Learned the value of rifle safety this evening

[Sgt. Psycho]

His gun was loaded in the car, it fired there.

The gun was not loaded in the car. Just to clarify he was removing the mag and chambered round while placing the gun in its case.

The OP was there, and clearly states that the ND did not occur in a vehicle. The case was not necessarily in the vehicle at the time of the ND. The OP also stated: "Thankfully his gun was pointed at the ground in the safe direction. His foot was out of the way by inches, and his young children were on the opposite side of him, as was I." There is no way anyone who wasn't there to witness the ND firsthand can say that the ND occurred in the car. We should stick to the facts and the lessons from this incident, not argue about things that didn't happen.

 

[SRD]

Could be a mechanical failure, he could've lost concentration and pressed the trigger with something by accident. The odd thing is that savages have a 3 position safety, so he should have been able to put the safety on the middle position to unlock the bolt and still keep the rifle on "safe". Maybe he set the trigger way light(and something moved the trigger safety out of the way), had some home-smithin' work done to it, or ...who knows. What is known is that the gun fired(when it should not have..that was negligent on his behalf through either improper equipment maintenance, or improper handling), but that his adherence to the rest of gun safety rules kept everyone safe and prevented a tragedy.

Another reason to think in 3-d and have a planned safe direction when loading/unloading/handling your firearm in your house.

I had an older stevens that would fire when releasing the bolt,try and duplicate it and it wouldn't do it then out of the blue boom!

I had an older Savage 110 30-06 (90-92 vintage) that never gave me any issues for a couple yrs.,sold it to a friend who used it for a couple yrs. also with no issues.One day he calls me and said it fired while chambering a round,said it would do it randomly while trying to duplicate it.

I haven't spoken to him since 01-02' so I'm not sure what he found the cause to be.

 

[TrappedinMD]

Glad everyone is ok, just goes to show how important it is to actively be thinking about gun safety at all times when handling a firearm.

 

[shaddydan]

In my opinion we need to work on our reading and writing skills.

That sums it up! OP, thanks for the reminder. AD do happen and its nice to read nobody was hurt because rules of safety were followed.


Now, back to the wild speculation and accusations......

 

[fabsroman]

In my opinion we need to work on our reading and writing skills.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic are fundamental. Just not in this thread.

 

[huesmann]

Ummm, how? He was trying to remove the mag, and somehow chambered a round and the round fired. Not trying to be argumentative, but how does that happen?

His gun was loaded at the car, it fired there.

FTFY.

 

[fabsroman]

I had an older Savage 110 30-06 (90-92 vintage) that never gave me any issues for a couple yrs.,sold it to a friend who used it for a couple yrs. also with no issues.One day he calls me and said it fired while chambering a round,said it would do it randomly while trying to duplicate it.

I haven't spoken to him since 01-02' so I'm not sure what he found the cause to be.

A worn sear can cause this, but it takes a lot of shooting to get to that point. Another thing that can cause slam fires is a trigger pull adjusted too lightly. I have the triggers on my Ruger 77's and Remington 700 adjusted to 2.5 pounds and vigorously slammed the bolt home and open about 100 times before being alright with the setting. At 2 pounds, the Remington 700 would slam fire.

Thing is, who really knows what happened but possibly the guy with the two kids. The OP probably has no idea where the guy's fingers were or exactly what he was doing when the gun fired.

The lesson to be taken from this is 1) do NOT point a gun at anything you would not be alright putting a bullet through even if you think it is unloaded and 2) treat every gun as if it is loaded all the time.

 

[MDHunter]

As I was walking out of the woods I ran into a guy and his two children who were also hunting. He had a savage 110 chambered in 7mm. As we get back to our vehicles I'm crouched over loading my rifle up the next vehicle over. Next thing I know *BOOOM!*



Negligent discharge while loading his rifle into the vehicle. As he released the bolt to remove the chambered round, the gun went off. Luckily it didn't blow the bolt out the back of the gun.



Thankfully his gun was pointed at the ground in the safe direction. His foot was out of the way by inches, and his young children were on the opposite side of him, as was I. All the other vehicles were in the opposite direction as well.

Not sure what some of you are comprehending when you read this, but I read it as they were in an area with multiple cars, and the guy was unloading his gun at the vehicle in the multi-car area (might even have been a parking lot).

No reason to keep the gun loaded until that point, just as easy to unload before entering the multi-car area. And I don't know about others, but I don't typically aim the barrel a few inches from my foot when I'm unloading.

I'm not trying to say exactly what happened - trying to make the point that that there didn't seem to be any need for the rifle to still be loaded. Others might have a different opinion, which is fine.

 

[ride4frnt]

To clear everything up. We were walking out of the woods after hunting. He was unloading his rifle to put it in his case before leaving. Why it was still loaded when he was walking out is still up for discussion.

All I know is the rifle went off and he's lucky his children or someone else weren't seriously hurt it killed.

