Negligent Discharges

[JHC]

First - with standard trigger, but I can more or less write that one off as I was just self-learning pressout. The last two were with negative connector installed, approximately 5.25 lbs or so trigger pull. I got rid of negative connector after that.

A couple years ago I was using the standard connector in all but one Glock and in the one exception it was a Gen 3 G17 and a minus that just came out SWEET for games but I would never carry. Each Glock is sort of unique and this one with a Scherer minus was much lighter than the guns I have today with minus connectors. With that gun, I'd trip a shot way early before the sights were settled on target at least once per training session and at least once per match.

Based on that I dissed the minus in discussion on M4C and someone replied that my problem was doing so much shooting with my carry 5.5s and then sometimes picking up the light trigger gun and if I'd standardize on the minus I would resolve this.

I flipped that particular 17 to get the Gen 4 G17 more than a year ago (a real peach of a Gen 4 too) and took that advice and pretty much standardized on the minus. None of my current battery ends up nearly so light with a minus connector. Almost all my shooting is now minus across the line up and what that reply post told me has proven out. I think I've got about 3-4K rounds fired this year and I've only fired early on press out twice going for hyper speed and both of those rounds impacted in the "throat/clavicle" area vs the paper plate . . . and a third time going for hyper speed on the 3x5 in a FAST drill and the shot parted the hair of the IPSC cardboard but missed the card.

Just food for thought.

Oh, and btw, I've seen DocGKR post elsewhere that he and his "they" use the minus and have found actual pull weights close to 5lbs give or take a skosh and that's my sense of my guns also. Gen 4's a tad heavier, Gen 3's a tad lighter but not that far different.

[David Armstrong]

I've had two, about 10 years apart, both much the same. A distraction while doing whatever I was doing, then going back to the gun and messing up the sequence without it registering.

[Joe in PNG]

Just a couple with .22 pistols.
-Back 16 years ago with a rental Ruger MkII .22- back when I was teaching myself how to shoot (wrong). The gun failed to shoot during a string, and with trigger on finger I tilted the muzzle up to check the chamber... and put a round into the celing. Doh!

-A few years ago, with my ancient High Standard Duramatic. I was using a high grip, which with my huge hands tends to accidently engage the safety at times. During one string of shots, I pressed the trigger and nothing. So, muzzle pointed safely downrange, I pressed the safety and BANG!

[Rains on Parades]

While I didn't pull the trigger, I consider myself to have participated in this ND. This was in 1998 my last day in the Army I was driving home the next day. My roommate and I were talking guns and with his only experience in handguns being with the 1911 he was unfamiliar with a loaded chamber indicator, and wanted to see it demonstrated with my USPc .45. So I got out my pistol, put a round in the chamber and put the weapon on safe(He was watching me the entire time), and handed him the pistol, while pointing to the red-line that indicated a loaded chamber. He looks at the pistol for a few seconds and just out of the blue flips off the safety and pulls the trigger. We were standing face to face and he was holding the pistol at a 90 degree angle between us(which probably saved my life as the bullet would have hit me in the torso). The bullet passed through a can of carpet cleaner and a can of shoe polish before embedding in our barracks wall.

What did I learn? Well while not one of the 4 rules, my father had always taught me to never hand anyone a loaded weapon. And that brought home the wisdom of that statement. Even in a situation where the entire purpose of the activity was for him to see a loaded weapon, somehow shit went down. Also seeing the shoe polish and carpet cleaner spread across half the wall of our room really brings home the fact that bullets don't give a fuck.

Afterwards he swore that I unloaded the pistol before I gave it to him, to this day I don't understand what was going through his head. He also later told me that since he liked firearms and was around them a lot he had always taken it for granted that he would be a part of some accident like that.

As a side note a lot of things contributed to that situation not working out much worse for us. Besides the bullet missing me, the unit was training in the field that day except for me because I was going home and him because he was an armorer, so the barracks were empty save for us. And our barracks had concrete walls so the bullet stopped there as well as the gun report.

