Close calls anyone?

[teejay422]

How many of you guys have had a close call? I'm talking about an almost accident that had you checking your shorts and scratching your head thinking, "How in the hell did that just happen?" I wanna know what happened and what you learned from it.

While posting in another thread I thought of a close call I had a while back that actually involved an LEO. This particular LEO happened to be my girlfriends dad. He carries a Kimber Gold Match with a stainless slide and Cherry grips as his duty piece. All I carry is a G19, so I had been drooling over his Kimber since the first time I saw it. I finally got him to come out to the range with me to try out my new AR 15.
I let him pop off a couple magazines and when the bolt locked back he dropped the mag and set the rifle down. Then he took his Kimber out of its holster and set it on the table with the muzzle pointing down range. He told me he hadn't shot it since his last range trip the week before but a round was in the chamber safety on, hammer down.
I picked it up and It felt great. Heavier than my G19, not quite as heavy as my 44 mag, but well balanced. I pulled back the hammer, safety off and fired the first shot. Right where I was aiming and the kick was more than manageable. I took aim for my second shot and "click" nothing. At this point I'm thinking, "Did I just break my girlfriends dad's favorite gun?"
I then realized I could handle the situation and dropped the mag, racked the slide and as I did a .40 cal round falls out of the end of the barrel. I checked the rest of the mag before continuing but realized that could have went a lot worse a lot of ways. Next time, I'm loading the mag if I'm going to shoot.

 

[kcw12]

Had a side lock muzzle loader, sear didn't engage (no way hades finger was on trigger was holding gun and cocking back hammer) hammer goes forward and it goes boom luckly i had it in a safe direction. Still hit the ground and took out a shed window.

 

[indyjoe]

My only "stupid me" close call came about a year after I got my LTCH and was in college. I took a co-op job for a year and was living in a not great location. A duplex with car ports between them. For $210 a month, it was really a shack, but fit my college budget.

So being a stupid poor college student, I purchased a cheap nylon "fits most compact sized" holster. I was carrying a Kel-Tec P11. When I bent down to pick up a package that I had received, at my door inside the car ports, it all started. The P11 squirted out of the holster and fell. It hit muzzle exactly down. This caused the firing pin to nail the primer hard enough to set off the 9 mm Federal HydroShok I was carrying in it.

If you have never heard a gun shot in a partially or fully enclosed space, it scares the crap out of you. Especially when you aren't expecting it. Since the muzzle was pointing directly at the concrete, the hollowpoint almost immediately mushroomed. The jacket came off and a few pieces went into my leg. (Not very deep.)

This could have been real bad. Glock's have a safety to make this not happen with a muzzle or breach hit. Kel-Tec fixed the pistol and did me right. They sent info about their drop tests. I think it was a freak occurrence with the conditions aligning just right. I have not problem carrying the P11 and still own that firearm.

Lesson to take from it?

I WILL NOT CARRY IT OR ANY OTHER GUN IN A CHEAP ASS HOLSTER EVER AGAIN.

 

[melensdad]

Then he took his Kimber out of its holster and set it on the table with the muzzle pointing down range. He told me he hadn't shot it since his last range trip the week before but a round was in the chamber safety on, hammer down.

Safety on, hammer down?

None of my 1911 guns will do that. Hammer down = safety off.

 

[Cru]

My closest call was one of trusting that a friend knew what he was doing.

At the time I didn't own any firearms, and didn't know much about them. I went to visit a friend and he wanted to show me some new stuff he had purchased. Long story short he was showing me a 9mm SBR looking thing (I honestly don't remember what it was, sort of looked like an MP5, this was 10+ years ago.) Anyway, he believes it's unloaded and pulls the trigger and the thing goes off. The bullet hole in his apartment bedroom wall was 6 inches from where I was sitting. I was PISSED (obviously) and I didn't hang out at his place ever again.

The exit hole in the common hallway was really big and there was a re-entry hole in the wall going into the corner of the adjacent unit. I don't know what ever happened with the situation because I left. THAT was a sobering experience for me and the reason I took safety lessons from an instructor when I first started shooting myself.

 

[thompal]

The exit hole in the common hallway was really big and there was a re-entry hole in the wall going into the corner of the adjacent unit. I don't know what ever happened with the situation because I left. THAT was a sobering experience for me and the reason I took safety lessons from an instructor when I first started shooting myself.

Hopefully, you haven't been shooting yourself at all.

 

[Cru]

Hopefully, you haven't been shooting yourself at all.

