Author Topic: Have you ever fired a gun in the house? (Read 1295 times)

Conan The Librarian · « **on:** February 24, 2012, 07:00:07 AM »

I have. I made up some 45s to see what happens when no powder charge is added to a primed case. Fired it in the basement to see what happens. Two things happen: If bullet is swaged, it leaves the barrel. If bullet is hard cast, it does not. Gotta be careful with those powder charges.

lakota · « **Reply #1 on:** February 24, 2012, 07:52:10 AM »

Yes but it was quite by negligence. I went to clean my Glock that I used to carry. I ejected the round in the chamber...but didn't drop the magazine first So a new round was chambered. Pointed it toward the ceiling to relieve the tension on the striker so I could disassemble it. The 9mm round went through the ceiling and lodged in a rafter in the attic. The hole in the ceiling remains to this day as a reminder that there never again be a lapse in safe gun handling. The hole will always be there as long as I live in this house Thank god I always point the muzzle in a "safe" direction and I live in a 1 story ranch house. The moral of the story: Don't play with guns when you have a cold and are taking NyQuil for the symptoms.

I don't really give a crap who judges me over this. No one got hurt and I didn't have to pay an expensive home repair bill. I was lucky. I freely tell this story as a lesson to others. Don't let your guard down when you are handling guns they are not toys.

AtlLaw · « **Reply #2 on:** February 24, 2012, 08:00:05 AM »

Quote from: lakota on February 24, 2012, 07:52:10 AM

Don't let your guard down when you are handling guns they are not toys.

Other the giving Lakota's statement a big AMEN, I ain't sayin nothin...

Conan The Librarian · « **Reply #3 on:** February 24, 2012, 08:19:45 AM »

Lakota:

Thank God there was no damage. Hopefully your ears are OK. That had to be LOUD, aside from being otherwise scary.

I originally asked the question without thinking enough. I was thinking in terms of deliberate shooting for some reason. In my case there's dirt in the basement so I could just fire into it. I never thought of accidents or home defense scenarios that might bring back bad memories.

My old buddy Joe had a bad rat infestation in the apartment he lived in, so he'd sit up at night and shoot rats in his living room. There were ricochet marks on the wooden floor. He was quite a character. He'd shoot one, then wait for the others to come out and mostly devour it, then turn on a light and shoot at the ones that ate the first rat. Come to think of it he had a rat infestation in his car too. He had an old Ford falcon station wagon that he had cut part of the roof off of with a torch. It made it kind of like an el camino style pickup truck. He'd haul hay bales with it and sometimes left the hay in the car, so the rats would nest there. You'd be driving along and would have to stomp on a rat every once in a while. I guess rats just liked the guy.

guzzijohn · « **Reply #4 on:** February 24, 2012, 08:20:29 AM »

When I was in high school I had just finished wiping down my 870 20ga. Pulled the trigger to release the trigger spring and you guessed it, BOOM, high brass #5 through my bedroom ceiling. At least I had pointed in a safe direction. My parents were not thrilled with me.
GuzziJohn

Tiapan64 · « **Reply #5 on:** February 24, 2012, 08:53:27 AM »

Once while cleaning my belgium made Browning sweet sixteen after stripping it down and wiping and re-oiling it, being an auto light five and having a skeet lever on it.....as I was giving it the final wipedown I guess I tripped the skeet lever ond I thought I had just pushed the reciever release...it loaded a #6 highbrass from pheasant season and well....I pulled the trigger while the muzzle was in the straight up position to release the spring tension before storing and BOOM!!! $:-\$ Wife called me everything but a white man and my name.

The hole stayed there till I redid the living room...about 15 yrs.

Singleshotsam · « **Reply #6 on:** February 24, 2012, 09:00:33 AM »

I'll relate my story about how I never loan my guns to anyone and what happened the 1 time I did.

My wife has a lot of relatives who want to deer hunt but wont shell out the money to buy their own deer rifle. So she decided to let her sibling borrow her Marlin Glenfield 30/30. Why am I being so technical with saying a Marlin/Glennfield? It's because unlike newer Marlins the Glennfield doesn't have a safety to black the hammer from falling accidently.

