A Wichita man is limping around doing his Christmas shopping these days after a little training mishap at a place called The Bullet Stop. According to kwch.com, he was practicing an off-hand draw when he turned himself into his own personal bullet stop. “‘The man was practicing an off-handed draw with his firearm when he had his finger on the trigger,’ said Sgt. Mark Jackson Saturday afternoon. ‘It discharged and struck him one time in his own leg.'” Fortunately, no one else was injured as a result of the holstering hangup. Now that he’s out of his hospital, he’s no doubt nursing his wound along with his pride. While that rule three may not be any more important than the other three, it sure is a good one to keep in mind.
Also a good reminder of why the first hundred-plus draws using any technique new to the shooter should be done unloaded or with snap caps.
Firm believer in snap caps. Pricey little buggers, but worth it for peace of mind. Helped a young man pick out his first gun, a mossberg 500, recently and had him get snap caps and not buy live ammo until he had practices at home for a while til we went live at the range.
Just bought my first set of metal snap caps. Plastic ones are cheap, but a rim broke off one of my 9mm, and the firepins are digging nice little holes, too. Got very confused when the rims on my .22lrs looked beaten all to hell.
Plastic craptastic aside, they are wonderful little things for practicing everything.
Any thoughts on using spent casings in liu (loo?) of snapcaps? I added a caliber to my quiver the other month and I just couldn’t stomach paying 50rds worth for three (or five) dummies. Live ammo was put away and they worked for function check/dryfire/misfire drills/draws, but still didn’t quite feel right.
If you think you can reliably keep yourself from loading one cartridge shaped, brass colored object instead of another cartridge shaped, brass colored object, there’s nothing stopping you.
Best practice is to keep all live ammo in a different room while doing dry practice, with or without snap caps.
I’ve heard you can eventually start punching through the (used) primer and… something else vaguely bad can happen. Don’t remember what.
Centerfire snap caps have primer-strike zones that are designed to be hit hundreds of times. Most typical design is a resilient polymer cylinder, sometimes stacked on a spring.
Spent rounds, on the other hand, have only a soft-metal primer cap in the strike zone. Repeated firing pin strikes in a single location will punch a nice hole in the primer in short order, at which point you are effectively dry-firing your weapon.
Seems like a bad idea to me. One pack of snap caps is much less expensive than unscheduled gun maintenance to replace a broken spring or firing pin.
“Quick Draw, One-Legged McGraw”
Why is the shop closing after 17 years? Sign seems to be saying “see ya ’round”
Sorry MotoJB I hit the reply in error, was practicing off hand typing.
I own snap caps in 380 9mm 45 5.7 and10mm I love em. Saved me from putting a bullet in the neighbors house and going to jail.
That’s not vaguely ominous… :p
Always watch your trigger finger!!
” he was practicing an off-hand draw”
Another one that feels rules do not apply to them in that he did not follow range rule #3 “No drawing allowed. No hip shooting.” http://www.thebulletstop.com/range
Harold’s got it. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been to an indoor range that didn’t have a “no drawing from the holster” rule.
I like that the officers statement puts blame on the person and not the gun. It sure as hell didnt just, “go off.” It probably would have though if the trigger thingy had the shoulder thing that goes up.
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