I learnt about shooting from that.

Sparks

Okay, so for those of you who ever read Pilot, the title of this thread should be familiar. For the rest, the idea of this thread is to post the mistakes you've made so everyone else can learn from them. These could be mistakes in competition, or mistakes in safety procedures, or mistakes in logistics or mistakes in general shooting; all are fine. But hopefully, the more honest we are here (where we're happily anonymous, by the way), the more mistakes we may prevent from occurring in the future.
So just one additional rule for this thread - no ridiculing people for making the mistake! There's no such thing, after all, as a human who never makes a mistake. (If you can think of a better preventative measure, that's valid though).

Sparks

And I may as well start it off with a competitive example I suppose.
The first time I shot a 25 yard card and put ten tens down the range at it in competition, I learnt that you always check your target through the scope when shooting those ten-target cards, no matter how sure you are of where you are on the card...

Sparks

And for a logistical example, there was the time I went to a Comber Open event with the club's new Walther KK200 rifle and left the sights in Dublin. Lesson learned - have a checklist in your shooting diary listing every piece of equipment and keep it updated.

Sparks

And for a safety point, perhaps my most embarressing story (and if this doesn't prompt people to post their experiences, I'll be most disappointed).

After I got my new air rifle from Anschutz, the sights were obviously totally unaligned (they're sold as a seperate item, seperately packaged and so on). So I went down to the range to set them up, as you would. I took the firing point on the far right side as it was my usual spot, got into the shooting jacket and trousers, and spent half an hour getting the buttplate and cheekpiece roughly set to fit me. Then I took the first shot. Thing about the DURC range though, is that halfway down the air rifle section of the range, there's a small (a little over a foot wide) protrusion from the wall where what had been two rooms was knocked into one to make the range. Normally, that protrusion is almost a yard off to the right of the target, and is perfectly fine. Unfortunately, between the lack of alignment of the sights and the rough setup of the stock, the rifle's actual and apparent points of aim were so far apart that the pellet hit the protrusion, richocheted back and off the side wall and came right back and hit me in the derriere. Happily it did so with insufficent energy to get through the canvas shooting trousers, or even to leave any significant bruise, but nevertheless, I can now say that I've managed to shoot myself in the rear end with an air rifle while aiming at a target ten metres away (which is a rather dubious honour at best, I'm afraid).

Anyway, the lesson learnt was that if you don't know how badly your sights are misaligned, shoot from the middle firing point until you get it aligned, and take account of possible ricochets. And if it's a cartridge rifle, well, be even more careful!

Zakalwe

Sparks wrote:

And I may as well start it off with a competitive example I suppose.
The first time I shot a 25 yard card and put ten tens down the range at it in competition, I learnt that you always check your target through the scope when shooting those ten-target cards, no matter how sure you are of where you are on the card...

You think that's bad? I shot the guy next to me's target by accident TWICE while shooting air rifle!

foresight

Hi guys and gals,

Years ago in the FCA, I shot the target next to mine also, great grouping, but the company sargent wasn't too pleased. So for the company shoot in 1977 or 78 Sorry Sarge!

foresight

Another one I'm afraid, Came home from target shooting and left my semi auto .22 rifle on bench as I washed my hands and went to boil the kettle. Semiauto was 'mt' but bolt closed and 'mt' mag inserted. Rifle still cocked though. Older brother arrives in for visit, sees rifle picks it up....'Nice rifle'..click...squeezed trigger! Never checked. 'That was a silly thing to do' he said. I agreed. We both learned a very good lesson.

I think this thread could be very good, a kind of confession and purification. Please please please always take care

foresight

Another one, I'm safe honest! Three mates, including me, used to go plinking at tin cans. This day fourth guy arrives friend of one of the others, gets out of car, takes semiauto .22 out of boot, inserts mag and lets 10 shots into the sky beside us. to warm the barrel! We were very safety aware and could not believe what this dolt had just done. The three of us all suddenly remembered urgent appointments and all left without even taking our rifles out of the car. Dimwit above was never invited back.

foresight

I've been thinkin about this thread and the more I do the better idea it seems to me to be. I shoot rifle alot but I have loads of friends who shoot shotgun both clay and hunting and I hope they all put up their stories ecause there are some very funny ones and some really scaryones too. Remember 'Hill Street Blues' the guy used to tell the cops going out on the beat to be careful out there. (Which film had the quote 'be careful out there among them english'?) no disrespect to our fellows over the way.
anyway 'nuff digression. What I mean to say is that with the new pistols and that coming back and the fact that we do not have widespread experience in using them can those who have experience with them, from other countries,or army or what ever tell the rest of us how to handle them and what is acceptable PC concerning them. and point out the pit falls and so on. I'm sure we dont want the streets to be like the wild west and I don't want to see my local barman shot just cos he put some guy out or what.

jaycee

Great thread .....!