Anyhow, one of my inlaws came over to pick it up and asked me how to operate it. My first mistake was showing them how. My second mistake was doing it in the house. So when I operated the lever to chamber a 30/30 round I was fixing to show them how to safely let the hammer down. As I pulled back on the hammer in my left hand and eased the trigger to slowly let the hammer down my in law said, "I can't see what your doing!" and grabbed my left arm to turn it where they could see.

As soon as they jerked my arm my thumb went off the lever and BANG! Nice hole through 2 rafters and out the roof.

Let me tell you. A 30/30 inside without hearing protection is brutal. My ears rang for a week. After the negligent discharge I immediately locked the gun up in my safe. Quieted my horrified kids who were across the house in their bedroom and told my inlaw to leave and never ask to borrow a gun from me again.

Then I patched the hole in my roof and brooded about my stupidity for the whole time my ears rang.

And that boys and girls is why i don't let anybody borrow guns from my house.

guzzijohn · « **Reply #7 on:** February 24, 2012, 09:12:11 AM »

If you have never fired a gun in an enclosed space it is a real eye opener. I can't imagine what it would be like inside enclosed areas with automatic weapons. Also when in high school a neighbor was getting ready to tear down an old wooden farm house. Their boy whom I ran around with and I took .22s, 12 & 20 ga. shotgun, a 22-250, a 30-30 and a 45-70 trapdoor to the house. After that day we always laughed at old westerns when in a shootout people were taking cover inside of a wooden house. Might as well be made out of cardboard for all the protection it gives.
GuzziJohn

KIMBER45 · « **Reply #8 on:** February 24, 2012, 09:41:11 AM »

We had a 4 ton coal bin in our basement. It was rice coal so the pieces were small. We would shoot into the lower third of the coal pile maybe twice a year.

Nuke41 · « **Reply #9 on:** February 24, 2012, 09:46:19 AM »

Does it count if it was in Afghanistan, that it was someone elses house and that it was on purpose?

Old Syko · « **Reply #10 on:** February 24, 2012, 10:49:33 AM »

Does a cave count? Went on a coon hunt with my FIL one night and had the dogs run a coon about 150' back in a rather large cave where he perched himself about 15' up the wall on a small outcrop of rock. A 38 special under those conditions will cause your FIL to call you names you've never heard before but it doesn't matter much if you can't hear him.

Used to have a range in the basement in another house we lived in and shot there regularly.

Sourdough · « **Reply #11 on:** February 24, 2012, 11:17:00 AM »

The Wife, Sky and I have never had an accidental discharge in the house. Hopefully we never do.

The wife shot a home invader twice with her 12ga many years ago. She was on the balcony, he was in the kitchen below. She was wearing ear protection.

I shot my .243 through the slightly open living room window, from my varmint rest on the dinning room table. Killed a Pitt Bull in the drive way. None of the neighbors heard the shot. I was wearing ear protection.

I shoot once or twice a month in the garage, into a barrel of sand. I wear hearing protection.

But the last time I went hunting with my Dad, there was an accident. Dad had my Marlin 336 in 30-30. While cleaning the gun after the hunt, Dad worked the lever till shells quite flying out, he did not check the chamber or magazine. (I discovered afterwards that the magazine spring was weak, and sometimes if the gun was dirty, the last shell would not release from the magazine for two or three cycles.) After he had wiped the gun down he levered it again and pulled the trigger. Bullet had stuck in the magazine and chambered when he levered the gun. When he pulled the trigger it went BOOM. Dad and I were in the kitchen, about 15 people were in the ajoinning Den. All the screams were worse than the actual BOOM. Blew a hole in the ceiling, and out the roof. Cleared the family gathering out quick. Since then Mom won't let Dad have a gun in the house. For years after that, if Dad goes hunting, Mom meets him at the drive, takes the gun, clears it, and takes it in the house and puts it away.

curteric · « **Reply #12 on:** February 24, 2012, 11:37:15 AM »

