Your sideblast horror story

[Remander]

I once had a piece of sideblast, about 1/2 inch long sliver, come out of a buddy's .44 mag. and impale itself just under my right eye.

I was standing about 10 feet away, directly even with him.

Must have had a barb like a fishhook, as it was tough to remove.


That was when I was young and dumb. Now I have a healthy fear of sideblast and love of eye protection.

Many folks seem to doubt my story or not really worry about sideblast.


Any of you guys have similar incidents to share with doubters?

 

[C.R.Sam]

That was more like a revolver firing out of time and shaving the bullet.
Dangerous to shooter and all around.

I find one that spits metal, I put it out of comission until fixed.

yes...eye protection is wise, all the time.

Sam

 

[Pappy John]

One of my deer camp buddies has a Taurus .454 that did things like that when new. Even the shooter wasn't safe, so we weren't sure if it was timing or the barrel porting wasn't cut right, since we couldn't figure out how the shooter could get cut from shrapnel out of the B/C gap. Taurus did fix it though under warrenty.

 

[mete]

Back around 1980 when I was very involved with metallic silhouette S&W 44 mags had a reputation of spitting lead. S&W then redesigned the forcing cone eliminating the problem. If you have the problem get it repaired.

 

[PJR]

Years ago at a rental range in California I checked out a Colt Trooper and while firing with a two hand hold, a sliver of lead drilled into the tip of my left thumb. Stung like blazes and bled a bit when I tweezered it out. My first and only gunshot wound. I have never fired a Colt Trooper since.

 

[SnWnMe]

Well, one day we were out shooting on public land and my buddy touched off a round from his Trail Boss 629 not noticing that I was standing a few feet abreast of the muzzle. Talk about feeling the heat! Man those short barrel 44s can spew fireballs! It's funny now in retrospect.

 

[Sven]

Got hit just below the eye by a 'shaver' off a new S&W revolver. Gunsmith standing there said, "send it back to S&W", wouldn't work on it.

 

[Blueduck]

If nothing else it taught me not to read gun magazines...

When I was 14 read an article in some rag about "long range sixgunning". Showed a picture of some name gunwriter of the time showing off his "patented" shooting position basically laying on his back with the revolver supported by the side of his leg (hard to describe). Dumb me, yep I tried it with my 586, nice marks on my leg from the cylinder blast even through jeans.

Went back looked at the mag again and yep the B/C gap was lined up just right to get him as well. Guess he spent so much time writing about his great new position he forgot to actually try it out...

 

[treeprof]

A month or so ago, a fella at the range was trying out his brand new .44 Super Blackhawk. He wrapped his support hand around the end of the cylinder and rear of the bbl lug, and proceeeded to fire the first shot before i could stop him. Nasty burns on side of his thumb and pinky.

 

[Mannlicher]

I have never seen anything like that, in 50 years of shooting

 

[Standing Wolf]

I tend to stand back. When I see people shooting new guns in big calibers, I tend to stand way back.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Safety glasses with side protection and a billed hat (or hat w/360 degree cover) is a must.

Had sideblast at a public range and besides molten specs, it caused me to flinch everytime the other guy fired. I gave up and stood back until he finished.

 

[Hal]

patented" shooting position basically laying on his back with the revolver supported by the side of his leg (hard to describe

Blue,
You missed the details in the article. Thats a common silhouette shooting position.



You're supposed to use a blast shield

 

[Blueduck]

Hal, in the last 19 years since I read that article I've pretty much settled on just shooting while up on my hind legs and not worrying about it

 

[45R]

At one of our first Sacramento THR meets one of the members was shooting a .357 Mag with full house loads. I had set my spotting scope next to the his shooting station.

Well another member stuck his head into the spotting scope to see how well he was shooting right at the other member pulled the trigger on the .357 His ear was directly in line with the front of the muzzle. Thank goodness for hearing protection. I saw him jump a few feet!!!!!

Thank goodness for ear and eye protection!!!!!!

 

[Johnny Guest]

Reclining position

Blueduck wrote:

When I was 14 read an article in some rag about "long range sixgunning". Showed a picture of some name gunwriter of the time showing off his "patented" shooting position basically laying on his back with the revolver supported by the side of his leg (hard to describe).

Interesting thing - - - I'm in the process of re-reading Elmer Keith's classic book Sixguns. He describes the reclining posiiton, and includes a few photographs of him demonstrating it. He mentions in the text that this can "mark up" your Levi's jeans.

Back in his day, the cowpunchers wore the old, "stiff as iron" 14-to-16 ounce denim blue jeans, which had a lot more body than the light weight ones we mostly wear nowadays. Also, in Montana and Idaho, where he spent most of his life, it was common to wear long underwear from the fall til mid-spring. His heavy .44 Special and .45 Colt loads probably didn't emit much less heat than out modern revolver loads, he just wore more clothing on his lower legs. Also, E. Keith was a pretty tough hombre.


My only bad experience was catching some minor lead shavings from a guy shooting some foreign-made single action .357 with lead bullet loads. I was trying to shoot from one benchrest, and he was sitting too far to the rear at the next bench. Not really unsafe, but annoying. I just asked him to let me know when he was finished, and went for a soft drink.

Best,
Johnny

 

[coldshot03/04]

Never ever stand close by someone firing a revolver. Or you'll be like like heh? heh? all of the time.

 

[WonderNine]

Yea...I had a Ruger SP-101 .357 would would spit lead back at my face every 15 rounds or so.

Eye protection??? What's that???

Kidding, I finally got some eye protection a couple months ago.

But it usually only happened with S&B 158gr. .357 ammo (of course that was mostly all I shot) and the lockup was tight and seemed straight.

The primer hits were not centered, but I know that doesn't mean it was out of time.

I don't know....

 

[Dr.Rob]

Using binos as a spotting scope for my dad testing out Dan Wesson 357 maximum. Rainy day, bench covered with light film of water.

The pistol goes off and suddenly the bench is NOT covered with water and I am, and it felt like I had just gotten sanblasted.

No lead spitting but that 357 Max sure has a hell of a lot of sparrks etc coming out of the cylinder gap. We adjusted the gap and tried it again, (without me sitting next to it) similar results. The 357 max just does that, same thing happens with a Ruger Super Blackhawk in 357 max.