Once...many years ago I used to do some rough shooting with a friend,
It was good fun and we considered ourselves pretty safety concious.

One day , while waiting for the cocker to clear some scrub ,I closed the gun and made ready for whatever would be flushed out.
My friend pulled out a ciggy ..his lighter would'nt work , so I transferred my gun to the crook of my arm and reached into my pocket to offer him mine..the shotgun I was now carrying underarm slid downwards ..and the trigger hooked one of the empty loops in the cartridge belt ..

To our shock the gun discharged and blew a hole in the ground a couple of feet in front of us . A freak event to be sure but we learned three important lessons.

1. Never take the safety off unless you are pointing at the target.
2. Be aware that "Safety catches" don't always work.
3. Protect or cover the trigger guard and remember that lots of things besides
your finger will pull the trigger ( Clothing ,Belts, Bushes, anything...etc..)

civdef

What I mean to say is that with the new pistols and that coming back and the fact that we do not have widespread experience in using them can those who have experience with them, from other countries,or army or what ever tell the rest of us how to handle them and what is acceptable PC concerning them. and point out the pit falls and so on.

No range worthy of the name will let you shoot pistol without having done a safety course. Courses are being organised for ranges where pistol shooting is planned.

Irishglockfan

civdef wrote:

No range worthy of the name will let you shoot pistol without having done a safety course. Courses are being organised for ranges where pistol shooting is planned.

Civ
just a quick note,any details on any clubs or ranges that are planning such ?PM me
will post my tale later
Glock

les45

I made a very silly mistake earlier this year. I loaded a .40 round in to my .45 mag, I can hear the gasps , very easy to do , round will cycle !!!!, lesson learned dont mix ammo.

macnas

Never put anything on the roof of the car especially in the dark.

Returning to the car after a night flight, being more concerned about taking off the wet wellie, put the shotgun on the roof. Fresh socks, dry boots, drove home.......about 6 miles........pitch dark.........pouring rain..........narrow, twisty roads..........into the house......... had dinner...........half way through a spud.............OOOH B****X!. And was it on the roof when I ran out........Nope. Rang the Gardai told them what had happened and went out lookin'. Tried to remember where on the road I had heard that metal on metal sliding noise and suprise, suprise not far away was my Beretta lying in the mud at the side of the road. Not a scratch!!.
You would have thought I'd have learned my lesson from that but no, left my Buck Zipper on the roof, drove off and never saw it again.

Irishglockfan

Well Gouda,
thing is folks are admitting they are fallible.Everyone is,you mean to tell us that YOU have never had a close one while shooting??
I have and I openly admit it. To say that arguement that the burrocrats can pick this coloum[even if they know it exists!] for arguements to ban guns is not necessarily true.As Sparks said he got the idea from PILOT magazine,in which pilots tell their stories of close ones or whatever.Does that mean that the FAA or the DOT will use that colum to demand tighter restrictions on issueing a private pilots liscense??No it is actually encouraged so as pilots can learn from mistakes of others.As pilot[read human] error is one of the biggest causes of air disasters.Plus being a pilot is 100% more restricted than gun ownership anyday.Getting a gun lic compared to your commercial ticket or private ticket in ireland is a complete doddle,I can tell you.

There is also a coloum dedicated to this in guns&weapons for law enforcement,a mag that was freely buyable in Easons up to recently.Called cop talk,again it was about cops and the situations they got into dealing with armed crime .
Ditto a coloum on bodygaurding tactics.Now no doubt there are some who would say that that shouldnt be allowed as that might give the"wrong people" ideas.Trouble is "the wrong people" dont generally read magazines to learn things.or they are pro enough to know this as old hat already,and the people whom this information is pertinent to are then denied this learning tool.

[maybe this the reason Easons dont stock it anymore,they were scared this info might be used wrongly.Nanny state knows best again]

Now I suppose if a coloum was published in "Irish Little Boy Racer monthly" or" Arrogant Junior Executive BMW driver".THEN the transport minister might have a ligit arguement,as I think that colum would be blocked solid for years on end with total day to day idiocy and incompetance stories.

