# Close Calls



## Socom (Nov 3, 2005)

How many of you have had a close call while hunting or target shooting?

The last time I went shooting I had one. I was a a friends house who had some property out back and we were shooting on little range that he had. About 25-30 ft away was a 15ft natural embankment next to a creek that we shoot at all the time. Pretty much all dirt with no rocks. 

We had all kinds of toys out but at this point there were a couple of us shooting .22s both pistol and rifle. 

I had just emptied a magazine and set the rifle down to watch my friends finish their mags. the guy on my left went empty and we were looking at his gun when I felt a sting in my lower chest. I looked down and there was a piece of lead stuck to my shirt. looked to be enough lead for about a third of a .22 round. 

At that point the only person shooting was ten feet to our left, so this fragment went down range and somehow found its way back at an angle to hit me in the chest. Only left a sting and a red mark but had it been a couple feet higher it could have done some serious damage to an eye (if I hadn't been wearing glasses)

I realize that this isn't that crazy of a story and much worse things have happened to other people, but its one of those times that make you stop and think about safety and that anything really can happen. A soft lead .22 round was able to fly that far back and hit with a little force. And the sheer odds of it hitting something hard enough to bounce back are incredibly small.(we figured it had to hit a larger caliber handgun round that was fired earlier) 

I would be interested to hear some other stories if you have them and have nothing better to do right now that sit in front of a pc (like me!) 

Keep safe and where those goggles!


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## C.Keith&Co (Aug 28, 2010)

I have a witness !! fired a 45 Colt revolver after repairing it in my shop at a synthetic bullet trap ( kind of like ballistic Jello-ton ) bullet bounced back and hit me right between the eyes and the bullet stuck in my eyeglass frames. never used that bullet trap again


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## Smallmouth Crazy (Apr 4, 2006)

I had a guy one time who I was hunting with do a terribly moronic thing. We had just got back to his truck, I was on one side of the bed he was on the other, we were in the process of unloading our guns(or so I thought) when I hear this BOOM on the other side of the truck, I asked what the heck are you doing???? he said he was checking to see if the safety was on, I told him to look by the damn trigger guard where the safety was at and check it that way from now on. I mean I was literally 3ft away from a guy who was darwin enough to do this crap, how about if the gun was pointed in a different direction I could have got a load of 6s from a 20 gauge, we didnt hunt much after that.


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## Bowhunter57 (Feb 9, 2011)

Socom,
Ricochets are a HUGE issue with .22 caliber rimfires. I'm very glad to hear that you or anyone with you wasn't seriously injured. 

Bowhunter57


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## "chillin" (Apr 20, 2012)

Used to have a glock g.a.p. emptied out a clip on a target and me and a buddy started to walk over to check it out. Made it about ten feet when we heard what sounded like a bumble be coming straight down. The slug hit the ground right between us hard enough to go in about an inch.

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## Mr. A (Apr 23, 2012)

Took my wife shooting at a buddies range. She wanted to shoot something meaner than a 22 so I filled a 9MM mag and showed her the gun, and how to operate it. The stood behind her and off to the side a little. My mistake was not thinking about her being the only left handed shooter in the bunch!

You guessed it. 1st couple shells ejected ok but she fired a couple rapid fire and on of those hot shells went straight down the shirt and between her....... let's just say she was immediatly hopping around! I realized what happened right away and started barking about the safety and gun! She was really hurting! The shell stuck to the skin?

I've shot a lot so I know the shells can be hot, but never seen one attach itself like that! Wife was a good sport about it thoughN we still laugh every now and again about her dancing moves!

A

I don't always fish for Bass, but when I do, I prefer big'uns. Fish hard my friends....


