Firearm going "gangster"

[zzr1100]

Has anyone ever had a firearm incident ie .. Going off when it shouldn't have .. Or worse and do you think there was anything you could have done to prevent this ?
As some of you may know I had a webley .410 fire whilst I was pushing the bolt forward .. The gun then self destructed .. Someone suggested the pin may have stayed forward and I should have noticed this ... Opinions please folks ?

[Dangermouse]

I had an air rifle which if you pulled the trigger whilst the safety was engaged, it would fire as you took the safety off.

[M99]

Not mine, but I was stood next to it. 'Fowling at hinkly point in Somerset. Morning flight and due to the tides and the way the marsh is laid but, we used to load where we parked the cars.
I was shooting with my best mate at the time, someone with whom I had been out on that same marsh hundreds of times.
As he closed his gun, both barrels went off, thankfully pointed in a safe direction. Down! Made a large crater and the debris smashed the rear window of my car.

[spud]

Been out foxing 25 years ago, i was lamping - with a mate who "accidently " put a shot out in to the wide blue yonder towards norwich. thankfully he never hit any thing!!!!

[saddler]

Been out foxing 25 years ago, i was lamping - with a mate who "accidently " put a shot out in to the wide blue yonder towards norwich. thankfully he never hit any thing!!!!

"accidentally", toward Norwich...
sometimes, co-incidences aren't...

MLRS, on ticket, for foxing; perhaps?
...just putting the idea out there for your mate... no pressure :)

[spud]

Been out foxing 25 years ago, i was lamping - with a mate who "accidently " put a shot out in to the wide blue yonder towards norwich. thankfully he never hit any thing!!!!

"accidentally", toward Norwich...
sometimes, co-incidences aren't...

MLRS, on ticket, for foxing; perhaps?
...just putting the idea out there for your mate... no pressure :)

what do you mean by that saddle?

[zeroveez]

Some years ago, while on a driven pheasant shoot, I witnessed the dreaded "20 bore cartidge in a 12 bore". On firing, the 20 bore detonated in the forcing cone and blew out the side of the barrel of the Beretta about four inches from the breech. The firer was a professional colleague who dpended on his hands for his living, (a surgeon, would you believe). He was very lucky; he was left handed and lost only the tip of a finger on his right hand. Had his left hand been holding the fore end he would have lost it completely. Take a squint down your barrels at the start of each shoot!

[FredB]

In the 1980s, I was shooting a 455 Webley. Our range has plywood separating sheets between firing points. Just completing a rapid fire string when, after my last shot, there was an immense bang just off to my right. Realising that it wasn't actually me that made it, I peered around the barrier. A guy was standing there, apparently paralysed, holding the handle of a S&W model 66, 357 Magnum. The barrel was on the floor, a good ten feet in front of him and the cylinder was in two halves on the bench. There was a rectangular hole in the tin roof where the top strap and back sight had gone into orbit---we never found them. New to reloading, he had been told to use 3.0grn of bullseye as a target load. There seemed to him to be insufficient powder in the case and so he thought that he had mis-read the scales---he loaded 30 grn.
Twenty years later, our local dealer was checking out a long-barrelled revolver which he had just taken into stock. He was using reloads which had come with the gun. Standing about six feet behind him, I was un-happy with the sound of the first shot---more a loud "dink" than a bang. I suggested that he should not carry on with that ammo. His next shot resulted in near identical results to the last blow-up, barrel on the floor and a hole in the roof.
The moral is to make sure that new shooters get proper instruction in reloading and never to trust anybody-else's loads.
Fred

[Sim G]

Been out foxing 25 years ago, i was lamping - with a mate who "accidently " put a shot out in to the wide blue yonder towards norwich. thankfully he never hit any thing!!!!

"accidentally", toward Norwich...
sometimes, co-incidences aren't...

MLRS, on ticket, for foxing; perhaps?
...just putting the idea out there for your mate... no pressure :)

[Charlotte the flyer]

My BSA Martini International has gone off on it's own before. It did it a couple of times in an indoor range as the action was being closed. Not long after having those problems the extractor spring broke. It has been faultless after I tracked down a replacement.

I also had problems with a Diana air pistol waaaay back in the day. My friend managed to shoot himself with it because it had a dicky trigger.