Anyway onto my tale.
When I was ten ,my cousin was given an airgun in Germany[back in the seventies an allowable thing].Once an uncle of ours who was the firearms training officer with the local police force took us down to our duck pond for some practise at floating bits of wood and a good talking to on the weighty matter of gun saftey,their dangerousness and responsibility of use and possesion of air weapons by youngsters.After delivering this solmen sermon,he said that now lets have some fun ,lets spook a bothersome duck that kept swimming between our floating targets.His idea was to put a shot in front of the duck in the water.Unfortunely he scored a direct hit in the ducks head,thussly ending the ducks existance and depriving his sister in law of a beloved pet and good egg layer.After the deceased had been retrived and brought shamefacedly to his sister in law,whereupon a sound Germanic bollicking was issued,uncle was orderd to pluck,gut and prepare said duck for next days dinner.A disagreeable task on a hot day in July.Uncle, not to let a educational opportunity go,promptly lectured us again on gun saftey and irresponsible use.To cap it,the story got back to the police force whereupon uncle was botherd by butts of jokes for many a year about duck hunting without appropiate liscenses and firearm saftey.

I learned five things from this;
1]Air rifle pellets of .177 cal even out to 50plus meters are deadly to ducks
2]Dont shoot at things you dont intend to hit or kill.
[3]Even professionals in their field will screw up and make mistakes
4]Dont lark around with guns,even somthing as "harmless" as an air rifle,deact etc.
5]Germans,even they are in the total wrong ,if they are older than you, they are always right,and will labour a point to death


"They say one learns from one's mistakes.I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others as it is less costly,and a lot less embarassing or painful!"
Otto von Bismarck

Sparks

Sparks wrote:

And for a logistical example, there was the time I went to a Comber Open event with the club's new Walther KK200 rifle and left the sights in Dublin. Lesson learned - have a checklist in your shooting diary listing every piece of equipment and keep it updated.

How did you do in the competition in the end??

This isnt directly shooting, but first time that I went duck shooting, i just wore jeans and a coat.

Missed all the duck (1st time!) , jeans got soaked and I ended up sick for a week

Moral of the story - wear good, dark, oilskins / waterproof pants!!

Sparks

How did you do in the competition in the end??

Horribly!

E@gle.

macnas wrote:

Never put anything on the roof of the car especially in the dark.

I have always left something on the roof of my car when shooting at night be never a gun thankfully. i usualy just lose a magazine (very easy lose them when lamping) or a box of sgotgun cartages.

civdef

i usualy just lose a magazine (very easy lose them when lamping)

One countermeasure for this is to attach your mag to the gun with some paracord or similar material.

Sparks

Three new ones to add to the list, more from a competitive side than a safety side;

Showed up in UCDRC for the most recent air rifle match, having gone through my checklist that morning for my gear. Had all required bits'n'bobs. Then tried to assemble the rifle, only to realise that the key to the trigger lock was sitting on my bedside table at home. Happily it was only 15 miles away, and I was after dropping off other people for the competition so I had two hours to retrieve it, but lesson learnt; your checklist is a living document and it should take into account even the blindingly obvious stuff...

(Also, helping out the rifle club by ferrying juniors to a match can pay off )



Shot in Bisley for the first time for the airgun championships last week. I'd been to Bisley before and walked around the air rifle range (it's not used much for air rifle outside of competitions ) to get familiar with it. "Hoo boy", thinks I, "you've got the drop on this match pressure yoke, haven't you?". Day of the competition arrives, and it's the same range - only now there are 200-odd people on it, shooting, range officering, spectating, adjudicating, there's Chris Hector a few spots away (the best male air rifle shooter in the UK at present), there's so-and-so, and there's another big name, and now we have to go through equipment control and on and on it went - by the time I got to the firing line, I was so thrown out of it, I dropped twenty points off my average.
Lesson learnt - match pressure is at it's most dehabilitating when you think you have it beaten and don't take the standard precautions (having a match plan, having contingency plans, knowing where your backup and coaches are and using them, and so on).



