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

[Leo]

I let a man I really didn't know at a public range try a shot on my prone rifle that had a Davies bench rest trigger set to about 8 oz. I told him over and over that it was a very touchy trigger. Over and over he said he understood. Then he closed the bolt and promptly lauched a bullet to the left and over the top of the back stop. I was way nervous about where that bullet ended up and if it struck anything. He was not given a second round. Lesson learned, just because a guy is friendly does not qualify him to shoot a specialty rifle. I am a lot less generous with my firearms.

 

[bluewraith]

I slammed my 1911 shut on my index finger once.. Figured out how the slide stop worked! Took a few months for the blood spot to grow off my nail. Barrel hood caught me right on the cuticle..

I don't go sticking my finger there anymore without firmly holding the slide release in place.

 

[Leo]

I slammed my 1911 shut on my index finger once.. Figured out how the slide stop worked! Took a few months for the blood spot to grow off my nail. Barrel hood caught me right on the cuticle..

I don't go sticking my finger there anymore without firmly holding the slide release in place.

I have met many people who got "M1 thumb" at least once in their life but you are the 1st 1911 finger I ever heard of. That must have hurt like crazy.

 

[rob63]

I have met many people who got "M1 thumb" at least once in their life but you are the 1st 1911 finger I ever heard of. That must have hurt like crazy.

I had M1 thumb once, it is something you only do once.

I was recently visiting one of my cousins with my brother and they started telling stories about when we were kids. They (roughly 6 of them altogether) used to play army with 12ga shotguns, using shells that they loaded themselves with just a primer and wadding. They said the wadding would leave quite a welt even though it was just fired with a primer. I was always upset as a kid that I was left out of their various activities just because I was the youngest. Now that I know the kind of things they were doing, not so much.

 

[churchmouse]

I had M1 thumb once, it is something you only do once.

I was recently visiting one of my cousins with my brother and they started telling stories about when we were kids. They (roughly 6 of them altogether) used to play army with 12ga shotguns, using shells that they loaded themselves with just a primer and wadding. They said the wadding would leave quite a welt even though it was just fired with a primer. I was always upset as a kid that I was left out of their various activities just because I was the youngest. Now that I know the kind of things they were doing, not so much.

It makes me think back to some of the insane crap we did as pre-teens and early teens. Not going to share those exploits just know that we all survived.....Not sure how.

 

[96harley]

Sold some hard to gets and wished I hadn't. Now I just hoard em.

 

[raptrbreth]

Mine is not a AD/ND story but still made me pucker. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am OCD when it comes to cleaning my/any weapon. The reason? 25 years ago, in a combat zone, I was on guard duty in the middle of a desert. Middle of the night I see headlights driving around in circles in the distance. Crap, call the OOD and let him know what I see. He and the SOG show up and tell me to chamber a round and confront if the vehicle gets any closer. (the not letting us chamber rounds down range is a argument for another time) Well, my luck, the vehicle does approach. The OOD, SOG and two other guards take cover to allow me to stop and confront the vehicle. When I chambered the round when ordered the bolt would not fully go home, even with forward assist. I was on full pucker at this point and vowed that would never, ever not fully clean a gun again. Now it is an obsession.

Luckily it was just some soldiers that got lost and had to have Marines teach them some land nav. (Had to interject some humor)

 

[Leo]

Mine is not a AD/ND story but still made me pucker. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am OCD when it comes to cleaning my/any weapon. The reason? 25 years ago, in a combat zone, I was on guard duty in the middle of a desert. Middle of the night I see headlights driving around in circles in the distance. Crap, call the OOD and let him know what I see. He and the SOG show up and tell me to chamber a round and confront if the vehicle gets any closer. (the not letting us chamber rounds down range is a argument for another time) Well, my luck, the vehicle does approach. The OOD, SOG and two other guards take cover to allow me to stop and confront the vehicle. When I chambered the round when ordered the bolt would not fully go home, even with forward assist. I was on full pucker at this point and vowed that would never, ever not fully clean a gun again. Now it is an obsession.

Luckily it was just some soldiers that got lost and had to have Marines teach them some land nav. (Had to interject some humor)

Thank GOD that you didn't need your weapon on that mission. I am glad you made it home to share the warning. Thank you for your service.

 

[Leadeye]

Sold NFA items in the 90s.

 

[Hellhound1055]

Discovered the hard way that accidental dry fires of my old marlin 39a that rimfire firing pins are delicate and costly to replace. My second biggest mistake was thinking I could rush through the dis-assembly of a brand new 590a1. Trying to remove the trigger group resulted in a nice gouge out of my pinky. Took about two months to finally disappear.

 

[jss1956]

OK, I'll be humble and admit my error. Hopefully this will help others avoid such a calamity...

Several years ago in a house I previously owned, my gun safe was upstairs in a bonus room. I had installed a door in the wall leading to the attic above the garage. I had then installed a pull down hidden ladder in the attic floor leading to the garage for easy access. When we were getting ready to move, I decided to take my guns out of the safe and take them thru the attic instead of the house. My oldest son was home and I told him I wanted him to help me. I'm waiting for him as he needed to finish something. So I got impatient (first mistake). I proceeded to carefully line up about 12-14 shotguns parallel to the opening from the attic to the garage, believing this would save time (second mistake).

