Embarrassing gun related incidents

[scallop]

I was a young fella, maybe 12 or 13. I was allowed all of the guns in the house, and was no longer supervised. Except for Dads 1851 Navy. I wasn't allowed to use the 1851 Navy. Not understanding why, I'd seen it loaded and fired a hundred times. Always one load at a time. That seems too tame for me, so I load all 6 and head for the back yard. Pull the trigger and the damn thing bucked and kicked so hard it flew from my hand. What to do now, I've got 5 more shots to take. I braced myself and fired again. Nothing but the cap, now I have real trouble. I opened the cylinder, and that first shot had blown every second cylinder load out, leaving the other 3 intact. Had any of the other 3 cylinders also fired, I'd have blown up the frame of the gun, causing untold damage to my young hand, with no one home. In any case, I got the other 3 cylinders fired, cleaned that thing for about 2 hours, and put it away.

Nothing was ever said.

Chain firings are what make me nervous about cap and ball revolvers. Bad JuJu and you are a lucky pup indeed. A good dose of bore butter around each cylinder/cap will go a long way to prevent them. Still much prefer a modern metallic cartridge

 

[T.C.]

Not exactly a firearm in the conventional sense...

I was a brand new Sergeant, fresh from PLDC. I'd been a gunner on the Abrams tank for over a year as a Specialist, always under the supervision of an experienced Tank Commander. But now, I was on my own, shooting for a brand new 2LT, fresh from school. We'd completed gunnery, qualifying our new crew on our first run with a good score. We had moved on to the Command Live Fire exercise; where all the command vehicles would simulate a full battalion attack. This had been planned for months, requiring Fort Riley to rearrange targets, recertify danger zones, plan movement routes; the whole nine yards.

We had a strange lot of training High Explosive Anti Tank (HEAT) rounds that year, that wouldn't fly right. But my tank could shoot them straight. So, we loaded up all the HEAT for the entire battalion, and we did the day run. It was July in Kansas, and very hot, so I had some rags down there to wipe the sweat from my face. We go into the night, and we have alot of HEAT ammo, while every other command vehicle has only two sabot rounds. We'd all shoot those two rounds, and then... it was up to us, since we'd have the only main gun ammo left! We were on! The spotlight was on us; everyone from all the leaders in the battalion, the Brigade command team, even the Assistant Division Commander would be watching us nail targets that night.

So we start the exercise, and shoot our first round. Target! Our loader reloads, and we line up on another target, the TC gives the command, I pull the trigger....MISFIRE! We execute the misfire procedures...nothing. By now, everyone notices that no main gun rounds are flying downrange from us. The Battalion Commander calls us to as what's up. We tell him we're working it. We do some very fast work...and nothing. The Battalion Commander sends the Battalion Master Gunner to find out what's wrong, why we're screwing up the entire exercise. He get in...and quickly finds out that the recoil from that first main gun round had dragged my sweat rags into the firing contacts and we were done for. We have to stop the entire exercise. We have to explain to the Battalion Commander, the Battalion CSM, the Brigade Commander, the Brigade CSM, and the 1 star Assistant Division Commander what happened.

I have never been so embarrassed. And I am now very knowledgeable in the inner workings of the main gun.

 

[Wookie]

Not exactly a firearm in the conventional sense...

I was a brand new Sergeant, fresh from PLDC. I'd been a gunner on the Abrams tank for over a year as a Specialist, always under the supervision of an experienced Tank Commander. But now, I was on my own, shooting for a brand new 2LT, fresh from school. We'd completed gunnery, qualifying our new crew on our first run with a good score. We had moved on to the Command Live Fire exercise; where all the command vehicles would simulate a full battalion attack. This had been planned for months, requiring Fort Riley to rearrange targets, recertify danger zones, plan movement routes; the whole nine yards.

We had a strange lot of training High Explosive Anti Tank (HEAT) rounds that year, that wouldn't fly right. But my tank could shoot them straight. So, we loaded up all the HEAT for the entire battalion, and we did the day run. It was July in Kansas, and very hot, so I had some rags down there to wipe the sweat from my face. We go into the night, and we have alot of HEAT ammo, while every other command vehicle has only two sabot rounds. We'd all shoot those two rounds, and then... it was up to us, since we'd have the only main gun ammo left! We were on! The spotlight was on us; everyone from all the leaders in the battalion, the Brigade command team, even the Assistant Division Commander would be watching us nail targets that night.

So we start the exercise, and shoot our first round. Target! Our loader reloads, and we line up on another target, the TC gives the command, I pull the trigger....MISFIRE! We execute the misfire procedures...nothing. By now, everyone notices that no main gun rounds are flying downrange from us. The Battalion Commander calls us to as what's up. We tell him we're working it. We do some very fast work...and nothing. The Battalion Commander sends the Battalion Master Gunner to find out what's wrong, why we're screwing up the entire exercise. He get in...and quickly finds out that the recoil from that first main gun round had dragged my sweat rags into the firing contacts and we were done for. We have to stop the entire exercise. We have to explain to the Battalion Commander, the Battalion CSM, the Brigade Commander, the Brigade CSM, and the 1 star Assistant Division Commander what happened.