And lastly, on the trip home, we got through Gatwick (while being observed from the balcony by some gentlement with MP5 submachine guns - keep the fingers outside the trigger guard, would you lads? - just in case we took our single-shot air rifles and tried to go on a rampage in the airport :rolleyes: ) and even got a little congratulatory announcement on the plane on the way back, so everything was going swimmingly and we were all relaxing and letting the guard down - and then we caught the baggage handler throwing our rifle cases off the conveyor belt and onto the carrying case. And I mean throwing - you could hear the impact clear across the baggage reclaim area, it was that bad. Even after yelling at the man that those boxes were worth €2500 apiece, he kept on going...
Anyway, one of the brand new cases was destroyed as a result. Lock busted, a fracture on the end - but at least the rifle was still intact. Multiple lessons learnt:

• You're not home until you're home!
• Send someone from the team to escort the rifles off the plane or meet them as early along the chain as possible in future.
• Check your cases and rifles in baggage reclaim, in case they've been damaged. Otherwise, how do you prove it was baggage handling that smashed them?
• Get a very sturdy case for international travel and preferably one that you wouldn't cry over if it got smashed, as it probably will.
• When packing a rifle for international travel, even for a foam-lined case, bubblewrap is your friend and ally. Especially since the barrel/action and the stock will have been seperated to prevent differential thermal contraction from stripping out the bedding bolts!

Number6

I was climbing over a style back home - chasing after a dog that had killed numerous sheep and had a taste for blood - and didn't remember to unload the barrel when going over the style. The trigger got pulled by a twig and blew a hole into the back end of the style, making me fall flat on my face into a pile of brambles.

I could have easily lost my foot doing something as STUPID as that, so from now on if there is a dog worrying sheep, i'm going to take my time and cop on.

Rovi

Number6 wrote:

I was climbing over a style back home... and didn't remember to unload the barrel when going over the style. The trigger got pulled by a twig and...

This, unfortunately, is probably the most common cause of 'accidental' firearms injury and death
Going by anecdotal evidence, anyhow.

All it takes is a moment's inattention and non-application of 'The 4 Rules' (whichever version you subscribe to (religious discussion! )) for bad things to happen.

If anyone remembers the Ear to the Ground firearms item a while ago (see this thread), I'm pretty sure the technique was demonstrated there

(Edited to add-)
The 'technique' I mention above was 'climbing over a fence with a closed gun and bad muzzle discipline', NOT 'someone shooting themselves (or one of their buddies) while threshing around in the briars'.
Just thought I should add that.
I'd imagine the programme would have had a higher profile if it had been the latter

.

gouda

Sparks wrote:

Three new ones to add to the list, more from a competitive side than a safety side;

Showed up in UCDRC for the most recent air rifle match, having gone through my checklist that morning for my gear. Had all required bits'n'bobs. Then tried to assemble the rifle, only to realise that the key to the trigger lock was sitting on my bedside table at home. Happily it was only 15 miles away, and I was after dropping off other people for the competition so I had two hours to retrieve it, but lesson learnt; your checklist is a living document and it should take into account even the blindingly obvious stuff...

(Also, helping out the rifle club by ferrying juniors to a match can pay off )



Shot in Bisley for the first time for the airgun championships last week. I'd been to Bisley before and walked around the air rifle range (it's not used much for air rifle outside of competitions ) to get familiar with it. "Hoo boy", thinks I, "you've got the drop on this match pressure yoke, haven't you?". Day of the competition arrives, and it's the same range - only now there are 200-odd people on it, shooting, range officering, spectating, adjudicating, there's Chris Hector a few spots away (the best male air rifle shooter in the UK at present), there's so-and-so, and there's another big name, and now we have to go through equipment control and on and on it went - by the time I got to the firing line, I was so thrown out of it, I dropped twenty points off my average.
Lesson learnt - match pressure is at it's most dehabilitating when you think you have it beaten and don't take the standard precautions (having a match plan, having contingency plans, knowing where your backup and coaches are and using them, and so on).



And lastly, on the trip home, we got through Gatwick (while being observed from the balcony by some gentlement with MP5 submachine guns - keep the fingers outside the trigger guard, would you lads? - just in case we took our single-shot air rifles and tried to go on a rampage in the airport :rolleyes: ) and even got a little congratulatory announcement on the plane on the way back, so everything was going swimmingly and we were all relaxing and letting the guard down - and then we caught the baggage handler throwing our rifle cases off the conveyor belt and onto the carrying case. And I mean throwing - you could hear the impact clear across the baggage reclaim area, it was that bad. Even after yelling at the man that those boxes were worth €2500 apiece, he kept on going...
Anyway, one of the brand new cases was destroyed as a result. Lock busted, a fracture on the end - but at least the rifle was still intact. Multiple lessons learnt:

• You're not home until you're home!
• Send someone from the team to escort the rifles off the plane or meet them as early along the chain as possible in future.
• Check your cases and rifles in baggage reclaim, in case they've been damaged. Otherwise, how do you prove it was baggage handling that smashed them?
• Get a very sturdy case for international travel and preferably one that you wouldn't cry over if it got smashed, as it probably will.
• When packing a rifle for international travel, even for a foam-lined case, bubblewrap is your friend and ally. Especially since the barrel/action and the stock will have been seperated to prevent differential thermal contraction from stripping out the bedding bolts!

