Tell Your ND Stories

[GlockenHammer]

Someone once told me that if you've never had a negligent discharge, then you either don't know what one is, or you're a liar. Let's hear some of your stories so others can learn.

I was at the range today and concentrating on trigger reset between shots. During recoil, I managed to squeeze off an unintentional shot a full foot over my target (from 7 yards) and into the berm. No harm done, but an ND nonethless.

My story about an ND I've witnessed was as a safety officer at a shooting match. Normally, after a sting of fire, the shooter unloads the weapon and then drops the hammer or striker (usually by pulling the trigger.) Repetition can be dangerous. This time, after a first string of fire, we loaded the shooter up to go to the next sting of fire. One inexperienced shooter loaded up for the next string, then, just as he'd trained, pulled the trigger in a safe direction to drop the hammer. Only this time, it wasn't an empty chamber. Fortunately, it was in a safe direction and again no harm done.

What's your story?

[dws1117]

Here's mine.

My wife's family has 300 acres with a house about 30 miles east of Nacogdoches(sp?). Just about everyone has keys and can go out anytime provided they let Grandma (it is her land) know before hand. My wife an I go out there several times a year. It is a great place to get away from everything, plus I can shoot off the back porch.

We were up at the land for the week. My favorite place to shoot is a the bottom of the hill near the creek in the old garden. The back of the hill is a great backstop. Most of the time I walk down, but this time I drove down in the S-10 we had then.

At the point I had only been shooting a few months (still no excuse). I was shooting my new Glock 23. As had become my habit, when the shooting was finished, I would drop the magazine, rack the slide to make sure it was empty, then pull the trigger.

Well, for some reason I changed the order. Racked slide, dropped magazine, and BOOM! Gun did just what it was supposed to do when the trigger is pulled. I had removed my hearing protection. It scared me silly! After my ears stopped ringing, I replayed what I did to figure out where I went wrong. That's when I realized that when I pulled the trigger, the muzzle was not pointed in a safe direction. I has pointed it about 3 inches over the hood of my truck. I almost killed my truck!

Now, I don't know if a .40 S&W at less than two feet would have done any real damage to the engine, but all I could think was that I had almost killed the truck at the bottom of the hill and we would have been stuck out there.

That was a learning experience. I am much more careful about where my muzzle is pointed and about checking to make sure a round is not chambered. Now I would also me more concerned with where the bullet went than what could happen to the truck.

[Paladin]

The closest I've come to a ND is while shooting an MP-5K for the first time, and being rushed by the range guy, the gun climbed on me and sent a few rounds into the rafters! I've shot a number of MGs since, and the MP-5K was definitely the worst of the bunch for climbing during long bursts.

I know exactly what GlockenHammer is saying about building a habit by pulling the trigger to drop the hammer/striker.

I avoid ever pulling the trigger unless I actually mean to shoot, or have double/triple checked the gun and taken other precautions before dry firing. Even then I tend to avoid dry firing guns I leave loaded. I prefer to dry fire them at the range.

I think racking the slide 3 times is a good way to clear a semi-auto. I've tried to do that ever since reading about the method.

[Braden]

Someone once told me that if you've never had a negligent discharge, then you either don't know what one is, or you're a liar. Let's hear some of your stories so others can learn.

What if you DO know what one is....but you've never had one??

I've always heard it said this way....you've either had one or you WILL have one. I hope to prove that theory wrong.

[Jeffry6789]

I was about 15 or 16 when I had mine. My Dad, younger brother, and I were all out dove hunting one weekend, I had been a hundred times, my brother hadn't gone with us much before. Anyway we had borrowed an 20 gauge shotgun for him to use.

Well to make a short story shorter, we had some birds come up on us, and took aim, but for whatever reason we didnt fire, well I just put my hammer back down, and got back to waiting. My brother didn't know what to do to get his back to the uncocked position. So, I traded him guns, and put down the hammer, only I let it get away from me, and put a nice crater in the ground about 3 feet in front of me.

The problem was I had never use that shotgun before, so I was unfamiliar with it, but as I was taught, I had the weapon pointed in a safe direction. Since, I have always made sure to familiarize myself as much as possible with a gun before I do anything with it.

[Kalrog]

What if you DO know what one is....but you've never had one??

I've always heard it said this way....you've either had one or you WILL have one. I hope to prove that theory wrong.

I am working on being the exception that proves the rule as well.

[Suckhow]

I put a hole in my ceiling in my bedroom about 3 months ago from my Sig 229 40 cal. I dont know what I was thinking, but my ears rang for about 3 days.

Never again.

[HighVelocity]

1989, Colt 1911, Master Bathroom practicing drawing and dry firing from the surrender position for an upcoming IPSC match.
An hour a day, every single day. One day while doing this the dogs started going nuts and somebody was pounding real hard on my front door. Loaded the pistol, holstered it and went to the door. Nobody was there. I looked out the window, saw nothing and the dogs quit barking.
Walked back to bathroom, drew weapon and FIRED. Shot my reflection COM. Killed the mirror, passed lengthwise through the master bedroom closet penetrating practically entire wardrobe, through the closet door and into the waterbed were it stopped. :x

[jimlongley]

Ugh, I might have been the guy at the match with one of mine, except it was IDPA and yes I said one of them.