I have never been so embarrassed. And I am now very knowledgeable in the inner workings of the main gun.

In the Navy Nuclear program, that would have resulted in critiques, lessons learned, a procedure to prevent sweat rags in the vicinity of the main gun, your evals to drop from a 4.0 to no better than 3.6 for a couple of cycles, etc. It would also have caused a heat stress evaluation to be performed, and Air Conditioning to be added to the Gunner's station. Unfortunately, the design would be poorly thought out, and we would find that Abrahms tanks could move, fire, or be cool, but not all three because of the lack of electrical power to run the airconditioner, weapons computer, or engine controls.

That's how we'd do it in the Navy, anyway.

 

[dsr30]

I never detail stripped anything; I paid a smithy to do that kinda work, but I have taken apart enough guns for cleaning purposes to really appreciate the simplicity of Glock 17, 22 and 36; HKP7; Browning Hi-Power and SIG 220.

My comprehension skills were on low that day, I somehow thought you were talking about a spring for the grip safety.



---------- Post added April 22nd, 2014 at 09:45 AM ----------

I'm a reloader, I reload every center fire cartridge that I shoot. One day, a few years ago, I was at the indoor range shooting some reloads. I was winding down and I think this was to be the last mag that I ran through the gun, a Springfield XD-9. Put the mag in, chambered a round, lined my sights up, squeezed the trigger, BOOM!! That didn't sound right. That didn't feel right either. I do a quick assesment, my magazine was blown out of the pistol and the lips were deformed and had some soot on them. The target had a much bigger than 9mm hole in it, probably hit sideways. The upper right side of the frame was cracked. The web between my thumb and index finger hurts, but is just blood shot. And my left eye stings. I pack up and leave.
I call Springfield and ship the frame off to them, I ended up paying $5x.00 for a new frame.
A couple days later my eye still hurts and is sensitive to light and is watering, I think it'll go away, but my wife convinces me to go see a doctor. We go to the optometrist and it turns out that there's a piece of metal in my eye! I had an inpatient procedure to remove the tiny spec. I was given a few drops to numb the eye and then pushed this long tool into my eye ball and fished it out. I could hear everytime the tool that he was using would slip off the metal bit, a metallic tink. But he got it out and I was relieved, because I hate anything near my eyes and this guy was just poking around in my eye ball!! I'm sure I've got a pic of the frame at home, I'll try to find it and post

At first I was thinking that it was a double charge that caused the incident, didn't know how since I was careful, but that was the only thing that I could think of. So I started to visually inspect inside of every case before I put the bullet on top of it, I used to sit before, but stand when ever I reload, except for when I use my single stage. While reloading, using that same batch of brass that I bought from a guy, I looked into one of the cases on the decrimp/resize station and saw a seed that was taking up about half of the case volume. I'm thinking that there was a foreign object in the case taking up a lot of voulume and caused a huge over pressure. Thousands of reloads later, I've never seen anything in any of my brass since then, but I've still got over 1k of brass from that one batch that I haven't used since then. And I still stand and visually check every case when it comes around to the bullet seating station.

 

[reo]

View attachment 182300

Here's that pic. He was unharmed.

I've had a pistol "blow up" in my hand, I should post that story here when I get the time.

My Brother's shotgun wasn't near as bad as the one in the photo. We ended up having a gunsmith cut off the damaged end and putting a variable choke on it.

Ron

 

[T.C.]

In the Navy Nuclear program, that would have resulted in critiques, lessons learned, a procedure to prevent sweat rags in the vicinity of the main gun, your evals to drop from a 4.0 to no better than 3.6 for a couple of cycles, etc.

Well, it led to an embarrassing After-Action Review, a harsh lesson that I've taught to every Soldier below me (How the Abrams sends the electricity to fire the round into the breech), another lesson that I've taught to never place anything there (it is a handy little storage nook for the gunner), but it never reflected on my NCOER.

It would also have caused a heat stress evaluation to be performed,

Well, I spent the next summer inside that very tank, in 140 degree heat, with no air movement, for 12 hours a day, sweating my butt off (and drinking nearly 18 liters of water in 12 hours) in Iraq. Does that count?

a

ir Conditioning to be added to the Gunner's station. Unfortunately, the design would be poorly thought out, and we would find that Abrahms tanks could move, fire, or be cool, but not all three because of the lack of electrical power to run the airconditioner, weapons computer, or engine controls.

Well, we do have a Thermal Management System in the M1A2. Unfortunately, I had an M1A1. But the TMS is well thought out, works well, and does all three effectively. The key is that it is a hydralic system. Of course, like everything that GD touches, it isn't cheap.