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## backlashed (Mar 19, 2011)

Smallmouth Crazy said:


> I had a guy one time who I was hunting with do a terribly moronic thing. We had just got back to his truck, I was on one side of the bed he was on the other, we were in the process of unloading our guns(or so I thought) when I hear this BOOM on the other side of the truck, I asked what the heck are you doing???? he said he was checking to see if the safety was on, I told him to look by the damn trigger guard where the safety was at and check it that way from now on. I mean I was literally 3ft away from a guy who was darwin enough to do this crap, how about if the gun was pointed in a different direction I could have got a load of 6s from a 20 gauge, we didnt hunt much after that.


My BIL, Vietnam vet, did pretty much the same thing at the start of a hunt. We jumped his case and he bitched back at us. Not his fault ya know.  That was my one and only trip out with him.


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## MrFry (Jan 29, 2008)

I was shooting my Glock 23 at a steel plate at 12-15yds and had a chunk of bullet come back and cut my elbow. I had shot it well over a hundred times with no problems. That plate recently mad its way to the scrap yard...


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## lotaluck (Dec 17, 2009)

Wow there has been way too many close calls, lets all be thankfull we can talk about them. 
Back when I used to run beagles I took a friend with me for his first hunt. My fault i should of went over the fundamentals with him but just told him not to shoot towards my dogs. Well sure enough the dogs went off and took to the bunny into a corn field which was my faorite place for a bunnynto run because you know 100 percent of the time that bunnies going to do a 180 and head straight back to you. So i told my buddy spread out about 60 yards and watch closly because it will come flyingout shortly. Sure enough the bunny comes barreling out of the corn directly between the 2 of us and right away i see my buddy raise and know whats coming. It was mid january and the fields edge was hard as a rock. Soon as the bunny got between us he fired and i was sprayed with 10 shot that rickoshayed (sp) off the hard ground. I saw it coming so turned and coverd my head with my arms but even then that shot stung like a bea. Thank goodness for the heavy carhart coat.


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## Header (Apr 14, 2004)

As a kid I had a wooden bow and cedar arrows. I was shooting at about a 70deg angle up in the air across our back yard while sitting on my legs, knees bent feet behind me. Well I didn't see one shot so I thought I'd find it later. I shoot off another arrow and while watching it, I here a ssssiiiitttt. The last one I did not see sticks in the ground 2 inches to the right of my right leg mid thigh. Needless say, I learned my leason and NEVER shot up into the air again with anything.


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## !!! trigger happy !!! (Dec 29, 2011)

I was out rabbit hunting and we were unloading our guns and one of the guys is rilly luckey he did not take a shot cus there were 2 shels chambered in his shot gun that could have ben rilly bad


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## ezbite (May 25, 2006)

Me and a buddy were at the range one late winter evening. It was a natural backstop of a 50yard wide and about 15 feet high hill of dirt with overgrown bushes/grasses. My buddy starts shooting his grand with tracers, pretty cool. Then all of a sudden I noticed the backstop was turning black?? Just a big black blob and It was growing too, then I realized it was burning. We both ran down range as fast as we could to stomp out the fire, he only made it about 70 yards because he was a heavy smoker.lol. I ended up putting it out and told him, no more tracers


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## Socom (Nov 3, 2005)

That used to happen all the time down on Camp Lejuene. Me and a buddy were in charge of running a aquad rushing range for our platoon one time and had to stop every couple minutes to run down range and put out the fires before they spread. 

Several times the fires got to within a couple feet of the sides of the range and into the forest. Luckily we had our standard issue fire fighting gear...our boots...


