Yes, Guns Do "Go Off"

[churchmouse]

Yes guns do go off.
I had my 1st slam fire in an AR today. Gun pointed safely. Dropped the BCG and "BOOM"
Scared the crap out of me and the person on the line with me.
Dropped the mag, cleared the rifle and put it away until I can figure out WTF.

Guns do go off. This rifle has never missed a beat. Safe and reliable. Today not so much.

 

[Trigger Time]

So how do you unload a cap & ball revolver?

Remove the cylinder

 

[2A_Tom]

You can remove the cylinder, remove the percussion caps and use a gimmel to pull the ball.

 

[Trigger Time]

Not speaking about cops here, I've seen a lot of people over the years come across a gun they aren't familiar with and then it almost becomes a mission to assert their manliness or else lose it. I've held guns that were new to me and that I didn't know how to operate. It's no big deal. ASK or safely stow it away. Don't become the next story on ingo or give the anti-gun nuts or media ammo against the rest of us. And for goodness sakes don't be an idiot with your own guns. Holsters aren't for any other use

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Yes guns do go off.
I had my 1st slam fire in an AR today. Gun pointed safely. Dropped the BCG and "BOOM"
Scared the crap out of me and the person on the line with me.

Good thing you remembered the 870 at Shootrite.

Hey . . . have I ever told you guys . . . ?

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

The Joker beat me to it with, BANG! I'd be pretty much stumped by a cap and ball too, but DrillSgt seems to be on a logical path with remove the caps (prevent more BANGS.)

Then again, cordon off the area and wait for EOD sounds like an option.

It is a gun, not an IED.

 

[KellyinAvon]

Just out of curiosity if I'm ever in a situation where I need to make safe a cap and ball revolver, is removing the caps, then removing the cylinder the best bet if "make it go bang 6 times" is not an option?

 

[Kirk Freeman]

It is a gun, not an IED.

What if it is a Glock?

 

[KellyinAvon]

It is a gun, not an IED.

I fall back on my BRAAT (Base Recovery After Attack Team) training when in doubt. Identify it, report it, stay the hell away from it.

 

[actaeon277]

It is a gun, not an IED.

OKC Bomb Squad Disposing Ammo After Being Turned In At Fire Stat - News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports |
Bomb squad called to beach after young boy picks up hoard of wartime bullets washed up on sand
Bomb Squad Called to Swami's Beach | NBC 7 San Diego

It's what people do now.

 

[oldpink]

Remove the cylinder

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not sure how many cap and ball revolvers make that easy, but I'm nearly certainly that at least a Ruger Old Army (yeah, it wouldn't really be period-appropriate for a Civil War reenactment) should make it as easy as a button press on the cylinder pin release and a forward slide of that pin to slide the cylinder out.
It's also a bit easier to remove the caps once out and totally prevents an accidental discharge (largely theoretical, but said to have happened) from the hammer hitting the nipple and sparking.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

OKC Bomb Squad Disposing Ammo After Being Turned In At Fire Stat - News9.com - Oklahoma City, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports |
Bomb squad called to beach after young boy picks up hoard of wartime bullets washed up on sand
Bomb Squad Called to Swami's Beach | NBC 7 San Diego

It's what people do now.

I'm clear.

 

[JAL]

Article states he was resting the ferule of a flag staff on the holster when it discharged. That couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the ND, could it now. I'd have paid to watch the LEOs who were trying to unload it as countless of them, especially young ones, would have trouble with a double action and wouldn't know where to start with a single action. God forbid they encounter a black powder cap and ball.

John

 

[JAL]

Remove the cylinder

It's not intuitively obvious, and easier on some than others. Strongly recommended to remove the caps from the nipples on any chambers that haven't discharged first as it's unsafe to do if there are live chambers with live caps on the nipples.

John

 

[JAL]

The Joker beat me to it with, BANG! I'd be pretty much stumped by a cap and ball too, but DrillSgt seems to be on a logical path with remove the caps (prevent more BANGS.)

Then again, cordon off the area and wait for EOD sounds like an option.

No need for EOD. After the caps are off the nipples it cannot discharge. You wouldn't call EOD to handle live cartridges you've unloaded from a revolver, would you? A cap and ball cylinder is even less hazardous than those after the caps are removed. I've been around black powder cap and ball in the past. They're inherently safe and no more hazardous than primer cartridge firearms if you know how to handle the firearm properly to load and unload it, and how to safely cock and decock the hammer.

 

[KellyinAvon]

No need for EOD. After the caps are off the nipples it cannot discharge. You wouldn't call EOD to handle live cartridges you've unloaded from a revolver, would you? A cap and ball cylinder is even less hazardous than those after the caps are removed. I've been around black powder cap and ball in the past. They're inherently safe and no more hazardous than primer cartridge firearms if you know how to handle the firearm properly to load and unload it, and how to safely cock and decock the hammer.

I know their phone number, it's 911. I don't know who to call for cap and ball tech support. Let's face it, the gun went bang twice when people really didn't want it to go bang. At that point it might be time to step back and let someone else try.

