Squib, It's Not What's For Dinner

First, a few reminders. I've spent 33 years carrying, shooting, caring for and teaching firearms professionally, both in the Army and as a police officer. Add in the 10 or so years when I was a kid first learning how to shoot and you've got a guy who has fired a few rounds in his life. When you factor in all the shooters I've coached and taught plus the many classes I've attended and I've seen an order of magnitude more go down range than I've fired personally. In short, I am experienced. In all that time I've seen pretty much every malf known to mankind. Except one.

Last week Lu went to California to do some work for a client. While she was gone I decided it was a good time to take out the next guns up on the rotation list. The guns were a K98, a MKIV, a Jungle Carbine and a sweet little S&W 19-5 that The Sarge gave me. The rifles performed flawlessly and many combatant targets were dispatched to cardboard Valhalla. Then it was the S&Ws turn.

I decided this was a perfect time to clean out some of my older inventory. Way back in the depths of my ammunition storage I ran across a box of 158 grain Round Nose FMJ that was probably loaded when Ike was in office. Just what the doctor ordered and when practice is done I could load up the cases with something a little more potent.

First cylinder ripped off just like it's supposed to. Smoke, noise and satisfying holes in things not previously perforated. Then a funny thing happened.

On the first shot of the second cylinder the gun did an odd thing. It just kinda went pop and the front sight remained firmly affixed on the bullseye. Not so much as a waver. As I've previously mentioned, I am a very experienced shooter. I've shot and talked and read all things forearm for four decades. I've seen and read the horror stories and thought I'd learned the lessons needed. I've scoffed at the severe damage incurred when common sense was ignored, secure in the knowledge that I'd never do anything so stupid. Then I nearly did something incredibly moronic. I almost ignored what must be obvious to every reader of this post by this point and did the disastrous. I almost pulled the trigger again.

The Voice was fairly screaming in my head by this point. "NO you fool. Check the barrel. CHECK THE BARREL!!". Fortunately I paused and listened. I thought "I'm smarter than this. I know what might have happened. It'll only take a second. Maybe I should check that barrel. Yeah, maybe I should. Well, I did and this is what I found.

Yes my friends, that is indeed a 158 grain Round Nose FMJ peeking back at you from the depths of a barrel intended to fling such bits of metal completely out of said slug throwing device.

The culprit? If you look closely at this fired shell casing you will see a crack that runs for the majority of the case. (Click to enlarge)


Here is a picture of the offending case with the Model 19 that gave me no previous indication it hated me and wanted to do me grievous bodily injury.


Here's the thing. The very experience I crowed about was nearly my undoing. Such a thing can never happen to me. "I'm careful. I take care of my ammunition and firearms. Things like that happen to other people. Lesser people. Not me. Never me."

I nearly failed to check the barrel and touch off another round through sheer arrogance, complacency and laziness. "I don't need to check that barrel. I'm way too cool/buff/tactical/pretty/lucky/magical/guardianangeled for such a thing to be a concern. And besides, I'm busy shooting, my feet hurt, it's too much trouble to unload and actually inspect the thing, it's never happened before and will never happen in a million years." Stop me if any of these thoughts have ever percolated through your cerebellum on the range. Well, I pretty much thought all of them when it happened to me. It was a stark lesson.

We post and read about this kind of thing constantly. A short journey through your favorite search engine will produce dozens of examples without even trying. But. It's never happened to me before so therefore it didn't happen now because it cannot happen to me. Those of us who are the most experienced may be at the greatest danger of complacency, especially if we've never experienced a squib load in person. I may be alone here but I don't think so.

So the lesson I've learned here and the one I fervently pray I'm never tempted to ignore ever, ever again is this. It can happen to me so I must always pay attention and if something seems wrong, pause and check it out. The hands I save may be my own precious manos.

A word to the wise.

Oh, and that Eisenhower administration era ammunition. I'm pulling the bullets, destroying the primers and powder and consigning the brass to the landfill.