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## sherman51 (Apr 12, 2011)

dot know if these qualify but i,ll tell them anyway.

on time a few of us were hunting and standing on a below an old grown up fence row. 4 hunters came by and we talked for several minutes, then they took off. they walked over to the other side of the fence row and walked down the other side. about 2 minutes had passed and here came 3 deer right up the trail they had walked. it was muzzleloader season so we could shoot does. i took a shot at one hitting it high in the front shoulder, but it along with the othe 2 deer took off running, they ran on the other side of the fence row, behind the other hunters. we couldnt see the hunters or the deer. about that time those hunters opened up on those deer. i hear this sound down by my leg and look down, these weeds were falling about 1 ft from my leg just below my knee. the deer had got between the other hunters and us. the other hunters didnt even have a clue they were shooting right at us. the deer went through the fence row and into the woods. we tracked the deer i hit for about an hour, and jumped it a few times. i said we need to just back off and let it lay down and die. but one of the other hunters that almost shot me said he was staying on the deer. a couple hours later he drags it out.

another time i was hunting with a bunch of guys including my brother n law who had hunted his whole life, and his son. i came out of the woods for lunch and my nephew walked up to me and we were standing there talking, i look over at him and he has his muzzleloader pointing right at the side of my head. i jump him about gun safety and hadnt his dad taught him anything. then i notice the hammer of his gun is setting down against the cap and not on half cock which is the safety on muzzleloaders. i went into gun safety right there because it had scared the crap out of me just how easy it would have been to have got shot. he said his dad just bought him the gun and said go hunting. he hadnt taught him any safety at all. i jumped his dad about not telling him about the safety on muzzleloaders. he said he didnt know they had a safety. so i was the bad guy that day. i taught them both as much as i could about gun safety. but i sure am thankful they both stopped hunting.
sherman


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## firstflight111 (May 22, 2008)

3 years ago turkey hunting me and a buddy were sitting there working turkeys and some one started fireing a 22 and it was hitting the trees right above our heads we crawed out to our trucks ..went and found the guy and told him we were down there hunting and it was hitting the trees all around us ..never been scared that bad while hunting before ..he said he had no idea we were there ..


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## C.Keith&Co (Aug 28, 2010)

People like that should take a Hunter Safety refresher course = be sure of your back stop and beyond when shooting !


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## Bowhunter57 (Feb 9, 2011)

Safety Warning! 
I had a Springfield Armory 1911 Compact Carry V10 and had been carrying it in a DeSantis OWB holster (carried in a 3:30 position), that was made for my M&P 9mm. It seemed to fit "ok", held it in place, but the trigger ring flaps/guards are too large for the SA 1911. I need to purchase the correct holster for the weapon that I intend to carry!

I have NEVER had a weapons mishandling incident, in my entire life. I've been handling all types of weapons since I was 10 years old.

Anyway... A couple of weeks ago, my brother and were out fishing. As I got out of the car, I was getting our fishing gear ready to go and remembered my CCW was still in the car. (We had traveled a distance to this location and I had put my SA 1911 in the console.) When I retrieved the SA from the console, I checked the safety and it was on, so I pulled up my shirt and attempted to put it in my holster. Well, I wasn't looking at what I was doing and the SA didn't just slide in the holster as had done on previous occassions. So, I wiggled it in a side to side motion in attempt to get the pistol to slip inside the holster.

What I didn't notice was that one of the ear tabs (trigger guards for the M&P) was pushing on the trigger, while the other tab had flipped the ambi-safety off. Ofcourse, my hand was pushing down on the grip safety at the back of the pistol grip and ....you guessed it. BANG!!! Needless to say, I was in a state of shock and afraid to look to see how much of my butt that I'd just blown off. Fortunately, all I got was a huge muzzle blast burn and concussion bruise from the short and ported barrel. Obviously, the shorts I WAS wearing were ripped to shreds, with the back pocket mssing and a bullet nick in my leather wallet. 

*I'm not afraid/embarassed to tell this story, as it may help others and save lives to realize that every weapon has to be carried in its' own holster, that was designed for that weapon.* I was very lucky and thank God, to this day, that that's all that happened to me. My brother was standing on the other side of the car, the bullet went into the grass and there were no other people standing around in the area. We made a pact to never tell our retired Mom, the events of that day. 

My SA 1911 has since been sold. Otherwise it would've stayed in the safe, until I could've purchase the correct holster for it AND had the ambi-safety removed. 

Bowhunter57


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