TexasCHLforum.com

A very good fried of mine had an accidental / negligent discharge (AD/ND) the other night and I’d like to post as much information as I have on this.

He was cleaning a Charter Arms Bulldog 44 revolver. Once he was finished, he loaded it as this is the primary house defensive weapon to put back away. He forcefully closed the cylinder and that is when the discharge happened.

The bullet went through blinds, a double pane window with some sort of vinyl pane inside for storm protection and then across the neighbors back yard and stopped in a piece of wood just below the roof line. The bullet traveled approximately 75 feet.

He was able to retrieve the bullet out of the wood by just touching it and it fell out into his hand.

Thank God nobody was hurt. He and his wife were very shaken up. The neighbor was not aware of what happened, but he informed her of the AD/ND.

The police were not called.

He took the firearm into Carter’s Country the next day and a couple of gunsmiths checked it out and said that it was operating normally and nothing was broken.

They then asked him about the bullets that were used. He bought the bullets at Oshman’s in the mid 80’s. They were hollow point re-loads and about half the price of factory ammunition. The gunsmith says that if the primer was not set properly, that it might be possible for the forceful closing of the cylinder to cause the primer to ignite.

The other possibility is that his finger was on the trigger and when he closed the cylinder, he pulled the trigger and the round went off. He believes that he did not have his finger on the trigger, but he can’t rule that out.

Lessons learned.

1. Do not close the cylinder so forcefully.

2. Don’t use old re-loads for home defense that you may believe are defective. He will only be using factory loads from now on.