Six

Br0ken C0mputer

I n0rmaIIy keep my c0mputer 0n the fI00r next t0 my barkaI0unger The 0ther day I managed t0 spiII an entire gIass 0f water 0n it I dried it 0ut as best I c0ud but as 0f t0day the 0, EII and Peri0d keys are refusing t0 c00perate It's kind 0f a massive butt pain

I guess I'II be heading f0r Best Buy T0m0rr0w

I hate it when I d0 stupid things

A Laugh At Someone Else's Expense

So the Car Guy called me yesterday. I see some background is needed here. Car Guy is my bud. My BFF. We just recently swapped trucks. He had a 4 wheel drive he no longer needed but wanted a truck with more room. I had a 2 wheel drive extended cab I didn't need but I did need a 4 wheel drive. Both trucks are the same make and year and almost the same mileage. The stars came into alignment and a straight trade was made. Mine had a few aftermarket accessories I wanted as did his. We removed those items to be installed into our respective new trucks. Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Apparently he was putting in his stereo the other day. This required the removal of the upper dash. To do that he needed to move the shift selector lever. He put on the parking brake and moved the selector all the way down into D1. Did I mention his driveway is steeply sloped? Can you smell the impending disaster?

After a few minutes work he realized he needed to remove the lower dash. To do that he needed to, say it with me now, disengage the parking brake. Now Car Guy is a very experienced and competent mechanic. From minor repairs to total tear downs he can do it all and has many times which makes the resulting near catastrophe all the funnier. I mean ironic. Yeah, that's it. Ironic.

Car Guy reached under the dash and released the parking brake. The state of the gear selector lever was apparently forgotten in his intense concentration on installing the latest whiz bang satellite radio system. He was also hanging out the drivers door with his legs on the driveway at the time. You know, it's a funny thing. Sometimes, just as you do something monumentally stupid you get a moment of crystal clarity. It comes just after you do it and when it's far, far too late to stop. You think "Oh crap, I just did something incredibly bad and it's really, really going to hurt." You badly want to stop your hand or mouth but you just can't. It's no longer in your control and you can only watch, almost as an outside observer, as catastrophe and chaos take over. Your actions totally divorced from your conscious mind. You await the bang and hope the insurance will cover the medical bills.

Car Guy had just such an epiphany as he watched his hand release the only thing keeping his truck safely in his driveway. Inevitability took over and the truck zoomed down the driveway (It's very steep) and toward the road. Like a smart munition programmed by Red Adair, it headed unerringly for the fire hydrant across the street. Car Guy found himself holding onto the brake pedal, the only thing he now had to avert looming disaster, and being dragged just inches from painful mutilation by the rear wheels. He somehow managed to get a grip on the steering wheel with one hand and apply the brake with the other. The engine was off so he had no power assist just the panicky strength that comes from knowing one has committed a massive buffoonery and if one does not somehow wrest control of the situation from Murphy's slavering jaws injury and personal revenue disenhancement will surely ensue.

Car Guy contorted and strained with all his might. He pressed on the pedal and prayed to to the gods of all things mechanical. He may have even cried but if so it was just for maybe a minute or two so it really doesn't count and no one should think less of him for that. Somehow, in spite of doing virtually everything he could to bring on this massive kinda accident but really negligent negative vehicle/object interaction, he brought the truck to a halt just inches shy of the hydrant and the high pressure water event that surely would have resulted. He even managed to keep his soft personal parts away from the rear wheels but even he can't explain how. The day was saved.

But Car Guy just couldn't keep it to himself. He called his compadre, his amigo, his trusted confidant immediately afterward and, amid much laughing and many aspersions cast by yours truly, related the story finishing with the admonition "Dude, don't tell anyone!"

So to Car Guy. My best friend. My brother from another mother. The man I'd trust with anything and everything near and dear to me. I didn't tell a soul. I swear.

I'm just glad the antagonist in this cautionary tale wasn't me. It usually is but that's a story Car Guy will never tell. He swore.

Six