Dumbest thing you have ever done with a gun and learned a lesson?

[Dead Duck]

I gave a buddy a grip plug for his glock. I was installing it for him and it was pretty tight so I flipped the gun over and while trying to get leverage, my thumb hit the trigger.... with the muzzle pressed into my chest. Thank God there was only a click. I had NOT checked the gun, but it was empty. To this day, I don't think he or my wife know it happened.

As soon as I felt that click, my stomach was in knots.

You really should have put the safety on first.

 

[chezuki]

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo buddy. Just not your day to die.

I've not touched a gun since without checking it. It was a truly sickening feeling.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I've not touched a gun since without checking it. It was a truly sickening feeling.

That one makes me pucker a bit just thinking about it.

 

[MAJB Retired]

ditto

 

[throttletony]

Thankfully about the worst misshap I've had is I forgot the recoil spring when I reassembled my P99 once. It was a ***** getting the slide off.

haha, I did the same on a GLock once (the secret was to pull the trigger, I believe, unloaded of course)

 

[throttletony]

I walked around with a G27 in a cargo pants pocket with no holster for a couple days (nothing securing the trigger or trigger guard)
Then I realized that was kind of dumb on a gun with no safety
Never had an AD/ND, but it just would have been a matter of time

 

[throttletony]

this thread got me thinking of another...
This was my only true ND/AD. I had borrowed an older savage .222 for some varmint shooting. The safety was more like an un-safety. When activated OR deactivated hard, it would discharge the rifle. I didn't know this, but my buddy and I found out as we were just sitting down to start calling coyotes.
I hit the safety and BOOM -- shot a muddy river bank about 40 ft away.

Of the 4 rules, I'm still convinced that safe direction and treat it like it's loaded (all guns are loaded) are the most applicable in all situations, and even if the other rules fail, these rule will at least keep people out of harms way.
... now that I said that, I don't know if one of them is more important than the others.

 

[throttletony]

wow, I though of another one.
We were 14 or 15 and shot BB guns a lot, mostly at starlings, ground squirrels, and pop cans. One day, we decided to shoot them at each other, like paint ball, with 2 teams, playing a version of capture the flag.
The "rule" was only body shots --- lol, what were we thinking?!?
Anyways, just about 3 minutes into the game, my buddy got shot 1/2 inch above his eyebrow, on his forehead (a.k.a. nearly blinded). We realized that maybe this wasn't the best idea and didn't play it again.

 

[24Carat]

A lifetime of shooting and vigilance had, I thought, served me well.

Other than when in the service in the '70's, I have never owned nor even handled an AR15.

Last year I had the opportunity to pick up a state compliant 20" barreled Bushmaster Target AR cheap. A love affair ensued in fondling, disassembling, reassembling, new pieces / parts, etc.

I hadn't yet run the action by shooting it to loosen up and smooth the cycling. It was stored in a locked case loaded with one in the chamber.

The urge to caress the new toy had me dropping the mag one day, assuming the chamber was empty and pulling the trigger in anticipation of disassembling the rifle.

The blessing was that the action was tight and the round hadn't gone into battery when last loaded. The concept of the forward assist and consistently using it hadn't been incorporated in my muscle memory yet. The firing pin didn't sufficiently impact the primer. I commenced to disassemble the rifle and I had the cartridge drop to the floor.

The intense nausea and hot flush of my face that I felt is in the forefront of my mind now when I even contemplate touching any arm.

 

[Karl-just-Karl]

wow, I though of another one.
We were 14 or 15 and shot BB guns a lot, mostly at starlings, ground squirrels, and pop cans. One day, we decided to shoot them at each other, like paint ball, with 2 teams, playing a version of capture the flag.
The "rule" was only body shots --- lol, what were we thinking?!?
Anyways, just about 3 minutes into the game, my buddy got shot 1/2 inch above his eyebrow, on his forehead (a.k.a. nearly blinded). We realized that maybe this wasn't the best idea and didn't play it again.

Wow, Exact same thing happened to me. I was the one hit 1/2 inch above my eyebrow. We had the same 'body shot only' rule too!

Kids are stupid...well, naive at best.

 

[Bfish]

I'll tell on my family...

In my brother's bedroom, he had an ashtray in which he had a bit of black powder in it. Now, he claims it was his ashtray and mom had no business using it to put out her cigarette. Mom, of course, disagreed. I guess the flash caught her by surprise.

That's just funny! I feel like he did that on purpose!

 

[Cemetery-man]

wow, I though of another one.
We were 14 or 15 and shot BB guns a lot, mostly at starlings, ground squirrels, and pop cans. One day, we decided to shoot them at each other, like paint ball, with 2 teams, playing a version of capture the flag.
The "rule" was only body shots --- lol, what were we thinking?!?
Anyways, just about 3 minutes into the game, my buddy got shot 1/2 inch above his eyebrow, on his forehead (a.k.a. nearly blinded). We realized that maybe this wasn't the best idea and didn't play it again.

2 pumps with a Crossman Powermaster. Stings pretty good. Neighborhood battles. Boys just being boys.

