Scope Bite: When Guns Srike Back!

[The Rookie Gamer]

So yesterday, I went out with a family friend to shoot some of his weapons. I stuck with his handguns, which were M1911, and a .45 black powder revolver. I decide to fire a rifle for the first time, so we set up his Winchester 700 on a wooden table, with some bags to rest the weapon on. He warns me about it having a hair trigger, and when I turn off the safety, I looked a little to close to the scope, pull the trigger...

AND BAM. I get hit by the scope, making a cut beneath my right eye, and my cheek swelling up minimally. It was much more shocking than painful, and I feel like a buffoon for making that mistake. Anyone have similar experiences?

TL;DR
Gun punched me, similar tales?

 

[hazabaza1]

Never even touched a gun, but I just want to say that the title for this thread would make a fucking awesome movie.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

My goodness... so many threads.
Did you have website problems?

 

[The Rookie Gamer]

My goodness... so many threads.
Did you have website problems?

Damn, really? I guess I should have been suspicious when I typed in catchpa correctly, and it kept on saying invalid

 

[Thaluikhain]

Apparently that used to be a big thing for big game hunters with seriously powerful rifles for shooting through, say, elephant skulls with, you could tell them by the circular scars around their eyes.

Of course you get even more powerful rifles nowdays, there's just no good reason for them (well, if you exclude anti-materiel sniper rifles).

 

[Tsukuyomi]

Eh, never had it happen, though my old man did suffer slide bite once or twice. For some reason I'm always really careful about that when I shoot so I've never had problems.

Not sure why hair-triggers are so awesome in the first place. I guess when you're trained and you know how to put a round where you want it to go that might make things more interesting, but to me it just smacks of asking for an accident to happen. Seen more than one gun owner adjust their triggers to be lighter for whatever reason, though I've never heard an explanation as to why other than because they want to or because they got used to someone else's and now anything at normal weight is just too hard to pull.

 

[DugMachine]

Held a shotgun wrong once and got a nice kick to the face. Not pleasant at all

 

[Heronblade]

I was badly pinched by a pistol slide on one occasion, lost a bit of skin there. On another, someone else with a shotgun fell backwards upon shooting it and bashed her head into mine.

Beyond that, (unless you're counting paintball markers, plenty of bruises from those) I have not had much in the way of gun related injuries in spite of handling them fairly frequently.

Eh, never had it happen, though my old man did suffer slide bite once or twice. For some reason I'm always really careful about that when I shoot so I've never had problems.

Not sure why hair-triggers are so awesome in the first place. I guess when you're trained and you know how to put a round where you want it to go that might make things more interesting, but to me it just smacks of asking for an accident to happen. Seen more than one gun owner adjust their triggers to be lighter for whatever reason, though I've never heard an explanation as to why other than because they want to or because they got used to someone else's and now anything at normal weight is just too hard to pull.

Less pull to compensate for. A stiffer trigger can affect accuracy. With that said, the difference is minor enough that nearly all recreational gun users are better off leaving their triggers on a standard weight.

 

[MysticToast]

Worst incident I've had was bruising my shoulder firing my friend's hunting rifle.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I once owned a Mossberg 500. In spite of shooting the weapon correctly, I still ended my day with quite the bruise on the shoulder. Couple that with the fact that a shotgun is probably the most boring thing to actually shoot unless the target is small and fast moving and you'll find why I never bothered with them again.

In an IDPA shoot I was in a bit of a hurry to reload during a stage and I managed to pinch my palm between the magazine and the grip. This caused a slight readjustment of my grip and when I released the slide I also caught the webbing of my hand between the slide and frame.

 

[The Rookie Gamer]

Apparently that used to be a big thing for big game hunters with seriously powerful rifles for shooting through, say, elephant skulls with, you could tell them by the circular scars around their eyes.

Of course you get even more powerful rifles nowdays, there's just no good reason for them (well, if you exclude anti-materiel sniper rifles).

Well, some good things about the larger rifles is that they tend to have less recoil due to being so heavy, like the Barrett .50.

 

[Esotera]

First time I fired an air rifle I got hit like that but in the shoulder. I'm just very glad that it wasn't a very powerful gun and that I had a thick jumper on.

 

[winginson]

When I target shoot I use a hair trigger. It only makes a difference at long range or with a .22 but its easier to have everthing set up the same. Never had scope bite but I have seen a 6 stone person fire a 7.62 for the first time. While prone it looked like they were doing the worm.