It took me a minute to get that, but yeah I see how I could have worded that better.

 

[dr632]

#1 - At a 3 day pistol course last Sep'09, the person to my left on the line was struggling with her pistol. On day #2 she finally achieved the ND ... I figured was coming eventually. As I looked down at the ground between us, I could see the 9mm hole about 18" from my left foot at about 11 o'clock. ... too close for me ...

#2 - last year on a hunt, my PH kept handing me his Musgrave 30-06 with a round in the chamber. I asked him several times to not load the rifle and assured him we had plenty of time to chamber a round when we decided to stalk/take an animal. It was not his nature. So, the first thing I did each time he handed me the rifle was clear the weapon. Midway through the hunt, as I was clearing the rifle - after he handed it to me as we exited the back of the vehicle - one of the eyepieces of my bino's (held on my chest with those bino caddy's) had found it's way inside the trigger guard and was against the trigger. I had my left hand on the forearm supporting the rifle and my right hand on the bolt. The PH was watching me and he saw the entire thing - so we could only conclude it was the bino eyepiece. We inspected his rifle afterwards to see if there was a problem.

Fortunately my muscle memory on the 4 safety rules was sufficient and the muzzle in a direction exactly away from us and the truck and pointed in a direction of a small birm about 50 yards away. But anytime a firearm is discharged when no one is expecting, it scare you for sure.

Believe it or not, the PH continued to chamber a round in this rifle even after that ND. So, I continued to clear the rifle each time, but this time with my arms extended a bit to keep the trigger well away from my bino's.

I thought it interesting that this Musgrave required the safety to be in the off position in order to open the action with a round in the chamber. I guess that is common with rifles of this era? I think I remember one of my father's bolt action rifles also requires the safety to be in the off position to open the action with a round in the chamber. So ... lesson #2 also includes being familiar with the firearm to the point of unconscious competence, so your muscle memory programming compliments your conscious competent mindset.



1) treat all weapons as if they are loaded, always, all the time.
2) never cover anything with the muzzle you do not wish to destroy
3) finger off the trigger until ready to fire at your desired target
4) be sure of the target and what is beyond

 

[Naptown]

Believe it or not, the PH continued to chamber a round in this rifle even after that ND.

Sounds like you need to find a new hunting partner.

 

[backtrail540]

Safety on, hammer down?

None of my 1911 guns will do that. Hammer down = safety off.

I caught that also. He actually carries his 1911 hammer down on a live round? I always thought that was a no-no.

 

[Eddie]

My wife made cookies this evening. She set them out to cool near where I was cooking. When she came back two were missing. I blamed the kids. Close call!

 

[Joy'sdad]

Thirty years ago or so when there were grouse in Indiana I was hunting with a young man when his gun jammed. He pulled it down and started to look down the barrel and the thing went off. It didn't take his hat off but I don't know why. I had him unload the thing and took him home. It was his dad's gun and I don't know what they ever decided happened but I never hunted with him again. Can't imagine how I would have handled that situation if it had turned sour!

 

[The Bubba Effect]

A few years ago I was deer hunting with two experienced adult male hunters who I had hunted with for years and a young lady that I was romantically interested in. She had mentioned that her roommate's boyfriend took her roommate hunting and she wanted to try it, blah, blah, blah.

So, I take the young lady and head out to walk around in the woods/explore an abandoned house I knew about/ whatever I could get away with. My two buddies headed to another part of the property. Our two groups would be about 1/2 mile apart, hunting with slug guns. We were hunting in hilly country. We knew where each other more or less were going to be and I knew the other two guys knew what they were doing regarding "safe shots". I felt like we had things under control.

So, about the time I'm doing my best to dazzle the young lady with my "great white hunter" routine, showing her game trails and rubs and scrapes and working my way towards the abandoned house, I hear the worst thing I've ever heard.

Buzzz THWACK!....boom. Buzzzz THWACK!.....boom. We're up on a little ridge and I take off down a steep hill (putting the hillside between me and the source of the booming) screaming for her to follow me. Buzzzzzz THWACK!........boom. I look up and she's just standing there on top of the ridge, looking at me confused, starting to cry a little bit because I've gone from "friendly Bubba Effect" to "screaming orders Bubba effect" in about half a second and she doesn't understand what's going on and why I'm so mad at her. I quickly get her down the hill and tuck us behind a large tree for good measure. We hear about six more shots and I explain that we are hearing rounds hitting the trees around us. After the shooting stops, we wait for a good bit and work our way down the holler and double back a holler farther away from the shooting and back to the trucks.