OK, so I figure I'll go downstairs, my son will carefully hand each gun down to me, and I'll wrap and load them into a crate, no problem (third mistake). As I'm sitting the last gun in the row, (last mistake, a mint .410 pump) one of the shotguns moves and its dominoes from hell. I watch as 2 410 pumps (mint condition) and a 12 gauge semi auto fall ~12 feet to the concrete floor before. As I helplessly watch the carniage unfold, the entire line of guns fall over with me hanging on for dear life. I'm clinging to, among others, a mint Fox 410, 2 Remington 16 ga 1100s and a Winchester model 12. I'm humped over the opening, holding the now pile of guns with both hands, and trying to figure out how not to fall thru the opening while keeping the rest of the group from falling with me. I was ready to chance falling 12 feet if it meant the guns wouldn't fall. I'll heal dammit, my guns won't. I was finally able to move everything away from the ladder and secure my remaining collection.

I wanted to cry, but I desperately wanted someone to beat me over the head with the now broken 12 ga shotgun so the pain from my head would make me forget why I was crying. For my oldest son who had just walked up, it was a lesson in dads stupidity. Just put me out of my misery, I thought. I was lucky: Only 1 gun was broken and that was a low end 12 ga. One 410 landed on a chunk of carpet (no damage!) and the other slid down the stairs and received some battle scratches on the forearm. A new stock and a new forearm solved most of the dilemma.

Trust me, now I handle guns one at a time and am patient as ****.

 

[DeadeyeChrista'sdad]

Your honor, on the advice of my attorney. .....

 

[fullauto 45]

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

Sold one.

 

[BugI02]

I was showing someone how easy it was to strip my p229 and during reassembly I failed to re-engage the takedown lever and when I released the slide lock the recoil spring proceeded to pitch the slide assembly a couple feet and ding my dining room floor. D'oh. The slide was not harmed but it taught me to pay more attention to the business at hand.

 

[halfmileharry]

Well I guess this thread is as good as any. I may have hinted at this in the past, but I'll spill the beans here:

Like OP, I tried cleaning a gun with a round in the chamber. My dad had just died roughly a month prior, and my mom and I were going through some of his firearms. It was a Glock 17, so you have to pull the trigger to take apart the slide. I racked the slide, ejected a round, pulled the trigger, and BOOM! The shot went off, and my mother yelled "I've been shot!" I shot my own mother in the effing leg. Blood was pouring out, my sister and wife were in full panic mode, and the paramedics were on the way. Needless to say, S had HTF. To make a long story much shorter, she ended up not being shot, and instead, she was hit by the round as it ricocheted off the concrete floor. It hit her in two different spots on opposite sides of her shin, making it look like it was threw and threw. But after examining her leg in relation to where she was standing, the floor with the bullet mark, and the shrapnel from the round, there was no way it could have gone through and through.

Now, you're wondering how a round managed to go off, even though I racked the slide. Well, stupid me forgot to drop the mag. It was the gun my dad kept loaded in the safe, so it had a magazine full of Hornady CD HPs. THANKFULLY there were HPs in the gun when it went off. I believe if there would have been FMJ, the wouldn't have fragmented, and the chance of her taking the full brunt of the 9mm would have been much higher. Instead, she got hit with a couple pieces of shrapnel.

She was able to workout a couple of days later, and the week after we went to Cedar Point. She was about as well off as you can expect for having been shot. She still have a scar on either side of her leg, a couple pieces of shrapnel left in her leg, and a hole in her basement floor. I have the constant jabs from my entire family that I shot my mom. Seriously, they make fun of me all the time. But, lesson learned. I now check every gun multiple times before pulling the trigger, and if someone else is in the room, I show them an empty chamber as well.

Do I win/lose this thread?

I just read this post. WOW! I hope it was on Mother's Day. It don't get much worse than "poppin' a cap in yo' mama's leg"

 

[gtpilot21]

My first time using a muzzleloader my father in law handed it to me and was showing me everything about it and before we loaded it he showed me where to put the primer and how to use he then pulled the trigger and it went off. Lesson learned for me being new to muzzleloaders.

 

[calcot7]

Dropped it in the toilet.

 

[Dead Duck]

Dropped it in the toilet.

Your Glock was just trying to get home.

 

[1DOWN4UP]

I moved out of my parents home in about 80.Left a break barrel H&R .410 (my first gun) behind.Years later,expecting to give it to my son on his 13th Bday,went to P/U,baby brother had took and sold.Still not over it.The 2nd dumbest thing was to trust WD-40!

 

[churchmouse]

I moved out of my parents home in about 80.Left a break barrel H&R .410 (my first gun) behind.Years later,expecting to give it to my son on his 13th Bday,went to P/U,baby brother had took and sold.Still not over it.The 2nd dumbest thing was to trust WD-40!

Is he still walking on 2 good sticks.....