Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Idiot post of the year

+1

Not trying to start an argument here but,....how do you know it was a "nice one" when you didnt see it?.

The issue is not so much that in some cases, assuming proper gun handling, observation of the safety rules, a person might hunt with the chamber loaded. The real issue here is the idea that a safety can't fail and the attitude that follows. Safeties, like firing pins, extractors, springs and a whole multitude of other things, can and do fail. It never hurts to treat a chambered weapon like it can go off at any moment. IOW, act as if the safety is meaningless.

I can understand someone disagreeing with another person's post. But to start another thread to smear that person does not speak very highly of the originator of the second thread.

Yes safety`s can fail.However I sometimes carry a Live round in The chamber ,saftey on when Still hunting.Muzzle controll ,muzzle controll and knowing where your hunting party is.When ever I see another person the Bolt is opened.When group hunting I never have a round in the chamber.When stalking I never have a round in the chamber.Here in Wi.I am hunting in dense Swamp and trying to walk up on a Deer and chambering a round Forgetaboutit.There are up to 700,000 hunters in the Woods opening day here and very few accidents in Wi.You are more likely to be shot driving through some neighborhoods in Milwaukee.Just my 3 cents Huntz

I agree that they can and do fail.

Can't agree at all with the way you handled it and lack of tact, you're better than that.

J

PS...Full disclosure: I'm one of the hot chamber guys.

The ones you don't see are always nice ones.
Actually, don't know if anyone will back me up on this, but a buck, and smart old buck particularly, has a different way of walking. You can really hear it in dry leaves. Does walk dainty. Bucks, real bucks, walk like a boxer, for lack of a better comparison.

So how do you know Mike Tyson ain't out in the woods? Don

Look, Pa..... I bagged me a biggun with a sound shot, why it's got on a championship belt. Would ya look at that!!!! A real trophy Should I gettim mounted?......

I love the second thread.. This isn't an issue of Remmie vs Winchester or 30-06 vs 270. This is one guy who posts above his experience and who is posting very wrong information. Some new guy might read his posts and go tumbling down a hill and blow his brains out or his buddies.

[bleep], if it makes everybody a little bit extra careful this year not to be pointing their rifles at every sound in the forest it's a good thread....

Most of the true monsters I have seen are totally silent....even in dry leaves.

I stop short of calling anyone a fool but....not only is a safety not foolproof but neither is any human incapable of making mistakes. Two "faulty mechanisms", one supposed to be the backup for the other doesn't inspire confidence.

I am extremely conscious of my barrel position relative to my partner hunters and vice versa. As so happens in bird hunting your chambered is loaded with only the safety on while walking in a sometimes wavering line on uneven terrain, sometimes with hunters of varying experience and age. I admit it makes me nervous. When I'm thrown in with someone whose barrel waves over the landscape like a wand, waist high covering everything on it, we have a conversation in short order...and retraining sessions thereafter as needed.

In Africa this summer, my PH insisted I have one up the pipe whle he was walking just in front of me. The R93 I was carrying has a safety that is also the cocking mechanism so if the safety is off, it is not even cocked. Nevertheless, When hunkered over doing a rapid stalk right behind him, I ended up carrying my rifle with the barrel pointed rearward.

Essentially, I trust nothing mechanical and close to that as regards other hunters.

Gdv

Yes the R93 is a very safe rifle. This is a sear disconect
Type of rifle. the firing pin gets nowhere near the primer.

Ya'll should go read the whole thread. Steelhead has said some idiotic and provocative things on it; I won't stoop so low as to "go there" and start cross-posting his BS.

I was steamed when I typed that because Steelhead came right out and said some things that any of you who hunt with a round in the chamber would find very offensive. If I were typing what he quoted again, I'd clean it up a little and remove some of the emotion and make it more clear that I was saying that HE COULDN'T demonstrate how a modern safety could fail. And, he can't! It should be realized that entire companies are betting the farm on the safety of their safeties.

Gun safety is between the ears of the gun operator. Anyone with a brain knows this to be true. The mechanical safety on a rifle is a backup, only, to good gun handling in the field. That said, let me offer up this example- which I was lambasted for by Steelhead- and see if any of you can come up with an intelligent answer. He couldn't.

