FTE-Lucky Me!
Well the only significant failure I’ve had was, when hunting as a youth, a jam led to a brief but bloody fight with a wild animal.
It all started innocently enough as I walked alone along through a cut over adjacent to a sand pit, with my scoped Glendfield Model 60 loaded with the cheapest rimfire ammunition I could fine. I had been shooting at whatever I could see cans, bottles, stumps and although I had not suffered any jams, the inexpensive ammunition would throw hot gunpowder into my face as it was ejected from the semiautomatic. As I plinked along, thinking what it must be like to hunt big game in Africa, I was not paying attention to my surroundings and the dangers that lurked there.
As I stepped up on a 20 foot long or so blow down I saw the broad back of a muscular chipmunk sitting on the other end of the log. I drew my weapon to my shoulder and looking through the 4X scope the beast almost filled the field of view. Thinking it unsporting to use the scope at close range I first dropped down to the iron sights and then with the same reasoning I placed the rifles stock to my hip.
The shot range out dislodging a piece of Oak a few inches to the right of the target. Instead of running off as I had expected, the beast swung around to face me. It was then that I saw it’s hideous face, with huge cheeks stuffed full what I would latter discover were acorns, and a set of huge teeth. In an instant the angry animal stood on its hind legs, let out a shrill squeak and charged. I was unprepared, but regaining my composure as the angry animal closed the distance in 6 or 8†increments, I brought my rifle into play and attempted to fire a second shot.
The rifle didn’t fire and I had no time for an immediate action drill. A picture of those huge teeth penetrating my Keds ran through my mind, “Dam why didn’t I wear boots†I thought as the attacker neared. I snapped out of my doldrums and grabbing the rifle by its barrel I struck out with the guns stock, as I looked down over barrel and stock. It was a glancing blow but I immediately finished the job with a second blow, and the beast slid off the blow down leaving a bloody spot and crushed acorns.
I sat down on the log trying to regain my composure while rerunning the events of attack in my mind. I was shaken, as I had never been charged by a wild animal before. It was then I realized, as I had smashed my rifle stock into the attacker, I had been looking down the barrel and stock of my rifle, which I had pointed at my head. I remembered that I had earlier fired the rifle by hitting the stock on a stump as a test. I looked at the action and realized that a spent shell stuck there has stopped the rifle from discharging, I got very nervous. Unloading the rifle and I walked home while keeping an eye out for a vengeful relative of the Chipmunk.
To this day when I sit on the forest floor with 629 in hand, waiting for a Black bear to go to the bait, I nervously scan the trees for chipmunks.
jdkelly
