I’m the chief instructor at the biggest gun club in Florida — a dozen ranges, almost 4,000 members, ranging from folks who just bought their first gun to world record-holders in a dozen sports, to black-bag guys who shoot people for a living.
It’s my responsibility to investigate all safety issues on the range, and when something goes bad I usually get a call pretty quickly.
About a year ago on a weekday morning, an experienced shooter was firing his war-surplus SKS (shown above with an M4rgery for comparison) on our benchrest range. The SKS is a semiauto with a box magazine, but the magazine isn’t detachable for loading, so you load it through the top of the receiver with stripper clips.
The shooter was reloading the SKS, hunching over top of it while it was in a rest. He dropped the bolt — and everything went sideways. The firing pin must have been sticking out from the bolt face (a documented issue with this gun), because the gun fired, and went full-auto.
There was a video camera just a few feet away, so everything was recorded for posterity. Good thing, too, because afterward he didn’t realize what had occurred.
The SKS shot out from under his arm like a rocket, spraying the benches with .30-caliber bullets. Luckily, he was the only shooter on the line. The only other member who was on the range at the time was loading something into his vehicle at that very moment.
I said “luckily” — the SKS shooter was either the luckiest guy in the world, or the unluckiest, depending on how you look at it. A single .30-caliber bullet struck him under the arm, and he fell down like a ton of bricks. But a moment later, he staggered up, and sat down heavily on the bench. He thought he had been knocked over by the the rifle butt striking him in the chest. In reality, the .30-caliber bullet struck him so obliquely that it traveled under his skin and popped out the center of his chest without penetrating the rib cage. The worst of the damage was a bruised lung and some muscle damage. He was shooting again in a week.
Sorry I can’t post the video: The member is clearly identified, I don’t have a release, and the club does not want the publicity.