Firearms regularly draw this kind of attention from baggage handlers, or so my informed sources tell me, a lot of them are apparently anti-shooting. Also,if you have stickers,markings on the outside of the case such as eley,Anschutz etc. it only serves to advertise that it contains firearms. Some people put innocous stickers or no marking at all and have found the case treated slightly better. I also feel that handlers compete among themselves as to who can throw heavy cases furthest from the conveyor without spilling the contents.

Number6

Yeah, I noticed this happened to a few friends of mine who went over to 'Merica. Baggage claim wouldn't pay for the cases saying it was "natural wear and tear of transit". This is going back a few years now mind, the law has changed since then regarding damaged baggage.

demonloop

If this is a 'learning experience' thread, I once witnessed a woman who had shot a 50v10 on Century at Bisley.

She must have converted a sighter or two, and had a round of 7.62 left over because when getting her trigger weight tested she fired straight up the air when the weight pulled her trigger.

Silly bugger had one up the spout

Shouts of 'Cease-Fire' were heard for miles as everyone took cover. I ran a 100m time that would have pushed the Olympic record.

No-one died, God knows where it came down. Needless to say the woman did not need her 50v10 score as she disqualified on the spot.

Renegade_Archer

An archery story, hope its applicable.


Me and a few other lads out shooting in my own range. We were all on the junior national squad at the time. After a few hours at the standard distances, we get bored of this, start shooting at unusual distances, swapping bows, the usual fooling around. Then one guy gets the bright idea to fire an arrow straight up. Now this is an Easton ACE, coming out of the bow at around 250 foot/sec, so it goes fast and high, and we lose sight. For a second or two we look at each other. Then we *run* - legged it into a nearby barn and cowered. Arrow came down a few seconds later around 10 metres from the spot it was fired. Lad who shot it endured a severe larting from his team mates.


Moral of the story - if youre getting bored whilst youre shooting, go do something else for a while, dont go messing around with your weapon.

Regards


Ewan

Rovi

There are so many things we can all learn from this-
http://media4.big-boys.com/content/SLOWHUNT.wmv
(5MB download)
(Fairly worksafe- contains stupidity and strong language)

:eek: :eek:

.

phantom_lord

I thought I might just throw this in here for those interested. It seemed the most suitable spot.

Guns: Facts & Fallacies

http://www.totse.com/en/politics/right_to_keep_and_bear_arms/guntruth.html

Babble

I recently witnessed a troubling incident at the range over here. There was a novice (I presume) handgun shooter at the station to the right of me. He had just picked up a brand new Sig P226 in 9mm and had a more experienced shooter friend at the station on his right. Shooter obously had taken apart the handgun for some reason because he had forgotten to close the takedown lever.
He pops in a full magazine and hits the slide release, the slide moves forward and chambers a round but because the takedown lever is still open the slide see its chance and makes a break for freedom taking its sidekick the 9mm round with it.
From the corner of my eye I see a brand new Sig slide fly through the air with gusto, I almost thought it was going to reach paper and put an impressive hole in the target. But alas it quickly falls to earth and goes click clink clink as it hits the concrete and bounces around.

Oh boy did i get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because I had an identical handgun sitting in front of me and I shuddered at the thought of the scrapes and gashes, I had to turn away

Babble

I just read this on the Canadiangunnutz forum today.

Happened yesterday at my local range, Posted by the guy I did my safety course with

Wear your %$&**# safety glasses and don't shoot crappy old milsurp guns.

I had the opportunity to do first aid on a guy at the range today who had a KB! with his broomhandle mauser. The bolt sheared right off the frame and struck him on the head. He ended up losing his right eye. I'm not sure if safety glasses would have helped, but we will never know now.

demonloop

As a follow up to Sparks airport baggage handing story, a member of my club arrived in Belfast having been away shooting smallbore for the weekend, I think it was Bisley.

As he sat on the plane watching out the window whilst the cattle all made a dash for the exit (as per usual) he saw his gun case come out of the hold where it was handled gently onto the truck/trailer that moves the luggage, right at the top of the pile where it would be safe.

He watched the trailer go across the tarmac and into the little bit where they offload the bags and put them on the belt, at this point he gets up and leaves the plane.

5 mins later his gun case comes out of the chute, opened and with his rifle in 2 pieces!!

Now far be it from anyone to speculate what went on behind that chute but both locks were busted off the case and the aluminum stock had become seperated from the action. Funny that?

