Unintentional discharge story

J

JT-AR-MG42

New member
Striker fired

Hook,

I am not familiar with the Davis, but am assuming it is a striker fired pistol as opposed to a hammer fired one.

In my limited experience with the 'cheaper' versions of them ( excluding more modern designs like my P99 or the Glock series ) the stiker/sear arrangement is, by nature, rather weak. Springs can take a weakened set and misaligned or improperly treated parts tend to wear quickly.

I just don't believe this sort of handgun was meant to be dry fired much.


I also second the good common sense of the 'shooter' for his muzzle control. It saved a tragedy. Just my take. JT
 
Q

Quentin2

New member
Hearing about these kinds of incidents is always scary especially when it has happened to you. And as already mentioned unintentional discharges can happen with quality firearms too.

Decades ago I took my brand new Colt 1911 to a well respected gunsmith for a trigger job. I took it out to the desert to test and it went full auto with a full magazine. It's a miracle I held on to it and didn't get hurt. Firing one handed there was no way I could stop it from climbing and the last rounds were firing straight up! Or even over my shoulder.

A new sear and hammer solved the problem but no way that should happen and I shudder to think how much worse it could have been if others had been nearby when it happened.
 
H

Hook686

New member
That experience tells me the first loaded magazine, of a self loading firearm, ought be limited to 2, or 3 rounds. I do like my revolvers even more after reading stories such as this.
 
Q

Quentin2

New member
Yep! Ever since that I only put two rounds in the magazine of a gun I've never fired before. That's something you don't forget! :eek:
 
R

rodwhaincamo

New member
A similar thing happened to my father many moons ago. Inserted a loaded magazine into his Jennings J-22, pulled the slide, which slipped and fired a round into his bed. At least he was pointing it in a safe direction!
 
H

hammie

New member
my accidental discharge story
Several decades ago, my best friend had a standard ruger auto .22 pistol. It had been returned after loaning it to another individual. My friend pulled the pistol's bolt back and released it, to see if any round ejected from the chamber. He next released the magazine and found it empty. He then pointed the pistol at his mother's TV set and pulled the trigger to release the striker spring. I got to his house just after that point in time to find my friend staring dumbfounded at the pistol, his mother screaming at him, and glass all over the living room. The pistol had ben returned with an empty chamber and one round in the magazine. Needless to say, he had to go out that afternoon and buy his mother a new TV set.
 
E

Evan Thomas

New member
Hate to say it, but your story is a textbook example of why they're now called negligent discharges. There wasn't much "accidental" about that. :barf:

I hope Mommy took your friend's gun away... but then, I guess TV sets were more expensive then, so perhaps he learned something...
:rolleyes:
 
S

spacemanspiff

New member
Stories like this make me think twice before loading a weapon while I am at home. Not with newer manufactured firearms usually, but older ones, C&R type.

I aint no 'smith, theres a lot about a weapon I wouldn't know to check for functionivity.

Yes I just made up that word.
 
E

Evan Thomas

New member
dgludwig said:
There wasn't much "accidental" about that.
Click to expand...
Except that he didn't do it on purpose.
Click to expand...
He "on purpose" pointed the gun at the TV and pulled the trigger, after attempting to clear it in a way that's, umm, sorta not recommended: work slide, then drop magazine!!?? Call it dumb, or ignorant, or whatever... I think "negligent" is quite a mild word for this.
 
D

dgludwig

New member
What's with the semantics? Okay, hammie's friend didn't purposely have a negligent discharge. Yes, it was stupid, dangerous and unacceptable. It also happened "several decades ago" and was recounted here as a "teaching moment" and I, for one, appreciated the telling of it. Time to move on.
 
P

pax

New member
dgludwig,

Teaching moments only count if people LEARN from them. Trying to erase the sting also erases the lesson. It's well-meaning, I understand. It's also ... well, bad.

So here's the lesson:

1) All guns are ALWAYS loaded. Treat them so. If some moron tries to tell you, "It's okay, the gun's not loaded" -- make sure that moron isn't yourself.

2) Don't point the gun at anything you aren't willing to destroy. If buying mommy a new TV set doesn't sound like joyous fun to you, don't point the bangstick at it.

3) Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target. A "target" is not a piece of paper on the range. It is somewhere you are willing to put the bullet. If you cannot see such a place in your immediate environment, keep your boogerhook up your nose where it belongs. Oh, and if you don't believe there is a freaking bullet, you just violated rule one.

4) Be sure of your target and what's beyond. If mommy is sleeping in the room behind that TV set, you'll have a lot more explaining to do than just stammering out some lame excuse about what might have happened to her precious Sony. If you're very very lucky, you might even get to make that explanation to her while her heart is still beating.

