...that another darn good use for the identical backup gun is that one can do dry-fire practice without having to engage in excessive administrative coonfingering of one's heater. (Hey, I'm a little slow.)
The one bona fide Accidental (as opposed to Negligent) Discharge I've seen was when dropping the slide on an HK P7 and the firing pin safety spring failed. No "booger hook on bang switch" required. Always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, and especially always if you're manipulating the action.
Administrative loading and unloading is one of the most likely times to hear unexpected loud noises; stop touching it so much.
All the early (pre-September 1990) Glocks had the same potential problem. Several cops were shot accidentally.
ReplyDeleteGaston stiffened the plastic by putting steel pins in strategic locations. O.K. so far.
But he used soft steel roll pins, which deformed over time and caused binding on the trigger linkage and slam fires when chambering a round. After 1990 they went to solid hardened dowel pins.
I know all the police weapons got new receivers, but I suspect there are probably more than a few privately held Model 17's out there that missed the recall and are ticking time bombs.
A friend had his CZ-52 fire when he used the hammer-drop "safety" once. He did maintain good muzzle control, and luckily it was at a range, so no damage done.
ReplyDeleteThese guns are so known to fire when the hammer drop safety is applied that some wags refer to that safety as the "auxilary trigger."
Rob (Trebor)
My buddy's 03 Springfield that he converted to 308 Norma accidentally discharged on him once. He was in Africa. After checking hisguns for function after 30 hours of flight time, he chambered a round, clicked off the safety, and the act of disengaging the safety caused it to fire. Right through the thatch roof of the range. Apparently she'd taken some damage during the flight. Always practice safe gunhandling.
ReplyDeleteWatched a Norinco 1911 slam fire once -- again, no booger hook on bang switch.
ReplyDeleteFiring pin was a skosh longer than standard, firing pin spring seemed a skosh weaker. Replaced both with standard US ones, and it never happened agin in thousands of rounds.
Figured the Chinese were going for a little extra smack on the harder rpimers they tended to use, and combining that with US civilian ammo was the issue.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteJust a few weeks ago, at the state championships my brother got DQ'd for an ND when unloading unused rounds out of a Rossi lever-action.
Fortunately it was one of our Trailboss-loads, not one of the 1900 Joules full loads.
Next time he'll do as I do and apply the safety.
Talking of P7s:
ReplyDeleteThere was this P7-owner in our club who didn't believe me that his gun would discharge when he first pulled the trigger and the pressed the cocker. BANG. Oops. But he was pointing it downrange, roughly.
stop touching it so much
ReplyDeleteCan I do it until I need eye pro?
Two identical pistols, one loaded, one used for dryfire practice.
ReplyDelete.
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Yep, no chance for confusion there!
Maybe you could get one in stainless?
When I was much younger I encountered several old .22 rifles that would fire when I disengaged the safety, and this happened often enough that I just stopped using the safeties on old rifles and don't chamber a round till I'm ready to fire, and really made sure it wasn't covering anything I wasn't ready to destroy. My own guns are kept in better shape, or retired, but those early experiences built some good muzzle disipline. The first couple of times I was just a very lucky stupid kid.
Phil
Confession time. Earlier this year I put a .30 caliber hole in the baseboard of my finished basement wall.
ReplyDeleteBecause I was too lazy to find and unload one of my six magazines to use while function checking a reload with a bullet profile I'd not used before.
I just slipped it into the chamber, pulled back on the op rod and let fly.
I think the primer might have been a touch high.
Also my fault for doing this sort of thing indoors.
Everything sounded muffled for a few hours afterward. I made it 20+ years without having a ND. Thankfully muzzle discipline kept it from being a major disaster.
what's the gun analog of the no-fap challenge?
ReplyDeleteEd,
ReplyDeleteAny self-loading weapon can do it, be it an icky Glock you hate or a pretty 1911 you wuv.
;)
Rob,
ReplyDeleteI spent a summer helping fix several thousand CZ52s so that they wouldn't do that anymore.
To this day I can't stand the smell of cosmoline and sweat in a hot car in the summer...
Phil,
ReplyDelete"Two identical pistols, one loaded, one used for dryfire practice.
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Yep, no chance for confusion there!
Maybe you could get one in stainless?"
Hey, good idea! :D
Probably the easiest way for me to tell them apart, though, is the loaded one is the one in my holster, so I don't go messing with it.
I am about to the point where I am willing to say: there is no reason to dry fire a functional gun.
ReplyDeleteThe advent of Blade Tech's Training Barrel and Train Safe's Barrel Blocker (among others) has pretty much erased the need. If you need to dry fire, disable your firearm.
Llama .32acp, like a 3/4 scale 1911. Late 80's. Discovered the firing pin protruded at least 0.060" (might have been .080", fuzzy memory) with the hammer down. o_O Not good, since that was how I anticipated it would be carried.
ReplyDeleteI shortened and radiused the tip. Later, it went back to the importer for another problem, and they left the FP alone. No idea if that over long part was standard, or a mistake. Never miss-fired after doing it.
ReplyDelete"To this day I can't stand the smell of cosmoline and sweat in a hot car in the summer..."
I suspect that may be an occasional problem, what with your attraction to old military arms :D
I had a late war P38 do the same thing, broken safety. All 3 of my others have been, err, manipulation error.
ReplyDeleteAnd one of the verification words is, no lie, crystallized. How do it know?
At a gun show, one of the dealers displayed a wartime production P-38 that he had repaired by a gunsmith and the multiple parts that needed to be replaced by the gunsmith. Each part was stamped as meeting military spec but assembled together would not function with normal wear after some rounds had been fired. The explanation was that it was suicidal for the slave labor to deliberately manufacture a non-functioning weapon, but if the weapon failed in the field, then that was tolerable. The genius was in selecting the parts that assembled together would function, but not for long.
ReplyDelete