Lesson learned is even when you think you have the safety lessons drilled into your head, it could still happen to even the most experienced person.

I'm good friends with Carlos Hathcock III, and after talking with him last night he said in all of his training and work with rifles in the corps, he's seen this kind of thing happen a lot. Never had one fire when releasing the bolt but plenty while closing the bolt.

 

[Doobie]

I have seen this happen before on a friends Rem700. Took it to the gunsmith and here's what he told us. Apparently a lot of people oil or put a few drops of oil down into the trigger mechanism or it works its way down in there. Eventually the oil may gum up in cold temps or just accumulate dirt. Eventually it builds up to the point that after you fire the rifle and rechamber a round, the sear or mechanism isn't fully reset and in a position to fire. When the safety is switched to fire, the sear/mechanism trips and it goes off just as if you pulled the trigger. Another thing that helps this along is that people put the safety on and then for some unknown reason pull the trigger to make sure its on safe, further putting pressure on the sear. I don't know how many times I've seen people do this...I immediately scold them. The gubsmith said to NEVER put oil in or on the trigger mechanism. He sees this every deer season. Ymmv

 

[Pale Ryder]

OP, was it an AD, as when he opened the bolt the rifle fired, or was it a ND, he tripped the trigger? Good noone got hurt.

 

[ride4frnt]

Not a clue. He says he had the safety on the middle position and it went off when he opened the bolt. I've never heard of that and I'm thinking he had the safety off entirely and somehow pulled the trigger.

 

[mopar92]

Yep that's the thing with Glocks especially in .357 SIG. Even though they tout a "Safe Action" trigger you put a wiffle bat in there and next thing ya know full auto. He's real lucky the nice lady at McDonald's didn't spill his Frosty or throw his Hawaiian pizza on the ground. Remember guys Mossberg 590A1's ALWAYS need to be safety checked BEFORE you CCW them ESPECIALLY when IWB is the style. And make sure that if you don't know how to do it have a trusted gunsmith look it over BEFORE you step on the trap field.
Man back in the day '61 if I recall (some gray matter decided to go on vacation and stayed there) me and Ol' Honest Abe Lincoln was doing tactical drills as he prepared to take on the Germans in the battle of Pearl Harbor and he had a runaway with his flintlock pistol. Damn thing went full auto and we'd been developing the overhand technique and well BAM! Instant proof of concept.

 

[Pale Ryder]

What proof?? 151+??

 

[mopar92]

Stone cold sober.

 

[bbarrows32]

Good thing everyone is an expert!

Why can't this just be a post about a guy who is encouraging gun safety?

Is his finger on the trigger? What was the safety position? why was he near a vehicle with a loaded firearm?

I am glad he shared his story about safety...I just wish the experts could relax for five minutes.

 

[Erno86]

Not a clue. He says he had the safety on the middle position and it went off when he opened the bolt. I've never heard of that and I'm thinking he had the safety off entirely and somehow pulled the trigger.

He might have had the safety off. Was he wearing gloves? With gloves...sometimes the shooter is not aware how close his fingers are to the trigger when he starts to cycle the bolt.

 

[alucard0822]

Pretty much 90% of the time a gun fires unintentionally it's because a finger pulled the trigger, most of the rest were modified in some way. There are a lot of bolt actions that have a pretty light engagement and pull, they can fire on closing, especially if any dirt gets into the action, or with a relatively light bump, a well designed safety that locks the sear into engagement will prevent it from firing. There are plenty of theories about what could have caused the ND the OP witnessed, but it does show the importance of the 4 rules, and especially never breaking more than 1 at the same time.

 

[alucard0822]

Pretty much 90% of the time a gun fires unintentionally it's because a finger pulled the trigger, and most of the time the gun is blamed as the person swears up and down they didn't do it, there are some that do happen with modified or adjusted guns, very few happening with a factory gun in working order. There are a lot of bolt actions that have very little engagement and a very light pull, they can fire on closing, especially if any dirt gets into the action, or with a relatively light bump, a well designed safety that locks the sear into engagement will prevent it from firing, and most factory weights angles and engagements are sufficiently safe. Any gunsmith can make a really light short trigger, but it takes a good one to make it safe, or match a trigger setup to the needs of the shooter despite the broken record of "light and short" everyone feels they must have. There shouldn't be any reason why someone can't carry a loaded firearm in the state of readiness as designed, if a person can't keep from touching the trigger and safety inadvertently, they need should be trained before taking up shooting. If the gun is unsafe with a loaded chamber and safetys engaged, it needs to be repaired. There are plenty of theories about what could have caused the ND the OP witnessed, but it does show the importance of the 4 rules, and especially never breaking more than 1 at the same time.

 

[aquashooter]

Didn't the Rem 700s have an issue with the safety. Even military instructors were having issues. When placing a loaded rifle into safe, the pin would drop setting off the round in the chamber. They had it on film. Nobody had their finger in the trigger guard.