 

[Expat]

 

[JAL]

Even money on 3 screw Ruger.

"Eye rightly don't care fer dem billboards on my Roo-gar."

Missed this earlier. My thoughts exactly when I read the article, and not a black powder cap & ball (although that was possible, but extremely unlikely).

For those that don't know what a "Three Screw Ruger" is . . . some remarks about single action revolvers in particular should enlighten and educate those unfamiliar with them.

It's a pre-1973 (hope I got the year right) Single Six .22 rim fire or Blackhawk center fire single action revolver. They're mostly a mechanical copy of the 1873 Colt Single Action Army. There are several features of these old Ruger Single Sixes and Blackhawks that would completely explain the events described in the article:

1. Hammer Resting on Firing Pin: Unlike all revolvers made today, those that haven't been modified by Ruger to update the action should NEVER load all six chambers, but leave the hammer down on the empty, sixth chamber. They do not have the transfer bar in the post-1973 versions. When the hammer is down, it's resting on the firing pin in the frame. This would easily explain how the idiot discharged the revolver when he rested the ferule of a flag staff onto his "holster". If he hit the hammer hard enough with it resting on a loaded chamber, it could discharge the revolver. I've been told that Ruger will not provide parts for a pre-73 Single Six or Blackhawk unless they've verified first that it's been modified with transfer bar mechanism and matching hammer to prevent the hammer from resting on the firing pin with the trigger forward. I'm of the opinion that these pre-73 Rugers are more hazardous now than two or three decades ago as all current single and double action revolvers have mechanisms to prevent the hammer from contacting the firing pin unless the trigger is pulled completely back. Ruger calls it a transfer bar. Smith & Wesson calls it a hammer block. While it's always the responsibility of a firearm owner to know their firearm and how to handle it safely, these older ones that haven't been modified are dwindling in number compared to the increasing number of modified and new ones. Consequently, some guy like the 23 year old is much less likely to know about not resting the hammer on a chambered round (even though he should know before using it).
2. Half-Cock Loading and Unloading: No single action revolver I'm aware of aligns a chamber with the loading gate when the revolver is in battery with the bolt locking the cylinder and a chamber properly aligned with the barrel. This is to prevent a cartridge from shifting backward onto the loading gate door when the revolver is fired and jamming the cylinder, preventing it from being cocked to fire the next round. These old Rugers require half-cocking the hammer to retract the cylinder bolt, allowing the cylinder to rotate freely. There are detents that help with aligning the chambers with the gate. It's also impossible to pull the trigger and drop the hammer when half-cocked. This helps prevent a ND while loading. The modern Ruger single action retract the cylinder bolt when the loading gate door is opened. They no longer need to be half-cocked. To unload one of the older Rugers, the hammer must be half-cocked, the loading gate door opened, and the extractor rod used to push the cartridges out one at a time. After all the cartridges are out, a check is made to by rotating the cylinder around completely once or twice to ensure it's unloaded. Then the hammer is fully cocked and carefully lowered while pulling the trigger until the sear releases it. The trouble the cops had trying to extract the cartridges would be easily explained by the high likelihood they were clueless about the need to half-cock the hammer to retract the cylinder bolt so they could align the chambers with the loading gate. While fiddling around with the hammer trying to get the chambers aligned, all it took was one slip of the thumb while trying to hold the hammer back and another discharge occurs.
3. The idiot who shot himself is 23 years old. He was born in the late 1990's, over 25 years after Ruger updated the action on the "Three Screw" models to allow carrying them safely with all six chambers loaded. His father was probably born about the time Ruger updated the action, and his grandfather was probably in his early 20's. Consider the age range of the police also.

Footnotes:
To properly load one of these to put an empty chamber under the hammer, you load the first chamber, skip the second, load the next four, close the loading gate door, fully cock the hammer and then safely release it down onto the empty chamber. The best method for this is putting your weak hand thumb over the firing pin while you release the hammer from fully cocked by pulling the trigger until it contacts your thumb, then carefully slipping your thumb out from under it and letting it down the rest of the way slowly . . . after you pull your finger off the trigger and out of the trigger guard. You should be able to see the other five chambers and verify you're on the empty one. There are excellent videos on YouTube showing how to decock a single or double action revolver that's fully cocked, and do it safely. It's easy and quite safe if you know the procedure. It's extremely unsafe if you don't follow it. I've concluded from some of the comments in this thread that quite a few folks on this forum haven't handled any wheel guns much, double action, single action, or cap & ball.

John

 

[Trigger Time]

Cap and ball peeps be like THERE'S FINALY A THREAD ON INGO ABOUT MY JAM YO! I BETTER COME HITHER AT THE QUICKSTEP!

 

[hog slayer]

Cap and ball peeps be like THERE'S FINALY A THREAD ON INGO ABOUT MY JAM YO! I BETTER COME HITHER AT THE QUICKSTEP!

HAHA! That's funny!