My only neighbor has a slit entry home. They have an unspayed cat that never gets outside. Feral toms are always peeing on the lower level window ledges. One particularly smart tom would never allow a good shot. One Sat morning about 5:30 I see this tom about 60 yds out. I took the screen off the bathroom window and cranked it open. Tom didn't pay much attention. I grabbed a 6MM Rem with 60 gr hollow points, a camera tripod, for support, hearing protection. I closed the bathroom door. I had probably had 5 ft of bathroom between the end of the barrel and the window My intention was to keep the noise in the house and not wake the neighbors. The tom split in half, the curtains took off out and in the window about 3 times. The wife woke up, straight up. You wouldn't believe how much a fiberglass tub surround and glass doors resonate. I spent Sat afternoon shopping for bathroom curtains.

PowPow · « **Reply #13 on:** February 24, 2012, 12:55:50 PM »

I have a 20 yard long stretch in my basement. 12 Leftover phone books in a box against a concrete wall that is below grade for a backstop. I've shot a few 22-250, 30-30 and 30-06 into it at close range in the past, but it was a lot thicker backstop then.
Couldn't survive it without double hearing protection.
CB shorts in my Henry are tolerable with foam ear plugs.
Haven't had an uh-oh with an "unloaded" gun...so far.

Shu · « **Reply #14 on:** February 24, 2012, 01:00:48 PM »

There was a series of break ins in our neighborhood. I heard a noise late one night in the kitchen. I went to the kitchen with a flashlight and a 45. There was a person all dressed in black with a hood wielding a kitchen knife. I emptied the magazine. Turns out it was a 17 year old who was breaking into peoples houses in the middle of the night. I am guessing he heard me coming and grabbed the kitchen knife. There were no more break ins after that.

Swift One · « **Reply #15 on:** February 24, 2012, 01:45:57 PM »

I actually have- and on more than one occassion. For those who have never experienced it, TV does it no justice.

williamlayton · « **Reply #16 on:** February 24, 2012, 02:10:36 PM »

Do vehicles count?
Blessings

Curtis · « **Reply #17 on:** February 24, 2012, 03:11:33 PM »

A .380 acp isn't all that loud, as best I can recall. Mine was an AD like Lakota and others have experienced. Entirely my fault, but at least the muzzle was pointed at the floor (carpet over concrete) and a hole in the carpet was the only result. I was so surprised, I don't even remember the sound of the shot.
Curtis

yellowtail3 · « **Reply #18 on:** February 24, 2012, 04:41:21 PM »

Quote

Have you ever fired a gun in the house?

Yes, I have. More than once. It's loud, as someone already noted. 7.62x39 inside is even louder.

Quote from: lakota on February 24, 2012, 07:52:10 AM

I don't really give a crap who judges me over this. ... Don't let your guard down when you are handling guns they are not toys.

I've been there, and worse - no confession just now - so I'll not judge. Besides, I'm always trying to bear in mind that Golden Rule...

OldSchoolRanger · « **Reply #19 on:** February 24, 2012, 05:37:02 PM »

Quote from: Shu on February 24, 2012, 01:00:48 PM

There was a series of break ins in our neighborhood. I heard a noise late one night in the kitchen. I went to the kitchen with a flashlight and a 45. There was a person all dressed in black with a hood wielding a kitchen knife. I emptied the magazine. Turns out it was a 17 year old who was breaking into peoples houses in the middle of the night. I am guessing he heard me coming and grabbed the kitchen knife. There were no more break ins after that.

Did you at least hit him?

smokehouserex · « **Reply #20 on:** February 24, 2012, 08:48:59 PM »

My nephew and buddies went deer hunting, came home, into the house with a loaded 03A3,, laid it on the couch,, his buddy Jesse, picked it up, shouldered it, pointed it at the ceiling and ripped off a 30-06 round through the ceiling, attic and out through the roof. My nephew wanted to whup Jesse but his dad stopped him and informed him it was mostly his fault, everyone there has hearing damage, thankfully no one was injured.
I shoot 22CB caps into books on occasion, with hearing protection in my shop, sometimes a CF pistol.
Shooting in a car with no headliner, with no earplugs is very very bad also. Makes you ask everyone to repeat everything for a few days,,,,,,,,WHAT DID YOU SAY?

