range accident yesterday
working with my sons girlfriend shooting my 649 smith. i noticed she was anticipating recoil and was shooting very low. to demonstrate this to her i loaded the cylinder with two live rounds and then skipped a hole and loaded a third live round. why i put that third round in there i will never know. anyway she fired the first two and then the empty, bad flinch. so i had her hand me the gun and was explaining what she had done. started to open the cylinder and found it would not open, cylinder would not rotate. was holding the gun by the grip in my right hand and had my left hand on the cylinder to help it open. when nothing happened i looked at the gun and saw the hammer was back, put my right hand thumb on the trigger and pulled the trigger. BAM! hammer slipped from under my thumb and fired that third round. burned my left thumb and forefinger pretty good. the only good thing was i had the gun pointed at the ground and about four feet to the front. scared the HELL out of me. maybe i'm getting too old for this.
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sometimes its a matter of when not if
just be glad you had the thought to keep it pointed down and away
why it is such a good rule , write it off as a very scary learning occurrence and any one with you . I am sure gained a lot of respect for handling a gun
glad no one was injured and only a burnt hand , and underwear change was needed0 -
keep it pointed downrange. that's why 0 -
can we call that a ND
You are lucky0 -
Unexpected things happen. That's why following good gun safety most accidents turn out okay.. 0 -
Good habits - that have become autonomic functions like breathing saves lives...
Once at my range I watched a guy who was a muzzle loading expert and reenactor shooting...
He had a learned unconscious rhythm and pattern to his loading and shooting - something he had done thousands of times - no longer requiring conscious thought
When he reloaded he always tilted the muzzle away from him slightly by a few degrees - angled slightly not straight upright or against his body
I had watched him shoot for 20+ years as a range safety officer and fellow shooter and new him to be safe and precise - he was casually chatting to the guy next to him as he fired and reloaded
As he tilted the gun away from him slightly through force of habit the load cooked off and fired with the ramrod still in the bbl - hammer down (I assume a hot cinder of some sort was still lit and injured smoldering inside)
The ramrod as it left the bbl caught the brim of his hat and knocked it off of his head - the projectile close behind (which punched a hole in the overhead rooftop cover)
Had he not tilted the muzzle away slightly when ramming the load in the rod and minnie ball would have punched through his jaw and out the top of his head
Safe handling practices is the only reason he was not killed on the spot.
On another occasion during a dcm / cmp shoot the man to my right inserted the 8 round enbloc clip into his grand and allowed the action to close / bolt to drop...
He was also an expert shooter and gunsmith whom I had shot with and observed for 20+ years as a range officer and fellow shooter
Unconsciously - without thought as an autonomic automatic burned behavior he had the muzzle safely pointed downrange as he loaded the gun
When he dropped the bolt the gun fired - slam fired and he was so startled the gun fell to the ground - and continued to fire by itself till all 8 rounds were expended
Turns out the firing pin broke - and was protruding slightly from the bolt - enough to detonate the primer when the action closed - dropped
The gun cycled through the balance of the clip on the ground by itself - as the broken firing pin was locked in its unnatural protruding position - a once in a million malfunction that should never have occurred
Had he not been pointing the muzzle in a safe direction as a learned burned behavior it's likely that someone would have been shot and killed (possibly me)
I have witnessed a handful of similar unbelievable failures or malfunction were if not for safe handling practices someone would be dead
In fact the time I got shot was a similar impossible malfunction
You did good - you did right - and you won't ever repeat it
Mike0 -
I tell anyone I'm teaching to shoot. If you shoot enough, at some point, you are going to have a gun go off when you don't mean for it to. The difference between a surprise and a tragedy is where the gun is pointed.
Mechanical failures, in this case thumb failure, things can happen. Keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.0 -
Glad no one was seriously hurt, one of those things that makes you more careful going forward. 0
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