The Guns We Own

[Matt308]

A friend ( ex USAMTU member and his family owned the largest commercial range on the east coast) once told me that if you fool around with guns long enough you will have an accidental discharge. The difference between a humbling story and a tragedy
is, as you say, MUZZLE AWARENESS.

I completely agree with your friend and I'm man enough to admit that I have done it. Years ago, I was in a hurry to clean my Browning Buckmark .22LR after an extensive camping trip. I was tired, wanted to put all the camping **** away and clean up my gun so I could rest up for work on Monday. Yanked the magazine out and began the take down process. First step is to check for empty chamber. Confirm empty. Pull trigger to begin disassembly process. Guess which one I failed to accomplish. Luckily, I am religious about keeping my muzzle in a safe direction. Next thing I know, my ears are ringing. ALWAYS KEEP YOUR MUZZLE POINTED IN A SAFE DIRECTION. EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE CHECKED, DOUBLE CHECKED AND TRIPLE CHECKED THAT THE CHAMBER IS EMPTY.

I have taught my boys to exaggerate all safety when handling firearms. Exaggerate to the point of being silly about it. And if others don't treat firearms as you would while in their presence, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.

I was a young boy about 10. We were shooting a High Standard .22LR jam-o-matic. It would often hangfire. My young friend, his dad (then owner of said gun), my dad and I were taking turns. Well his son was halfway thru a magazine and "click". First thing he did was look down the barrel. His dad lunged, shoved the gun out of his face and "BANG". Lucky young man. And I was lucky not to have witnessed him blow his brains out right in front of me. His dad immediately ended the shooting session and we went home in silence.

 

[GrauGeist]

...First thing he did was look down the barrel. His dad lunged, shoved the gun out of his face and "BANG"...

God Almighty...

I honestly cringed when I read that.

 

[Matt308]

...and you can understand why I have never forgotten it.

 

[bobbysocks]

my bosses were talking about something today i havent had trhe chance to attempt to find. supposedly a concealed weapons instructor was giving a class to certify applicants for ccw permits. he was demonstrating the quick draw method and ended up shooting a student in the arm.....

DAMN it is true......( insert face palm smiley here) ....

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/08/13/terry_dunlap_gun_safety_instructor_accident.html

 

[Torch]

Yeesh had a custom remie 700 in a .300win mag that the final touch was putting a Ti Tubbs firing pin into the bolt,what a pain that was with out the right tools,after struggling i finally managed to get it together and went downstairs to try,looked into the chamber ,looks good,slam the bolt,muzzle away ,pulled the trigger and holy crappers it goes off. What I forgot or didn't see was that the previous hunting season I was using Speer Nitrex "nickle" brass rounds,when I looked down into the mag area(SS gun) I just plain missed it. well I look up and the basement is full of plaster dust,smoke,alarms going off and I see just a .30 sized hole in the wall,I say meh I can fix that,then run upstairs and check on the dogs,they are ok,run outside to see if the round went thru the house while waving to a neighbor that's wondering what the hell was that. No holes,crap the wife will be home in less than an hour. Run back downstairs,open all windows,get the vac out,then notice crap the bullit went into the adjacent bathroom just above one of those big mirrors(started to shrapnel),look into the next bed room and the ceiling was peppered with holes(i was kneeling when the rnd went off),yipes. Get the spackle out,get the paint out,finish cleaning about 15 mins before the wife walked in. She never knew what happened until her sister blabbed it to her 8 years later. I kept the spent shell and it sits above my work bench. Wrote "one dumb F@@@" on it as a reminder. Good thing we lived in the hills at the time,nobody really noticed. The whole thing rocked my world.

 

[GrauGeist]

Holy smokes, man...that was a close call...too bad you were ratted out, though!

Several years, I was helping an officer with a gunlock in his new patrol car and the local setup here is a shotgun/rifle combo between the seats. I had to adjust the rifle lock (Mini14) and when I was done, I told him to "give 'er a try" and the officer (young guy, new to the force) popped the release and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and pulled it towards him, aiming the barrel directly at his head. I yelled "woa! Hold up there!" And proceeded to tell him that when you hit the release, grasp the receiver and push the shotgun away while lifting. This swings the barrel to the passenger side, allowing the weapon to come out butt-first. He looked a little indignant that I was chewing on his azz a little and stuck it back in the mount while telling me that "he knew what he was doing". Now bear in mind that for the shotgun lock to close, the action has to be closed on the 870, meaning it could certainly be a hazard to the officer or bystander in the event of a discharge.