HM

Shu · « **Reply #21 on:** February 25, 2012, 02:56:43 AM »

OSR,
Yes sir, I did.

magooch · « **Reply #22 on:** February 25, 2012, 03:44:47 AM »

No. In fact I've only had one sort of accidental discharge and that was way out in the woods. I was finished with some target shooting with my 308 Vper assault rifle--thought I had emptied the magazine and in fact dropped it out of the rifle. To relieve the firing pin spring, I aimed the rifle at a tree and pulled the trigger. This was an obvious lapse in thinking, because the bolt would have been locked open after the last round.

I pride myself with fastidious gun safety, but I guess no one is perfect and that shocked me more than the unexpected discharge. Maybe these harmless reminders are sometimes the best instruction one can get.

Empty Quiver · « **Reply #23 on:** February 25, 2012, 05:06:14 AM »

Quote from: lakota on February 24, 2012, 07:52:10 AM

Yes but it was quite by negligence. I went to clean my Glock that I used to carry. I ejected the round in the chamber...but didn't drop the magazine first So a new round was chambered. Pointed it toward the ceiling to relieve the tension on the striker so I could disassemble it. The 9mm round went through the ceiling and lodged in a rafter in the attic. The hole in the ceiling remains to this day as a reminder that there never again be a lapse in safe gun handling. The hole will always be there as long as I live in this house Thank god I always point the muzzle in a "safe" direction and I live in a 1 story ranch house. The moral of the story: Don't play with guns when you have a cold and are taking NyQuil for the symptoms.

I don't really give a crap who judges me over this. No one got hurt and I didn't have to pay an expensive home repair bill. I was lucky. I freely tell this story as a lesson to others. Don't let your guard down when you are handling guns they are not toys.

Have a similar hole next to the shower in the basement. Very nearly the same story except my aim was towards the corner of the basement rather than the ceiling. That hole is one of the most humbling things I look at. It will never be repaired.

The loudest sound I ever heard was the boom when I expected click.

yellowtail3 · « **Reply #24 on:** February 25, 2012, 05:26:05 AM »

Quote from: Empty Quiver on February 25, 2012, 05:06:14 AM

The loudest sound I ever heard was the boom when I expected click.

Yep...

tobster · « **Reply #25 on:** February 25, 2012, 09:26:31 AM »

Sure. I shoot primer powered wax bullets out of a .38 all the time. The squirrels on the bird feeder learn real fast to head for the hills when they hear that window latch open. I told my wife we need camo drapes but I don't look for that to happen soon.

Graybeard · « **Reply #26 on:** February 25, 2012, 10:47:09 AM »

Yup been involved in a shooting inside a house twice. Once was totally and completely my fault and the other I was only half at fault and that was in a cabin we had on the river not technically a house.

Back in my teen years I had gone to my cousin's house to do some shooting with him. This was in the days of paper shotgun hulls long before plastic hulls came out. One of the guns I had shot was an old JC Higgins 12 pump gun.

Before putting it the car to come home I shucked it at least a half dozen times after the last shell came out and left it open for transport home. Once home I wiped it down good with an oily rag but as is my normal practice even today I did not run a rod down the bore and obviously I didn't look in the chamber either. That has now changed.

I must have worked that action another half dozen times during cleaning but that swelled shell failed to come out. Once done cleaning it I did as I always did in those days and pulled the trigger to relieve the tension on the spring. I don't do that anymore either.

Due to my safe gun handling practices the gun was pointed at the ceiling and not in the direction of anyone when it went BOOM very loudly. Mom and dad ran in there and asked me if I was OK. I was. Mom promptly fainted. The round went thru the ceiling and precisely centered a rafter in the ceiling but luckily didn't cut it completely into and none of the shot went thru to cause any leaks in the roof. Needless to say I was severely punished for the very dumb accident I caused.

One time with that same shotgun me and my cousin were spending a week at the remote cabin on the river all alone. The nearest house was miles away and the only transportation we had was the boat with which we were to go back up river a few miles to the point where it stayed when it was time to leave.

