My friend and I were shooting at the range Saturday and as I was standing at the gun rack looking at my rifle, I heard the only other guy shooting there shoot his centerfire rifle. It was a semi auto clip fed rifle of what brand I do not know. Anyway, when his gun went off something hit me in the back of my leg just behind my knee cap. I turned to see a big piece of something on the ground behind me. It was a piece of his rifle. My friend also got hit with a piece of it. The magazine and clip had blown to pieces. The guy's hand was a little cut up but luckily he still had all of his fingers.

Yikes... good thing no one got hurt too badly.

I own a few Mosin Nagants, and I've got to say, even after checking the firing pins a hundred times, I still worry I'm going to punch through one of the many rounds of surplus ammo I have lying around.

Maybe I'm just too nervous, but that really does hit the back of my mind every once in a while.

Damn that is scary

Pluckit

You and your friend were very fortunate indeed, not to mention the fellow that was holding the rifle. Back in '91 before my wife and I were married, she shot in a trap league with her father as part of our local sportsman's club's team. While attending a shoot at another club's trapfield, a man standing on the line firing a factory O/U shotgun had his receiver explode. Miraculously, the shooter was not injured but unfortunately, the shooter to his right was hit by a small fragment that lodged deep in his spinal column at the base of his neck, severing his spinal column. After all that could be done for him was determined by his doctors, his family was informed that he would remain in a vegetative state and would remain alive only by life support systems.
Knowing full well that he would never wish to live that way, his loving wife and three young daughters had to make the hardest decision of their lives and remove the life support. He was an avid sportsman, great guy and a great friend. A big man with a heart of gold, a "gentle giant", so to speak that didn't have an enemy on the planet.

Rest in peace Fred, we all still miss you very much.

WK

That is scary. I would be willing to bet that his bullets either weren't seated deep enough or he didn't crimp them and a bullet came out of the case dumping or exposing the powder in the magazine. The hot gases from cycling the action ignited the powder and 'boom'.

Sorry to hear about your friend. Can't imagine what it was like for his wife to have to make that decision. And for his daughters to have to grow up without their father. That was a sad day, I'm sure, for everyone in his life.