Anyway, as he was placing it back into the mount, it went off. To this day, I have no idea how he managed that, but there was a deafening blast, sh!t flying everywhere and I dropped like a rock. When the smoke cleared, there was headliner dangling, a jagged hole in the roof of the Crown Vic and one very dead lightbar. Fortunately, the officer wasn't injured (except for his dignity) and I caught just a little plastic debris (lightbar lens) in the side of the head.

As the entire shop poured out in the service bay to see what happened, he turned to look at me with wide eyes and said "but it shouldn't have done that".

I looked at him (mad as hell) and said "hell yes it should, that's what they're designed to do!".

Fortunately, he survived that lesson, but his fellow officers still rib him about it to this day.

The car was eventually fixed, too...

 

[Matt308]

Yeesh had a custom remie 700 in a .300win mag .

You surely are deaf right? I'm suprised that didn't blow out the windows. I once saw an ad that stated For Sale, .300Win mag. Almost NIB. Includes box of 19 cartridges.

It's amazing how many of these tales there are out there. And before anybody jumps to conclusions, you can say the same thing about a table saw. Every knows somebody who has gone a round and lost to Mr. Table Saw.

 

[Torch]

No not deaf,just perfected the art of quick cleaning spackling and painting. It's funny,when i'm at the range I always wear eye/ear protection but when hunting I'm concentrating so much on the animal I hear very little of the shot when it goes off. As for the basement whoops I think the adrenalin kicked in so fast I hardly noticed it, some ringing but that went away after about 20mins.Lucky in more ways than one.

 

[Torch]

PS: that Remmie was nice,Douglas barrel,Timney trigger,McMillan stock,Ti firing pin,bedded,IOR Valdada scope. Shot nice groups but alas humping that thing between 8k and 11k feet in altitude got to me. Ended up with .300wsm and .270wsm rifles.

 

[Matt308]

No not deaf,just perfected the art of quick cleaning spackling and painting. It's funny,when i'm at the range I always wear eye/ear protection but when hunting I'm concentrating so much on the animal I hear very little of the shot when it goes off. As for the basement whoops I think the adrenalin kicked in so fast I hardly noticed it, some ringing but that went away after about 20mins.Lucky in more ways than one.

Interesting. I have heard the very same thing from police officers after an indoor shooting incident.

 

[mikewint]

You know 4 years in Vietnam with every weapon known to man going off at some point I/we never wore any type of hearing protector/plugs. Now one shot and my ears ring and I'm looking for the ear muffs

 

[javlin]

This really is an M1 Garand

International Harvester M1 Garand .30-06 : Semi Auto Rifles at GunBroker.com

 

[Matt308]

Blaspheme. But I recognize how many 1903s, K98s and Enfields were sportorized. But will refrain from giving my opinion.

 

[Torch]

Wow,and from the mouth of Monty Python "And now for something completely different"....Not sure i'm liking it so much

 

[javlin]

Blaspheme. But I recognize how many 1903s, K98s and Enfields were sportorized. But will refrain from giving my opinion.

Wow,and from the mouth of Monty Python "And now for something completely different"....Not sure i'm liking it so much

I knew this would not take long Yea she is butt ugly,I might go that road absolutly no cross hatching, plain jane stock and still some type of upper handguard and that is only a maybe.The gun shoots solid look like 1"MOA @75yds maybe nothing fantastic for most M1 Garand do that well @100yds easy.I have seen a fella drop 8rds in a straight line each touching each other(2.4"-2.5" line) from 100yds bench.

 

[Shortround6]

here's a few for you.


Sporterized?

Short range gun;

long range gun;

 

[Torch]

What are those puppies? interesting sights.

 

[Matt308]

Give us some specs with that gun porn will ya!?

 

[Shortround6]

Top one I think I take guesses on

Middle one is a Remington 700 Action, Hart barrel, McMillan stock.

Bottom is An RPA 2000 action, Schneider barrel, Stock is custom.

Rear sights from top to bottom are Central, Gates, and Warner.

Top and bottom are .308.

 

[Matt308]

Top is a bastardized Enfield. Trigger is throwing me. 1917 Enfield?