Violating ALL FOUR of the most basic guidelines for gunhandling is not something that "just happens" to someone, like getting struck by lightning out of a clear blue sky. It does have a cause. That cause is lazy gun handling habits, or negligence.

So don't be too quick to dismiss the difference between "negligence" versus "accident" as mere semantics, because it's the crucial difference between a tragedy that CAN be avoided, and one that can't.

pax
 
T

trooper3385

New member
A coupe of years ago, my dad bought a Savage model 99. He got a real good deal on it and it was in excellent shape. The first time he took it out to the range, all was going good for the first couple of shots, although he did notice that the gun had a real light trigger pull. Then he chambered a round and put it on safety. When he got ready to fire another shot, he flipped the safety off and the gun fired. He unloaded the gun and after that, every time he would flip the gun off safety, the firing pin would drop. Long story short, it turns out the previous owner apparently filed the sears to much.
 
D

dgludwig

New member
So don't be too quick to dismiss the difference between "negligence" versus "accident" as mere semantics, because it's the crucial difference between a tragedy that CAN be avoided, and one that can't.
Click to expand...

Nobody's "dismissing" anything. I called the act stupid, dangerous and unacceptable-those adjectives should certainly convey negligence. When you run a stop sign and hit another car it's called an accident-even though almost nothing is really an accident if your definition of an accident is an occurrence that could have been avoided, "if only." Short of blacking out due to some previously undetected medical cause, I can't envision a scenario where running a stop sign wouldn't involve "negligence". Yet, we call it an accident because the driver didn't mean for it to happen. In law, you are being negligent if you run that same stop sign while you're driving drunk and strike another car-but still an accident because no one intended for the act to happen.

If you don't think semantics are involved here, I'm quoting from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary for the word "accident": " An unfortunate event resulting from carelessness, unawareness, or ignorance..." I think that definition comes pretty close to what hammie's friend did on that unfortunate day those many years ago. It was and is a lesson to be learned and when I describe an act as being "stupid, dangerous and unacceptable", it should be pretty clear that I'm not "trying to erase the sting" of the lesson.
 
Last edited:
L

larryh1108

New member
I had an AD the other day. I was dumb founded. I found the reason for the AD but won't mention it here until later today to see if anyone can pinpoint what happened. My conclusion is my opinion and maybe someone else can figure out the reason or a different reason.

I work on my own handguns. I was having an extraction/ejection issue with a .22LR pistol and had removed and replaced the extractor many times without totally fixing the issue. Sometimes it would extract the round perfectly and other times it would not extract at all. Without boring anyone with the details of my different "fixes" (I am going to the range later today to see if the issue was fixed) I want to share this story to prevent anyone else from having this happen and to get other opinions of what happened.

As mentioned, my rounds would not extract all of the time. The last time I tweaked the extractor, I loaded my mag with 10 rounds and walked over to a safe part of the house to hand rack the rounds thru the gun to watch the extraction. Because I am working with live ammo, I removed the firing pin to prevent ADs and for obvious safety reasons. Knowing there is no firing pin in my handgun is why I used live ammo vs snap caps. I had been working on this issue off and on for a month (as time allowed) and I preferred live ammo because it was intermittent and I wanted to duplicate it as best I could.

Now, keep in mind there is no firing pin in my rimfire .22. I walk to the safe part of the house and rack #1, rack #2 and all of a sudden the gun goes off! BANG! A tiny hole in the floor (nothing under the floor which is why I chose that area). Now, I am dumbfounded. I've never had a AD, ND or anything like this. I always practice muzzle control but I was as shocked and mixed up as I could be. Of course, all the thoughts of what could have been went thru my head but how could a gun with no firing pin in it go off?

I will explain what I feel happened later today. I'd like to know what anyone else here feels happened since I am guessing at my reasoning (but am 95% sure it's the answer). It all goes back to even though I KNEW it would not fire, it still did. I hope at least one person learns something here because I sure did.
 
S

Sport45

New member
Sounds easy enough. The round fed ahead of the extractor. The extractor was adjusted in too far and struck the rim.
 
P

pax

New member
Sport45 nailed it, I think.

Incidentally, the potential for that type of mishap is the reason it's a bad idea to cover the ejection port with your hand while racking the slide. Catching the ejected round with your hand looks cool. Catching a small, poorly-contained explosion with your hand, notsomuch.

pax
 
L

larryh1108

New member
Yep, I didn't think I'd stump too many people here. The slide pushed the new round into the back of the old round and set off the round still in the chamber. If you think you cannot fire a gun without a firing pin in place, you are mistaken. It just shows that always practicing safe handling is a must. Even if you use snap caps you must still act like it is loaded because you can pick up sloppy handling that way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top