After creating a stink with police, airport security, the handlers, the management of the airport and just about anyone else he could find, he got a brand new rifle.

Moral of the story, baggage handlers are the scurge of society!!

Sparks

So much so, DL, that this year, we're sending the gear across on the ferry. Noone tries to drop-kick our rifles, we don't necessarily have to use hardcases, and with the new £25 per rifle surcharge from Heathrow, it works out cheaper for us in the end.

Victor

Make sure never to mix blank and live ammo. It makes a real mess of the blank firing attachment.

Sparks

Right, so we're running an airgun match right now in WTSC. And after the match, I'm setting up a club pistol (an IZH-46M) to my hand, and adjusting the palm shelf. I get it in position while pointing at the target, and then turned it over to tighten the screws. Without thinking. Took less than a second. And I didn't realise, in that second, that a friend of mine was sitting behind me and that in that second, the pistol was pointing in his direction. Now the pistol was unloaded (I was dry-firing), but he didn't know that.

Lesson learnt: it doesn't matter that you've been trained to use a pistol safely by a certified RO; all it takes is that one second of a break in discipline, and you have a potential accident on your hands. And it's so damn easy with pistols because they're so short-barrelled. We're just going to have to step up our game in terms of Range Officering. Proper courses need to be set up and until they are, we need to be going to Northern Ireland, the mainland UK or Germany or somewhere else where they use pistols to get proper training. And we're going to have to think about building stalls on all the ranges for air pistol, just like in UCD, only fully enclosing the shooter with a door to the rear. And we're going to have to expect our ROs to be very strict. I don't know about you lot, but I'd much prefer to be yelled at and embarressed, even by a friend, on a range than to spend a trip to the hospital in the back of a car applying pressure to a wound on a friend.

And yes, there will be people reading this who think that saying this in public now is less than tactful. I don't much care. Safety first either means safety first or it doesn't. Yes, I know, groups like the IPSA run proper safety courses, and I applaud that because it's desperately necessary. Other courses, well, we've discussed that before. They're a good step but need toughening up in terms of strictness. Better to fail a shooter from a test than to pass them and let them get hurt. Time to do the right thing, ladies and gentlemen.

Babble

Check out this story!
http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2005/11/from-email.html
Ewwww

Nema

Its so true, There needs to be more training, FIREARMS are not toys and will kill if you F**K up.

I personaly have and will do as much training as im able to,
That bloke in that story was lucky that it wasnt pointed at his or a loved ones head when he pulled the trigger.

3 year ago, Me and a friend of mine came back from a good days shooting.
We went up to his room to clean the guns, 1 Rifle and 2 Shotguns.
My friends brother came in with a friend of his from england and wanted to show him the guns. Me and my friend was cleaning the Shotguns, My friends brother picks up the Rifle and started to show his friend from england.
He then pulled back the bolt and loaded the gun NOT KNOWN what he did he then pointed the rifle at his friend from england thinking it was a game. RIGHT away me and my friend SHOUTED " DONT EVEN POINT A F**KING GUN AT ANYONE" So my friends brother then said sorry and pointed it up to the sky and pulled the trigger BANG. I for one can tell you that you do hear the BANG. i jumped at my friends brother and took the rifle off him calling him a STUPID prick. i said " look what happens when you mess with guns, what if you pulled that trigger 10 second ago when you had it pointed at youre friends head from england" He went WHITE as a ghost and left the room with his friend in stock.

See it is easy for it to happen. When i come home i go in to my gun room lock the door behind me so no one can come in while im cleaning my guns. once im done they go in to there safes. Then and only then i unlock the door to my gun room and leave.

You have to ALWAYS and i mean ALWAYS be on youre top game when dealing with firearms. If not someone will get hurt or die!

I for one couldnt live known i hurt or killed a loved one.

Clare gunner

There is a new rifle case out that will survive just about anything short of a nuke blast.It is called the PELI CASE.It is some type of hard plastic[feel like a Glock type polymer]It has an air tight seal around it's rim and an air purge button.So it actually creates a negative pressure inside the case,to keep it from being contaminated by dirt dust,etc.It is "GI proof".IE totally impervious to anything an army grunt can chuck at it.It's advert showed three large German soilders jumping and standing on it,with no damage to it. I belive there is one pic of a bunch of these cases being used as axle stands for a military truck!! It can be locked by normal padlocks.It is heavy and pretty expensive[appx 500 euros].BUT if it will protect a 4000Euro rifle on that vital match or once in a lifetime hunt?????
And as for baggage handlers,YES things that are marked fragile,or such.Or look like they are delicate.WILL be chucked,stamped on and thumped all the harder.I found this out first hand once working for a airport security company that was in charge of baggage screening in Shannon.

