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The fellow is left-handed and was carrying his 1911 pistol inside the waistband. The pistol was holstered, but the hammer was not cocked, there was one round chambered. He withdrew the firearm, holster and all, from his waistband to change for work, and it discharged. The round went through the upper thigh/groin of his left leg and exited the back of his thigh landing in an adjacent locker. When police arrived at the scene, they had to remove the firearm from the holster to make it safe and the spent casing was still in the firearm.

What went wrong?

Without knowing more, my first thought is he must have hit the hammer on something hard, causing a discharge. Or, he pulled the hammer back far enough to drop it without engaging the half cock notch. Would not recommend carrying are down on a live round, despite the firing pin spring. I’d be interested to see if the half cock was intact, or if the sear was not engaged.

Old70

Did he drop the entire rig on its hammer?

Wound path says no.

Theres something missing in that story.

You cannot get a 1911 to fire by hitting the hammer. Its an inertia firing pin. With the hammer all the way against the firing pin stop, the pin does not even reach th primer.

Even if he thumbed the hammer a bit, no way it had sufficient energy with that short a fall. If he thumbed it further the safety notch would have caught it. Even if was at full cock the holster should have protected the trigger. .

I'm not saying the story is total BS, but I don't think for a moment that story is complete as told. No offense intended to anyone.

Try it with a primed case sometime, and see.

Yea, somethings missing.

I'm guessing it was actually cocked, and he got his finger inside the trigger guard.

Perhaps earlier in the day he drew his gun, and didn't fire it. Once the suspect controlled, in all the excitement, he holstered it with the hammer still cocked, so some variant of this.

Once he's off shift, he reached down to removed the now cocked, but not locked, gun, and......

I have. Quite a few times. In three different 1911's.
Not going to happen.

Primers popped three times out of five tries in Virginia State Crime Lab testing. Popped when I tried it, too. Strength of the firing pin spring, strength of the hammer spring, and primer sensitivity can all influence results.

Carry on my wayward Son......

Something happened between the withdrawal of the firearm/holster and the discharge.

What was it?

Ah, the sixty-four dollar question. Your thoughts?

He dropped it and it landed on the hammer.

I think perhaps the guy doesn’t remember accurately. If he was totally focused on what he was doing, he might know what he did. Perhaps, like most of us, he was on autopilot. Doing the same routine every day, something goes wrong and he is trying to piece it together.

“The round went through the upper thigh/groin of his left leg and exited the back of his thigh landing in an adjacent locker.”

Bet that hurt.
Bob

I’m going with that.

1. The guy lost control of (aka: dropped) the gun/holster while pulling it out of his pants.

2. He instinctively grabbed for it and sort of caught it, unfortunately pinning it against his thigh/groin (with the barrel against his leg).

3. In the process he flicked the hammer, causing the gun to discharge.

4. The gun failed to cycle, because:
---A. The guy's hand somewhat blocked the slide, and
---B. With nobody gripping the lower half of the gun, it couldn't cycle ("no-wristing" is worse than "limp-wristing"), and maybe
---C. The holster interfered with the gun's normal cycling operation (but A and B, above, would alone be enough to prevent the gun from cycling).

5. The impact of the dropping of the gun wasn't enough to jar it out of the holster.

Hmmm, have you known of a similar scenario before?

No, but given the facts (assuming they're all true), It's the only possible answer I can think of, given what I know about the 1911. (Even if my response isn't what happened, it could have been correct).