28 May 01

Gun accident during police training, from a LEO friend and trainer in the Midwest:

"During a training session last week, one of our road officers mistakenly put a 40S&W round into the magazine of his Kimber 45ACP. During the next live-fire exercise, I heard an exceptionally loud detonation. I turned just in time to see this officer turning in circles and stumbling backward off the line, gun still in his hand.

One of my range officers was right on it and immediately grabbed the officer's gun hand and got the weapon pointed in a safe direction. The slide was out of battery but not locked to the rear. I arrived to hear the officer, obviously frightened, exclaiming, ‘I've been hit!' His left hand was covering his face.

We separated him from his pistol and then examined his face. He was okay. The rush of gas was sufficiently severe to cause him to think he had been struck by a missile, but there was no wound. He and the rest of us were relieved, to say the least!

Examination of his pistol revealed that the 40S&W round fed, ‘chambered,' and discharged, as the extractor held it in contact with the bolt face. The bullet went downrange, but the (now deformed) case did not eject. The next live round (in 45ACP caliber) fed but failed to chamber, as the 40S&W case was in the way. When the officer attempted to fire that round, of course, nothing happened. As he had been trained, the officer then tapped, racked, and immediately attempted to fire. That is when we all heard the loud bang.

The deformed 40S&W case had been pushed far enough into the barrel, via the officer's tap and rack, for a 45ACP round to chamber behind it. When that round fired, the bullet impacted the 40S&W case and pushed it most of the way down the barrel. The bullet and the case were found, smashed together, within a quarter inch of the muzzle. The barrel was bulged, and the barrel bushing on the slide was wedged over the bulged section. That is why the slide appeared to be neither all the way back nor all the way forward. The pistol is out of action. The barrel will have to be replaced, of course, and maybe the slide too.

It was raining all that day and we were on an outdoor range. Moments before this incident occurred, this same officer had removed his shooting glasses. When I subsequently spotted him without his glasses, I ordered him to put them back on. He complained they fogged up and that he couldn't see to shoot. I told him he had two choices: (1) put them back on immediately, or (2) leave the range. He mumbled and huffed off, returning several minutes later with his glasses on again. The incident occurred within a minute of his return! I shudder to think what may have occurred if he had not been wearing glasses."

Lessons:

With today's range sessions typically involving 9mm, 40S&W, 357SIG, 45ACP, and often other popular, but confusingly similar, defensive calibers, such as 380Auto and 400Cor-Bon, systems must be in place to insure that different calibers do not get inadvertently mixed together. The same dangerous condition will exist when twelve and twenty gauge shotguns are present on the same range. It is common for shooters, upon completing their range sessions to simply throw all their unfired rounds in a box. When they don't look carefully enough, they typically mix their rounds in with another caliber. It is thus best to have separate areas or even separate tables for each caliber. Even then, range staff must make it a point to emphasized the danger of caliber mixing to all students and thereafter must watch carefully to make sure it doesn't happen.

The importance of safety equipment, such as safety glasses and baseball caps, cannot be overemphasized. As with wearing a seat belt in a car, putting it on AFTER the accident makes a moot point! Range staff must be vigilant and insure that everyoneis properly equipped all the time they are on the range.

/John