SAFETY
Weird Stuff Happens
When it comes to shooting, never say never.
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Computers, the Internet and modern education have changed so much of the world. Language used to have meaning. "Once in a blue moon" was an actual period of time. Today many of us use the term "one in a million" rather lightly.
A million seconds is just under two years' time. A million days haven't even passed since the cornerstone of the Acropolis was laid down. Your brother-in-law getting promoted at work is not a "one in a million" event. Winning the lottery is rarer than that.
However, if you do something a million times, you can count on rare things happening. If you plan to stick with something long enough, you should protect yourself against even the rare stuff. The following didn't happen to me but to another IPSC shooter, who I have no reason to doubt in the slightest.
Let me set the scene for you: It is a cold winter (they're all brass-monkey cold up here), and my friend is practicing on an indoor range. He's shooting factory .40 ammo through his Glock for practice and to provide more once-fired brass to feed his reloading habit. To make the task easier, he has slid the boxes of ammo open and has the Styrofoam trays laying on the shooting bench with the ammo still in them. Those who have shot on an indoor range know the setup. Those of you lucky enough to have lived in warm climes with plenty of open space might not know it, but each shooting position is sided by barriers. It is like standing in a broom closet and shooting out of the open door with a waist-high bookshelf in front of you.
Things proceed swimmingly, as they always have on these occasions, until one of his shots is closely followed by a loud pop next to him. The Styrofoam trays scatter to the floor like cockroaches in a cheap apartment when you turn on the lights. His first thought is Oh my God, the idiots in the next booth had an AD. The second is They shot my ammo.
Not at all the situation, and you in the back row--don't even think of blaming the Glock. For those who have not leapt ahead, imagine this: You have a shelf full of trays of ammo, primer-side up, with empty brass rattling around every time you shoot. What are the chances that one of them will strike a primer hard enough to set it off? "One in a million." There you go, overestimating the odds.
Every single one of us who has shot on an indoor range has done exactly as my buddy had done. But this time he won the lottery.
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