[JDM]

I've been present for three NDs. responsible for one.

1. I sent a round of federal 00 buck through the floor of the trunk of my car in the parking area of a wilderness range. No one was injured. No damage to anything but the floor of my trunk. I thought the chamber was empty and I was gonna drop the hammer for the drive home. It's wasn't empty. Gun was a Mossberg 590.

2. My brother picked up the SAME shotgun from the above incident, cycled the action, and sent a load of birdshot through the ceiling of my house. Just the ceiling was damaged, No damage to the actual roof of the house. Also of note, the shockwave of the round going off shattered a piece of tempered glass on a nearby entertainment center. He thought it was an empty gun. It wasn't.

3. A friend of mine was doing dryfire work with a Glock 19. He finished and was going to reload the piece so as to make ready to carry it. He inserted a loaded mag right as his phone range. After the phone call was over, he cycled the action and pressed the trigger intending to do one last dry trigger press thinking the gun was empty. It wasn't. The JHP went through his mattress, through his box spring, through an interior wall through a piece of entertainment center tempered glass, struck the carpeted ground in front of the entertainment center, traveled underneath the carped for several feet, deflected up and out of the carpet and came to rest against, but not in, another interior wall. The worst damage was to the carpet.

[Al T.]

NDs seem to drop up at two points. One is clearing a bottom feeder and dry firing.

Twice, I've known folks to clear autochuckers backwards (check chamber, drop magazine) and shoot themselves or others. Now days, I teach folks to drop magazines and store them under the pinky of the shooting hand while they lock the slide back or rack the slide several times.

Revolvers seem to go bang while dry firing as there seems to be a desire to get one more good trigger roll in after the reload. As many folks learn from listening, I think it's a good idea to tell yourself out loud that the gun is now loaded and to load/unload in another room.

As for my personal NDs, one was through a closed window with a 1911. Absolutely no idea what I was thinking when I picked up the .45 off my night stand and calmly sent a 230 gr bullet into the yard. That was 30 years ago. A couple of years later, I was dry firing a new S&W and put a bullet into a wall. Yeah, I had reloaded and wanted to get one last presentation in before dinner.

[rjohnson4405]

I had one that was a bit different. Lever action .357 Rossi Rifle. My Dad insisted on a trigger lock so I put one on. Then one day decided I wanted to dry fire it so I started cycling the action to empty the gun. As I closed the lever the trigger lock pulled the trigger and sent a .357 magnum through the roof of the house and out into the woods. Thank God I didn't have it pointing towards the neighborhood. My brother and I repaired the roof and never told my parents.

[Shellback]

Interesting topic. I'm about to jump on a plane but was reading an article this morning that stated we've had 90 deaths in Iraq due to ND's. Here's a link if you're interested in reading it http://thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/06...diers-in-iraq/.

[texasaggie2005]

I think it's a good idea to tell yourself out loud that the gun is now loaded and to load/unload in another room.

I do this EVERY time I handle a gun in my house. My wife thought I was nuts when I unloaded / loaded in the closet before dry fire practice in the bedroom, and constantly announcing whether I am unloaded / loaded. Until I explained my reasons why. Now she says it makes her more comfortable to hear my operations and not to interrupt me while in the process.

[JRCHolsters]

I had one when I first turned 21 and got my carry permit. I had bought a glock when they first came into the country. I remember being pretty excited about getting such a new and unique handgun.
After a couple of weeks of carrying it, I was practicing field stripping it over and over. on my last re-assembly, I slid the mag in without even thinking about it, pointed it down at my floor and proceeded to put a 9mm slug into the basement. First instinct after the obligatory WTF, was to set the gun down as if it was possessed. I just thank my lucky stars that I was practicing safe pointing of the firearm.
We all can have cranial vapor-locks and it is so important to always be sure where that muzzle is.