My hunting buddies had apparently seen a deer across a long beanfield and knowing that it was out of their rational range, were elevating their guns way over the deer in hopes of lobbing them in. They made all kinds of excuses and I said all kinds of impolite things and the girl just shuffled her feet while I was yelling.

That was awful and I'm still angry about it.

She did go hunting with me again, but it was just the two of us and it went sooooo much better.

 

[LtScott14]

Not a ND/AD story, but had 2 people approach me while at a state shooting range. One, a scruffy looking male and his girlfriend. They asked if they could fire one of my firearms at the range, I politely declined and was packing up to go home. This was before DNR had anybody on site, and we were the only ones there.

The female told me that her boyfriend was a former vet(Navy)and knew how to handle guns. When I opened my tailgate to load the ammo, carrying cases, targets, my POLICE raid jacket was folded in the trunk:When they saw it they walked right away without saying goodbye.
Wonder if I had given up a pistol to fire if I would have been robbed or killed? I had been trained to never loan a firearm to someone I did not trust, the little voice in my head said" Don't do it", glad I listened.
Note: From that experience, while at the range, I have always carried a ccw under my shirt, cocked and locked. Never shoot your last mag of ammo, unless you have a BUG.

 

[semperfi211]

A few years ago I was deer hunting with my S&W 629. I worked the night before, so I was a little sleep deprived. Around sunrise I saw some deer movement and cocked the hammer back, after watching and waiting for a while I never got a shot at the deer. I was confident the deer was gone and decided to let the hammer down. So I put my thumb on the hammer and pulled the trigger to ease it down and all went well. After I was done lowering the hammer I realized I was resting the barrel on my knee at an angle into my knee. I thought holly s**T I don't believe I just did that. A combo of buck fever and sleep deprivation could have made that a bad morning. I learned not to ever let that happen again.

 

[FatGeek]

I caught that also. He actually carries his 1911 hammer down on a live round? I always thought that was a no-no.

It is unless you like the hammer pushing the firing pin down to a couple thousandths from the primer.

 

[DarkRose]

My closest call wasn't excactly a close call, but it would have been had I not been aware...
Had taken my little Marlin bolt action .22 to a local DNR range on land owned by a private company (CERAland park in Columbus, owned by Cummins Inc as an employee park, but the range is public as it was built by the DNR). Their rules state you have to have one of their "range officers" present to shoot unless you've gone through THEIR safety course... Anywhoo... Got some kid that looked like he was barely old enough to drive...
Was trying to use up some cheap JUNK "russian sniper" .22LR my dad had bought because he wanted the wood case and it was a good deal (too good, way too good...)
I noticed some inconistancies right away... First round hits 50 yard target within 1" of bull, next round bounces off the concrete 10' in front of target... On my 2nd or 3rd clip I hear the pop and see no dust or hit... pull put the clip, open the bolt, check the rifle over... bullet nose just barely poking out of the muzzle... pulled it out by hand easily... 2 clips later, same thing, case ejects, see no bullet, pull bolt out, look down barrel (from the breech)... BLOCKED... Didn't bring a cleaning rod, so start walking the edge of the range looking for a nice long thin stick, finally found one.
Meanwhile... back at the ranch... the kid "supervising" me (sitting on the trunk of his car listening to the radio with no hearing protection) hears me stop shooting and comes over asking what's going on. Explain to him I have a bullet lodged due to junk ammo. He asks....

Wait for it...

"Why can't you just shoot it out?"

REALLY? Give him the quick and dirty of what could happen and he just looks confused and walks away...

Called the local sheriff later about disposing of ammo, he said unwrap it all from the wax paper and bury it, lol.

I don't go to the range without a cleaning rod anymore...

 

[DarkRose]

Another close call, not with firearms, but important lesson to be learned...

Happened to my dad several years back...

He and his buddy were bowhunting on the 40 acres my parents own... Dad hears steps coming down the deer trail, sees an opening in the brush, sees brown animal walk by, so he stands up in his treestand and draws... When the noise walks out into a clear area, it's a large chestnut horse, with a 15 year old girl on the back... Dad yells in surprise, she looks up and bladder lets go...
Turns out her and her father ahd been looking for some cattle that got out when someone had left a gate open and they'd become separated and she was lost... Dad got her back to a place she knew, and all ended well.

ALWAYS be SURE of your target.
If dad had release into the small "brush window" there would have been a much different ending to the story...