I carried my Browning BLR "hot" the entire time I was in the field this last season, in rough terrain. I carried it at half-cock with the folding hammer folded forwards. My position is that this is a perfectly safe way to carry this firearm. Anyone who is not familiar with how that gun works, I can try to explain it better.

I can see that ya'll are having a ball dogpiling me, so I hate to get in the way of all your fun, but how about someone explain how a Browning BLR could POSSIBLY be made to fire accidentally carried that way. I was carrying that firearm in a perfectly safe fashion, in addition to doing the most important thing- practicing good firearms handling in general.

My position is, and remains, that a person can hunt safely with a round in the chamber. And what the hell. How about someone repudiates my statement- show me how a modern firearm's safety can fail. Failure being defined as allowing the gun to fire with the safety on.

Please, no examples of mis-adjusted triggers and the like. I don't hunt that way. If someone is that studid, all bets are off anyway, right?

Finally, I would invite all of you to go read the context in which I typed those remarks, and witness the kind of provocative stupidity that our Steelhead is capable- and make up your own mind.

-jeff

JO-

No dogpiling...or name-calling here. I take the position I do as mentioned above across the board, with any rifle, in anybodies' hands.

I'll trust in safeties and human intent in the next life.

Gdv

I was at a class for police marksmen at Camp Ripley, MN a while ago. There was a guy who's Remington 700 fired when the safety was moved from safe to fire. While it did not happen EVERY time, it was repeatable, and happened more than once.

Now, as I said in a different thread, I'll put one up the pipe when I am sitting in my climbing stand, but I don't walk around in the woods with a round in my chamber. I also feel that my Marlin 336 on half-cock with the crossbolt safety engaged would be really, really difficult to get to fire (as would your BLR when carried as you described), but I am also sure that someone, somewhere on this BB besides me hunts with a Remington 700, and I will never forget just how damn scary it was to see a rifle fire like that.

Mechanical safety devices CAN fail.

Goodnews,

I guess, since I carry hot, I trust in my personal gun handling discipline to keep the muzzle pointed safely. Failing that, IE if I go ass over teakettle, I trust the safety on the rifle to prevent it from discharging. Everyone who carries "hot" must feel this way too, which is the vast majority of guys.

The case of my BLR is a good one in the sense that it's right there to be seen how it functions, but I know that a bunch of folks have never really looked them over... I also have a M700 trigger group in front of me that we could talk about if anyone wants to.

We all trust machines all the time. I mean, the steering wheel could come off your car, sending you careening into the school bus in the other lane- right? And yet, we drive. At some point the possibility of failure *of certain mechanisms* becomes vanishingly small, because very smart people know the consequences of failure (like being sued back into the stone age) and design such mechanisms very carefully. When was the last time you heard of a steering wheel coming off a modern car in the driver's hands?

So do I think it's impossible for a safety to fail? Nothing is impossible. However, in practical terms, I do trust the safeties on my rifle AS A BACKUP TO EXEMPLARY GUN HANDLING DISCIPLINE.

I too have taken folks to task in the field for bad muzzle discipline... that's always fun. I care a lot about this stuff, gents.

-jeff

Hey Goalie,

Good post, but I will say that's a classic example of a mis-adjusted trigger on a M700... I could make any of mine do that easily.

Anyway... I appreciate being amongst calm, rational people having this discussion. It's a breath of fresh air.

-jeff

I have to admit, Jeff, that I've never handled a BLR (quite possibly the only dedicated hunting rifle that I haven't come to think of it). How exactly do they work? If I wasn't so lazy I'd look it up myself...But I am.

Kodiak,

It has a half-cock position, like a Marlin or whatever. The hammer will not fall when the trigger is pulled, from this position. However, here's the good part. The hammer is hinged such that it can be rotated forwards and under the firing pin, essentially. The bottom back part of the bolt is undercut to allow this, as is the firing pin. So even if by some miracle guy managed to drop it on the hammer, it's prevented from contacting the pin, short of breaking the receiver.

I can post a couple pics if people want to see that.

-jeff