There was a pack of wild dogs that roamed the area and so we kept our guns loaded all the time on the chance we might get to shoot them. One night for whatever reason my cousin wanted to know which of our guns weighted the most so we got out a fish scale to weight fish on and proceeded to weight the guns.

The only means of hanging them on it was in the trigger guard which naturally meant the hook was on the trigger. Now we both knew both guns were loaded and SHOULD have known to unload them first. We weighed Lewis' gun first and all went well. Then we weighed mine and all did NOT go well. Lewis noticed as the gun was hanging from the scale that more of the safety was sticking out than should have been on HIS gun so pushed it Naturally that took the safety OFF and didn't put it on. He did it so quickly and without telling me I wasn't able to stop him. There was a diference in the way those safety buttons protruded. Mine had when if FIRE position has an equal amount of the button on each side and his was in SAFE position when an equal about stuck out on both positions.

Being familiar with his gun and not mine seeing that equal amount of the button on both sides told him it was ready to fire so he pushed it and sure enough it fired IMMEDIATELY into the floor taking out a chuck of the concrete floor and spraying both lead and concreted in all directions including into the screen of the window. Luckily the barrel wasn't pointed at either of our feet and none of the schrapnel did us any damage.

We carefully picked up all the pieces and removed everything stuck in the screen wire and tried to make the bottom of that hole look as dirty as the rest of the concrete floor was. Amazingly my parents never noticed or at least never asked about that hole in the rough concrete floor so I assume they never realized it looked different.

Both were really close calls and both caused by the stupidity of youth. Both incidents caused me to make changes in my gun handling procedures to prevent a recurrence. Now the first thing I do EVERY TIME is to check the chamber visually to make sure no round is there before I do anything else with a firearm. I also taught my sons the same and have now taught Wyatt Matt's youngest to also never touch one until the chamber is checked. He's only four years old but he knows the first thing ya do is check the chamber to be sure it is not loaded. I also don't mess with loaded guns other than to first unload them if I have anything at all I want to do much less to weigh them.

The same cousin was one day practicing his fast draw in front of a mirror. Now he was usually always quite good at being sure FIRST it was unloaded before doing his fast draw. Once he didn't and the mirror had a hole it in as a result. Luckily no one was in the lie of fire only the mirror but I think he learned some new lessons from that and I believe he was forbidden to practice his fast draw in the house after that.

So accidents can happen to anyone at any time and will if you don't have proper safety precautions in place that you take EACH and EVERY time you pick up a firearm. Remember they are all loaded all the time unless and until you make absolutely certain they are not and to never ever point that barrel in a direction that it isn't OK to send a bullet toward. Ya never know when that might be exactly what happens.

If sharing dumb mistakes even if embarrassing prevents even one person from doing the same it is worth the embarrassment.

S.S. · « **Reply #27 on:** February 25, 2012, 11:10:32 AM »

Have a 10 meter range in my basement.
Air rifle only though.

Does in the line of duty count? If so then yes.
I do not recommend it. Loud and bright!

saddlebum · « **Reply #28 on:** February 25, 2012, 01:15:10 PM »

Many years ago I went to Operating Engineers school at an old converted military base in Nebraska. Complete with remodeled barracks for housing. I got bored during the winter when the snow was deep, (headlight deep on my 4x4 pickup and drifts from the peak of the roof to the ground), and it was cold outside. Bored enough to start shooting my 41mag Redhawk at a chunk of tree trunk that I was using for a small table. Using moderate reloads with cast bullets, I shot the knots in the chunk of wood in the next room through the dooorway, while sitting in an easy chair in the living room. I shot at a knot that was a little too near the top of the stump. The bullet took the path of least resistance and came out the top of the stump while making a U-turn. The energy depleted bullet hit the wall behind me and directly over my head and fell to the floor. It was a little un-nerving. So I stopped being a dope and found something else to do. Like shovel snow and play Nintendo. Still boring, but a little more sane anyway. Cabin fever makes me stupid.....................

Wyo. Coyote Hunter · « **Reply #29 on:** February 25, 2012, 03:19:13 PM »

We usd to shoot a K-22 in my pals basement in a small western town..He also shot 38's there..I still own the K...