Sparks

Clare gunner wrote:

There is a new rifle case out that will survive just about anything short of a nuke blast.It is called the PELI CASE.

Pelican cases are pretty much the best out there allright CG, but even they're not sufficient - I have heard of one case where a rifle in a hard case which was itself in a pelican case still suffered a broken stock at the pistol grip on arrival.
Still though, I think that that would be a seriously rare case (and it's not certain that the rifle was properly padded in the inner case anyway), and a Pelican would definitely be my choice. And it's not just the cost of the rifle; it's the cost of the rifle, the training, the flight, the effort it took to be selected for the team, and so on. €500 would be cheap...

Rovi

What with all the shiny new pistol owners we have in this country now, I thought I might bring this to your attention-
(Workplace warning!- Graphic thumbnail images of the sort of damage a bullet can do to a person's hand)
http://www.gunboards.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=139310

This sort of thing could of course happen with any sort of firearm, but it's potentially more likely with a handgun.

The damage in this case is particularly severe as it was done with Hydra-Shock personal defence ammunition, but I'd still not want it happening to me even with the wadcutter or ball ammunition used for target shooting.

Play safe folks!

.

coyote6

I was at Virginia Beach Counter Sniper School (Carlos Hathcock's) and had brought a new rifle for the course. I hadn't even zeroed it yet. We'll here I am with lots of operators much more experienced than me. We're zeroing at the 100 shooting 5 rd. groups. My partner is watching my form and spotting for me and we're prone. I shot my first round and got smacked really, really good in my large nose. I pretended nothing happened so as not to appear like the idiot that I was. I shot 5 total rds. My partner later told me he flinched at each one. My nose was bleeding profusely and it was also nicely broken (thats 3 times now over the years). As we're walking down to check our groups my face is covered in blood and the other students, rightly, just sorta' gave me funny looks. I acted like nothing happened and adjusted my eye relief.
My pride was pretty hurt I must say. The Butler Creek flip-up cover button was what was smacking me. And man it hurt. Moral of the story. Zero your rifle PRIOR to going to school and make sure your eye relief is good. If it's not at least you'll have time for your injuries to heal!:o

I've recovered a bit of my dignity since and have been instructing law enforcement firearms for about 8 years.

Biggest tactical safety concerns: Trigger finger discipline, muzzle awareness.

Biggest Shooting Concerns: Weapon to the Threat, Front sight focus, trigger control.

Rovi

There's thread on this very subject one on The Firing Line.

.

Sparks

This just has to be put in for posterity

From breakingnews.ie:

Cheney shoots fellow hunter in Texas

US vice-president Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said tonight.

Harry Whittington, 78, was “alert and doing fine” after Cheney sprayed Whittington with shotgun pellets at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas yesterday, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.

She said Cheney turned to shoot a bird and accidentally hit Whittington.

Whittington was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance, she said.

Cheney’s spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice-president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital this afternoon.

phantom_lord

sorry. i thought you were george.

Cheney accidentally shoots hunting companion

By JoAnne Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally wounded a companion with shotgun pellets on a weekend quail hunt in Texas, his office said on Sunday.

Cheney's companion, Austin lawyer Harry Whittington, 78, was listed in stable condition after being brought in on Saturday night, said Yvonne Wheeler, a spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Cheney's office said Whittington had been sprayed by birdshot while hunting at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, about 200 miles south of San Antonio.

The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The vice president's office did not disclose the accident until the day after it happened.

Katharine Armstrong, whose family owns the ranch, was a member of the hunting party and witnessed the accident.

She said Cheney, an experienced hunter, did not realise Whittington had rejoined the group without announcing himself, which is proper protocol among hunters.

"They had no idea he was there," Armstrong said.

"A bird flew up, the vice president followed it through around to his right and shot, and unfortunately, unbeknownst to anybody, Harry was there and he got peppered pretty good with a spray of 28-gauge pellets," Armstrong said in a telephone interview.

"He was turning, facing the vice president, but turning to the right, and it sprayed him across the right side of his face, his shoulder, his chest and along the rib cage area," she said.

Armstrong said Cheney's medical team attended to Whittington before he was taken to the hospital.

She described Cheney as "an excellent, conscientious shot."

"The person who is not doing the shooting at the point is just as responsible and, should be, as the person actually shooting," Armstrong said.