 

[Ryno300]

We were visiting my MIL and her brother had given her 2 handguns "for protection" - an old 22 revolver that she kept in a night stand and a cheap 22 semi auto (maybe a Jennings even) that she had on a shelf in her closet. My son and I were in the living room one morning and I walked into the bedroom where my wife and MIL were talking. I find them standing together with the 22 semi auto in my MIL hand and some loose bullets in the other. Mind you the weapon is lying flat, pointed at me in the palm of her hand. Me: "What are you doing???" My wife: "We were just cleaning out the closet. Don't worry it's not loaded -see" pointing at the loose bullets. MIL starts to close her hand to grip the gun and show me. I yelled, "Wait! How do you know it's empty?" "It is...look we emptied it". They had dropped the mag and emptied it, but....you know the rest....I gently grab the gun from her hand, rack the slide and out pops a round. I felt like I was going to puke. They looked pretty sheepish at me as I let them have it. I was pissed.

 

[BE Mike]

I think that gun shops all have stories. I know one where a police detective came in to have his snub nosed revolver looked over by the gunsmith because of a complaint about the trigger action. He unloaded it and handed it over. The gunsmith took the revolver in the back and worked on it. He returned it to the detective empty and the detective dry fired the revolver a few times to check the action. Having been satisfied, he loaded and holstered the little revolver. While the gunsmith was writing out a ticket (this was a long while back), the detective just had to test the trigger action one more time and BANG, resulting in a hole in the glass case and a new pistol on display damaged. The hole in the case was never repaired but instead sported a small sign..."This gun was UNLOADED!"

There was a woman who came into a gun shop looking for accessories for her hunting rifle. She unzipped the case and pulled out the rifle and looked down the muzzle. When asked, if it was unloaded, she said that it was. The clerk asked to see the rifle and opened the bolt. Yep a live round came out of the chamber! She got very pale.

A firearm which had been shipped to a gunshop was about to be entered into the log, when the employee handling it thought it might be a good idea to check the chamber. Sure enough, a live round popped out!

There was always a concern that a disturbed individual might, unbeknownst to the employees, slip a live round into one of the firearms on display.

A little old lady brought in her late husband's pistol. The store employee was trying to check it, but was having a problem getting the action to work, when BANG! Luckily the handgun was pointed at the floor when the AD occurred and not injuries resulted.

This is only a sampling, I'm sure others have plenty of gunshop tales.

 

[sdtech58]

A couple of things at Basic Training. Not me directly, so I don't know if it counts...but here you go.

One genius figured out that blanks would shoot sections of cleaning rod at a pretty decent clip, especially 1" sections of them... Was good until the rifle got checked back in to the armorer, and they discovered the missing cleaning rods. His arms might still be hurting from the amount of push-ups he did 20 years ago...

We are on a 30k road march the evening/night before graduation. We stop for a break, guy sets his rifle down next to a tree so he can take his pack off. We get about 4 or 5k more down the march and the drill sergeant sees the guy without a rifle while checking ranks. We circle back and start searching for the rifle. About 4 hours later, we finally found it...

Lessons learned: don't use blanks to shoot anything out of a rifle and never lose track of your firearms...

 

[llh1956]

Back in the 80's I had put together a .45 cal CVA Kentucky long rifle and do not remember the bullet weight but kind of remember a powder charge of around 100 grains of ffg black powder. Any way my Dad had put together a .45 cal CVA Derringer pistol. He gives it to me to shoot the first time as I'm living out in the county at the time. I had a large diameter oak log laying about 8-10 yards out past my back porch steps. Dad did not give me the load chart for the Derringer so I guessed a much lower charge than my Kentucky long rifle. I sat down on the back porch steps put on a percussion cap took a steady aim and pulled the trigger. In a split second I instantly leaned to the right and was struck in the left shoulder below the collar bone. Unlucky for me the low powder charge and FPS sent the lead round ball back off the oak log and I see it kind of like in slow motion then it hits me and lands on the steps between my feet. I was lucky it was moving slow enough it only left a small red spot where it hit me. I reloaded it again with twice the amount of FFG and the next shot went into the log couple of inches!

 

[HoughMade]

When I first started carrying my pistola to the range with a mag loaded, when I got to the range, I racked the slide to check for a round. The gun went off pointing down and down range. If yer gonna forget one of the rules, remember the one about pointing, and don't forget any of the 4 rules ever again. Drop the mag. Drop the mag. Drop the mag.

A lot of people have "cleared" the gun by racking the slide before dropping the mag. I'd wager it's a top contender for how empty guns aren't so empty.

 

[BE Mike]

A lot of people have "cleared" the gun by racking the slide before dropping the mag. I'd wager it's a top contender for how empty guns aren't so empty.

Yep, and never trust the extractor. Always check the chamber(s) visually.

 

[Bfish]

A lot of people have "cleared" the gun by racking the slide before dropping the mag. I'd wager it's a top contender for how empty guns aren't so empty.

I watched this happen in a gun shop one time. My buddy quickly spoke up and it wasn't a big deal but man was that guy embarrassed...

I would say you are probably correct HoughMade.

 

[Ammo Dump]

The racking the slide thing just about got me or something else shot once. I have a small Beretta 25acp that I always kept handy in my pickup truck as a BUG. I hadn't inspected it for a while, so I removed the mag and pulled the slide back to eject the round in the chamber. Nothing came out to my surprise. As I thought about de-cocking it, I remembered that those are "Blow Back" operated and remembered the lever on the side to pop the barrel up to unload. Sure enough, I popped the barrel up and the round was still in the chamber. Got lucky on that one.