First, my buddy and I were in the habit of "borrowing" his dad's and mine .22 revolvers to go rat hunting in a couple of tumble down buildings near our very rural homes. I decided I was going to take my father's .22 Colt Ace on one trip.

My parents were away, there was no neighbor near enough to see into the third floor attic, but I snuck around like people could see me. I got the key to the gun box and opened the lid just enough to feel around and find the Ace, and then I groped around enough to find a mag that fit and shoved it home and hid everything under my shirt until I met my bid and we set off through the fields. Paranoia!!!

When we arrived, we flipped for who got to shoot first and who would hold the light and I won. We got down in the basement and positioned ourselves where we would have a good view and settled down to wait for the rats to start making noise.

When the first rat came out, my bud lit it up and I took careful aim and fired - THE .45!!!!! - ouch



We ran like scared rabbits. Many years later we came to realize that nobody was likely to have heard the shot, but considering how loud it was where we were, we thought we had woke up the world.

I carefully cleaned up the gun and put it away feeling very foolish and never went rat hunting again.

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Some years later, and the same buddy, I was sitting on a stone wall near where we were deer hunting (with shotguns) waiting for him to come out of the woods. He had seen me sitting there and decided it would be fun to try to sneak up on me.

It was a nice sunny fall afternoon and I was kind of dozing and not paying much attention to my surroundings when my bud popped out of the woods behind me and hollered "BOO" whereupon I fell backwards off the wall and dropped my shotgun. I caught my gun in midair, and both it and I fell, and somehow managed to get my gloved hand into the trigger guard and when I hit the ground it discharged stright up into the air.

I was sure the safety had been on and upon disassembly we found that I had broken the safety off with the combined force of hitting the ground and my gloved fingers in the trigger guard, allowing the gun to fire. I have since made it a rule to NEVER depend on a safety for safety. I have even seen a 1911 fire when it was on safe.

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After the end of an IDPA stage I cleared my gun and popped the mag back in and dropped the slide and pulled the trigger at the berm, which really added a lot of time to that stage.

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Anybody can have brain farts.

[gigag04]

This one is a hand me down from my mom about my dad.

My dad was US Army SF (10th group) and his dad was an old school gunsmith with an amazing collection.

Needless to say my dad knew better than this:

My mom walks past my dad when they were starting at his parents house one weekend. He is tinkering and cleaning one of his many as usual. He "always checks for a round."

My mom goes to the bathroom to do her hair or whatever ladies do. She is standing in front of the mirror and all of a sudden she hears a round discharged and she sees some sheetrock bits on the floor. She looks and it passed between her legs and into the cabinet. He swears it was empty.

[Brad Johnson]

I was working with some folks new to handguns. I was taking a lot of time showing them the basics and they were picking up on things pretty well. We finished up and I dutifully checked both guns for empty (for about the umpteenth time) and laid them on the counter in front of me. About that time I turned to talk to one of them. While I wasn't looking (or paying attention) the other person thought they would be helpful and put the mags back in the pistols, placing them dutifully back on the counter exactly as they were. I turned around and saw the pistols laying just as I had placed them so no flags went up. I grabbed the first one and pointed it in a safe direction to drop the slide and hammer. What happened next needs no description. Luckily it was a .22 and all it did was punch a nice, clean hole in the sheetrock before stopping in the wall header. All it took was a dab of filler and some touch-up paint to fix, but I stayed up for several nights running it through my head.

The bottom line is that I took for granted the guns were not tampered with after I had checked them for empty. Even though my attention was away from them for less than 10 seconds and they never got out of arm's reach, I still should have checked them for emty again. It only takes a moment....

Brad

[j1132s]

Well, I never have had one. But w/ my current luck (just had my first range accident), who knows!

Also, I think I prefer the old term AD. I think it is around 1999-2000??? that people started to switch to ND ?? It's like a car accident, there may be blame, but its an accident.

-Ching

[KBCraig]

Well, I never have had one. But w/ my current luck (just had my first range accident), who knows!

Also, I think I prefer the old term AD. I think it is around 1999-2000??? that people started to switch to ND ?? It's like a car accident, there may be blame, but its an accident.

-Ching

There are accidental discharges, but they're so rare as to be insignificant. The majority of unintentional discharges that I've seen reported were negligent in nature.

So you might want to use UD as a catch-all.

[jbirds1210]

I was once sitting at my computer desk describing a newly aquired old Smith revolver. My Dad asked me how the trigger pull was...so I tried it and forgot that I had loaded my new Smith with shotshell. The shot produced a beautiful basketball size pattern in the sheetrock of my ceiling, but more importantly I learned a very important lesson---Tell my Dad that I had the gun pointed out the door so he would not have a heart attack. That was my first and hopefully last negligent discharge.

[longtooth]

Evidently I am a liar because I know what a Neg. Discharge is but at 56 I have never had one yet. That keeps me saying, Jerry, your grace period is up. Yours is coming. That thought keeps me accutely aware of what is in my hand at all times. My most imbarassing moment was the drop of my carry weapon at the Pasadena Gun show last year when they checked & strapped it.0 (Posted here under I hope never again.) This is one I hope I never break!!!