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said the vice president had been with Whittington at the hospital on Sunday.

"The vice president visited with Harry Whittington at the hospital and was pleased to see he is doing fine and in good spirits," McBride said.

Cheney has been a frequent visitor to the Armstrong Ranch and in October spoke at the funeral of family patriarch Tobin Armstrong.

Armstrong's wife, Anne, served as U.S. ambassador to Britain and as an adviser to presidents Nixon, Reagan and George Bush.

The 50,000-acre ranch was settled in 1882 by his grandfather, John Armstrong III, a Texas Ranger known for capturing outlaw John Wesley Hardin.

Whittington serves on the Texas state Funeral Services Commission and the state Office of Patient Protection and is a former member of the board of the Texas Department of Corrections.

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6462984&cKey=1139791821000
__________________

I thought I'd just add a bit....

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=50873028&posted=1#post50873028

Rovi

... but closely related.

Don't try out a new clay pigeon launcher...








in the dark...








at full elevation...









directly into the wind. :rolleyes:








I missed. Just.


.

Manic Moran

macnas wrote:

Never put anything on the roof of the car especially in the dark.

Returning to the car after a night flight, being more concerned about taking off the wet wellie, put the shotgun on the roof. Fresh socks, dry boots, drove home.......about 6 miles........pitch dark.........pouring rain..........narrow, twisty roads..........into the house......... had dinner...........half way through a spud.............OOOH B****X!. And was it on the roof when I ran out........Nope. Rang the Gardai told them what had happened and went out lookin'. Tried to remember where on the road I had heard that metal on metal sliding noise and suprise, suprise not far away was my Beretta lying in the mud at the side of the road. Not a scratch!!.
You would have thought I'd have learned my lesson from that but no, left my Buck Zipper on the roof, drove off and never saw it again.

My driver did that in Mosul. Getting in about 11pm, he left his Beretta and holster on the front slope. Off we went, out the gate, we didn't know any better. Shortly out the gate, we were blinded by oncoming traffic and ploughed into a concrete barrier, coming to an abrupt stop. After cursing a bit, we kindof reversed, drove around the remains, and kept going. Took about a half hour to get to our school that we were staying at, and immediately took an 8-hour watch. Finally, we pull into our parking spot and go to bed. Driver comes up to me fifteen minutes later, telling me he's lost his sidearm. After a bit more searching, nothing for it. Drive back home, and see if he left it in his room. As we're travelling, I wonder if it might have fallen off when we hit the concrete. Sure enough, as we get there, some 10 hours after we were there last, I see the holster and rather squashed Beretta in the middle of the road. Looks like it fell to the ground when we stopped, when we went around, we then ran over it.

Make sure never to mix blank and live ammo. It makes a real mess of the blank firing attachment.

Very nearly made a mess of the enemy as well. Fortunately, the troop missed. We're still not sure how the live round got in there.

NTM

Vegeta

Rovi wrote:

... but closely related.

Don't try out a new clay pigeon launcher...








in the dark...








at full elevation...









directly into the wind. :rolleyes:








I missed. Just.


.

Where we go clay shooting its very windy usually, so we set up the clay trap so that the wind plays all sorts of games with the trajectory, sometimes its possible to get them to hold still in the air for a few seconds its class. Never did this at night though, get glow in the dark paint and i think we could be onto something

mrbig

Is it legal to own a hand gun in Ireland? if so is this a new thing.
I was thinking of getting a shotgun to do some clay shooting, i used to use my fathers gun when i was a teenager,where should i go to get a good gunsmith west dublin/ kildare area?

Babble

^^^ I asked the same question
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=300320

Double Barrel

I always get a cold shiver down my spine when I think of the few close calls I have experienced; all with no injury to persons or things.

I heard today that John Young the Editor of The Field was shooting at a social clay-shooting event and during a flurry, the unthinkable happened.

The bag or pocket from which his 12 bore was being loaded contained at least one 20 bore cartridge.

You can guess the rest. Helicoptered away to hospital. News of his condition not yet reported.

A timely reminder that whoever we are, however much experience we have, only one slip of the mind, only one failure to maintain our safety routine is needed to lead us into disaster.

One can never be too careful.

Vegeta

man that sounds rough, what kind of damage would happen with a 20 gauge cartridge in a 12g shotgun, would it blow open the action, could it have burst the barrell???? I am having a tough time picturing it,

Very good point though DB, it only ever takes one mistake in a lifetime of shooting/hunting for it to be lethal

Rew

20 in then a 12 on top without realising it id say....