 revolver into some phone books while in my basement. My ears were ringing for days.
 
A buddy and I had been shooting one day and went back to his place afterwards to clean them up. When they were all oiled and clean I loaded my HP's back in my glock 29 because it was my carry piece at the time. About 15 minutes later an old friend (more of an acquaintance) that we hadn't seem for awhile stopped by and noticed my pistol on the end table and wanted to check it out. I unloaded the one in the tube and gave him the gun, with the loaded mag and before it clicked in my head what was about to happen the dummy racked the slide and pulled the trigger, BANG!! goes a 10mm hydraschock right past my head into the ceiling out the sheetrock into the bathroom where my friends girlfriend was at the time and out through the roof. After it went out the roof the bullet hit a metal vent on the outside of the house and finally stopped. I couldn't believe how many walls the bullet went through including the roof. It was about 4 or 5 layers of sheetrock and the roof/shingles. I've learned my lesson to always give someone and empty gun AND magazine and making sure the person isn't a complete moron. I guess I was a moron that day as well. A lucky moron.
 
Yup. That is why the rule states to hand them a gun with the action open and no magazine inserted. ;)
 
Hole in Ceiling....... AND Roof!

Wasn't me. My older married brother was lying in bed one night playing with his new, recently acquired, "LOADED" Colt .357. He was pointing it at the ceiling fan going bang at one of the turning fan blades..... until one time he said bang and unconsciously pulled the trigger at the same time, which caused the gun to go "B A N G" for real!

He missed the fan blades but ended up with a hole in the ceiling drywall... plus one in the plywood roof. Needless to say, my sister-in-law wasn't too happy with him right at that moment... NOT because of the holes, but rather because she was woken up from a dead sleep. He still hasn't heard the last of it even today... and that happened years ago.

Single Action Six
 
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I haven't done anything too stupid with guns. Once or twice I have accidentally let my muzzle move over something it shouldn't have been pointed at.

Last month I did something that could have turned out badly. I visited friends for the weekend, and I would always shoot at stuff with one of them. So we set a toy dinosaur (one of the older, dense plastic ones) on a fence post, put a .12 gauge a few inches underneath it, and shot the toy 40 feet into the air and 50 yards out. It is good the pellets didn't ricochet off or the toy explode.
 
Not my stupidity, but I was the victim..

I was staying over at my best friend's house when I was 12 and we were bored, so we got out his Crossman Powermaster BB gun and cleaned it up and he points it at me and says, as was popular back about 1969 or so, "Freeze punk!". I told him "Don't do that <removed>, it'll be my luck I get shot!". He laughed it off, and pulls the trigger. I grabbed my face, and he says, "Oh, don't be so dramatic!". Then he saw the blood. It hurt, a lot, and bled most of the night. We made up a story about me running into the dresser in his bedroom, and thought we got away with it, but it all got exposed when an Xray a year later showed the BB was still in my face, right under my nose, where it remains, close to 45 years later.
 
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Worse then sold it.gave it to my wife.now I not only can't shoot it I gotta look at it everytime I open the safe.
 
Had an old airsoft gun that had been dropped so many times it stopped firing. What I also didn't realize is that one pellet had been stuck inside the barrel. I was layin on the couch, just "shootin" things with it, and that pellet finally dislodged itself, and shot through one of my mother's antique vases. She almost believed the story that I tripped and knocked it over til she saw the mark on the wall from the bb bouncing off it.
 
When I was ~8 yrs old I was shooting oround the property with my pellet gun. I was getting sick of the same old targets and spied a white pvc pipe/water spigot sticking out of the ground over by the garden. I knew better than to shoot things like that but it was a longer shot than my normal range, and I thought "wonder if I can hit that pipe, I'll only try once..."

Turns out I could, it was a good shot too I might add. Much to my amazement a 20 ft geyser erupted where the spigot had been. Dad was not happy about that. I don't remember getting in much trouble though, I think it was one of those "you know what you did wrong, and I expect this to not happen again kind of things." It didn't happen again;)

Until years later of course, I think I was in like 8th grade I was out shooting magpies in the pasture. I popped over a berm and there were some ducks out quite a ways. Sometimes I just can't resist a challenge. I knew it was wrong, I did it anyway. I honestly didn't think I could hit it (even stupider reason to do it). I had to do a little kentucky windage and was really expecting them all to fly away... whap. I've always been a pretty decent shot. I carried that mallard back to the house in shame, and dad was pretty pissed about it. Mostly dissapointed I think. I was instructed to get my arse into the shop and pluck that bird before any of the neighbors saw me. Another lesson learned (the hard way) and I remember dad was boiling mad all the way up until the bird came out of the coals. We did it in the coals in aluminum foil with onions, apples, peppers... it turned out awesome. I didn't get to go shooting at all for quite awhile afterwards though.
 
About the only thing I can immediately recall is a couple of years ago when I was at my reloading bench in the basement, cleaning my SIG SP2022 .40 CCW. I had just finished, loaded and inserted the magazine. I racked the slide whilst it was pointing at my water heater- not the smartest thing to do. Fortunately, nothing happened but it was an excellent reminder to be CONSTANTLY aware of what your muzzle is pointing at!
 
I invented the hyper velocity .22, I just never perfected it. Maybe 15 years old, I pulled the bullet off a short and a LR and dumped the powder from the short into the LR case and pushed the short bullet on top.
Fired it in my Glenfield model 60. Sweet! Nice loud report. That worked, so lets try a LR bullet on a double charge. Pull the trigger, the world got confusing and my ears are ringing. When I came to my senses I was still holding the stock horizontal but the barrel was pointing at the ground. Cracked the stock almost in two.
 
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