AD’S I HAVE KNOWN

by JimT, Texas, Friday, August 26, 2022, 11:20 (820 days ago)

(From the old Sixgunner.Com website .. many years ago)

by Jack Fowler

I know, I know…they are kind of like the time you messed your drawers with no good excuse, or got caught by your buddies at the Dairy Queen out with that really ugly girl. We all had just as soon they stay well buried in our undocumented past. Confession is supposed to be good for the soul, however, and in every AD there is a lesson learned that can be passed on. It is in that spirit that I make the following confessions, and rat out a friend, or two.

For the un-initiated, AD is the acronym for "accidental discharge". This is not a reference to the aforementioned drawers example, but refers to having a firearm discharge when the shooter wasn’t planning on it, prepared for it, or expecting it to happen. The laws of physics are immune from our best intentions, and setting in motion the chain of events that results in the launching of a high speed projectile are irreversible, whether deliberate, or by accident. Deliberate launchings are what shooting is all about. Accidental ones at the very least are embarrassing, but can have tragic consequences as well.

There are those who always claim to have a spotless record over many years of shooting. They may also have a dresser full of spotless undies as well, but I am skeptical. My Dad taught me at an early age: "There are two kinds of gun-nuts. Those who have had AD’s, and those that are going to". What he pounded into my head, literally at times, was that accidents are just that, and no one is immune. The only rule that will save you, and must be adhered to under any circumstance is muzzle discipline. Loaded, unloaded, cocked, uncocked, etc. are important points, but never crossing anything you aren’t ready to shoot with the muzzle of any gun, at any time is the one that will prevent a tragedy, not if, but when the other rules fail. Those rules have failed me 2 ½ times in over 35 years of shooting. I killed a picture frame, a floor, and a dirt berm. Thanks again, Old Man.

Another habit my Dad taught me was to always literally count the rounds in your hand , or on the bench when you dump them from a revolver when unloading it. He said he knew it looked dumb, and silly, but not near as dumb and silly as you look after an AD. I still don’t know where he kept that crystal ball all of those years. I was in my twenties, and moonlighting as security in my apartment complex. I had traded for a nickel plated Colt Cobra during the day, and went to the office that evening just so full of myself it’s a wonder I didn’t bust. I made the rounds with this Cobra under my coat, the baddest of the bad. At break time, I went to the office, sat behind the desk, and dumped the loaded rounds out of the gun, and set them on the desk. I was way too cool to count them. I leaned back, and began dry-firing at an ugly picture on the wall. Snap..snap..bang! I shot low, and hit the picture frame. I had loaded the Cobra with soft lead HBWC bullets turned backwards over a mild charge of Unique. The closet behind the picture revealed no unauthorized holes coming through, so I assumed I hit a stud. A well stunned Mr. Smarty then counted the rounds on the desk, and did the math. Oops…It was the middle of the night, and the bang stirred not a soul. I did confess to my boss the next day, and with his own hide to consider, he wisely concluded that no news was good news. For all I know, the picture is still on the wall with a neat little hole in the frame. It looks like it was done with a drill to me. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

In the same vein, I proved that I had learned that lesson many years later. The hotel where I was working had a bar off the lobby that closed at midnight. My boss, and occasional off-duty Dallas PD officers made a habit of holding "choir practice" in the closed bar, having a little after-shift conversation, and refreshment. One evening, a Dallas officer strode in with his new toy, a S&W mod. 58 .41mag. My boss was behind the bar, and the officer took a bar stool to my right. He unholstered the 58, dumped the rounds on the bar, and began snapping it at the floor to his right. I reflexively counted the rounds on the bar. When I got to five, I got my hands over my ears, and my eyes closed a millisecond before the 58 went boom!! I was the only one who wasn’t deaf, so I checked everyone for injuries. The only casualties were a healthy divot in the bar’s concrete, and carpet floor, and the officer’s pride. He was a training sergeant, and it took some serious talking from my boss, and myself to keep him from resigning. I was pretty smug about the lesson learned, and my timing. My boss was not as amused.

Number two in my hit parade required total brain fade. I proved that I was more than capable of it. I had a new Ruger Blackhawk in .45 Colt with a 4 3/8" barrel. Those who have read my article on my checkered past with horses will remember the gun. Preparing for bed one night, I decided that this Ruger was an excellent bedside table gun. It was loaded with some healthy SWC hand loads. As I strode toward the bedroom with gun in hand, I was absently cocking it, and letting the hammer down, and cocking it again. Please don’t ask me why. My wife was in bed reading, and as I neared the foot of the bed, my thumb slipped. Ka-boom!! My wife looked up without so much as a blink. It was as if I had seen a bug, and drawn, and killed it as a normal part of bedtime on any given night. Thinking fast, I decided to let that remain the mood, and nonchalantly crawled into bed. "Dang bugs", I muttered, and settled in. She was a wise woman, and never mentioned it, or let me catch her snickering. I had noticed before un-freezing myself from the spot that I had missed my bare foot by a scant inch, or two, and didn’t mention the tingling from the powder burn.

Number three I claim as only a half. It involved a full-auto weapon, and what do I know about full auto weapons? I was at a machine-gun fest with a number of friends, and a number of weapons. I was at the berm, up close, with a S&W 9mm sub. While ripping off a string at something, it jammed. I looked, and found a round hung on the feed ramp. Now what does a shooter normally do in such a case? He bumps the bolt to chamber the round, of course. Well..uh..not on a gun that fires from an open bolt, he doesn’t. Ka-bang!! Oops. In the hail of gunfire taking place, not a soul noticed. I had cleared my jam, and resumed ripping off manly strings of fire. Since then, the particulars of this AD have led me to claim it as only a 1/2AD, since I wasn’t caught, and only killed a berm. As such, the lesson was learned about open-bolt guns, and I can salvage a smidgen of ego from the claim. It’s the first public disclosure of the incident, and at least I am not one of those shooters claiming to have never had any, even ½ of one.

That’s my confessional, and while my soul may not be any cleaner, maybe there is a lesson in the telling. My Dad saved my bacon on these occasions, and no telling how many others with no AD in them. Muzzle discipline is so reflexive, that I am extremely uncomfortable pointing a weapon at a person for a photo, or a blank-firing old west gunfight, and I always have been. If you ever have occasion to join me at the range, don’t be offended if I squint my eyes, wiggle my finger, and go 1..2..3..4..5..6, when you clear your weapon, and lay the rounds on the bench. While there may more AD’s in my future, I think I have these rules pretty well learned…the hard way.