What is the worst accident you have witnessed ?

Only thing I did was accidentally fire my gun with the bolt open when I was cleaning it. Didn’t hurt anything but gave my wife and mother in law a good scare. 

I had a scary thing happen once.

I was shooting my impact on my bench with my 74cf tank and I stopped to stand up something and ended up knocking over the impact and it was loaded.

Well somehow while it was falling on its side on the bench something I had on bench made it's way into the trigger guard and fired of the pellet I had loaded.

Well that pellet hit my tank which at that point was a few inches from the muzzle ( gun fell over and sideways) and it was a very solid hit from a 34 grain pellet with just about 60 foot pounds! 

Needless to say that tank is no longer in use and they now sit on the ground next me.

It was damn scary though... my heart was beating so fast I had to stop shooting for the day

Had a quick coupling blow up on me while filling my Marauder. After checking myself for damage and my ears quit ringing I never found any parts of the coupling. Who knows where those little ball bearings went.

Had a burst disk let lose in the car on the way home from the fill shop. Luckily it was pony tank but in an enclosed space....damn.

I had an over under shot gun blow apart in my hands while shooting trap from a very faulty reloaded shell. Very lucky not a mark on me. Nothing with air rifles 

I've only had one negligent discharge in my life, and ironically it was about 30 years ago with an air rifle. Luckily the pellet went into the living room wall without contacting anyone or anything else. It was my fault for pulling the trigger on a gun that I "assumed" was empty. Shame on me, and never happened again.

Not airgun related but still had to do with high pressure co2. I'm not sure how much pressure is inside a co2 bottle use to give soda fountains fizzy bubbles but I was driving behind a coke driver and he forgot to close one of his bay doors. We were going down the interstate about 65 mph when several bottles flew out the door as the driver drove over an underpass.

2 accidental discharges here, both at low power levels (20~ FPE) but still unintended, scary and made me question how safe I was being! One went into my mattress (harmless shot) and another went into my bedroom door and then to the dresser...Since those 2, I leave the safety on 100% of the time unless I have my eyes down the sights...just a simple precaution that removes the above errors which any human can make.



I think everyone accidentally discharges at least once or twice in their life, be it while sighted or not. Its just another reason I like to keep my .25 cal detuned to 20~ fpe around the house and only up its power when I go out for long ranges or hunting...20 fpe is plenty for poking paper at 10-20 yards.



The scariest HPA incident I've personally had was just running a SSG preloaded onto the valve stem, taking a shot and dumping 200 cc's of air in a matter of a second, nearly took my eye out with scope bite. That was when I was first learning about ssg's and messed up a gap adjustment. Woops.



-Matt

When I was just starting out with powder burners in my late 20's, I had my new Marlin 60 stainless/beach out for a drive in the brush. When I got home to my girlfriend's house I went inside w/o safety checks. As I was stowing my gun, I sighted in on the #5 buttons on the microwave keypad and fantasied about one of the rabbits I had missed that day. I intended to dry fire to practice trigger control and sight alingment. At the last instant before trigger break I got a feeling on the back of the neck. Yep, there was still one in the chamber. I burned off a guardian angle that day. Knowing that I am down one makes me more careful everyday. Both the microwave and I survived that day.

I would say mine was last summer. I was shooting my 25 cal condor ss with the adjustable tophat. I just filled the gun to 2900 psi and took a shot. Well the insert in the tophat was backing out or unscrewing and i didnt notice until an explosion of air in my face and out the barrel. All 2900 psi emptied in a few seconds. The insert blew out and wedged sideways in the barrel. Scared me half to death. Oh..... the accident was in my shorts. lol.

I loctited the insert right after i cleaned up.

Twice the trigger on my Beeman R10 was pulled while the barrel was broke open, which resulted in a bent barrel turned upwards. First one by me in the late 80’s and second by my son when he was 10 years old st the time. Second time was costly, as I had to source a new barrel from the UK.



looking at the positive, I’m glad my fingers were not anywhere near the load port when this happened.

Back when I used percussion muzzleloaders I always shot the charge off when I was done hunting and cleaned my gun. The next time I would go out I would fire off one cap to clear out any moisture etc. One time I decided not to because I was going right back in the morning. Well next morning was in my garage and decided I would just go ahead and fire off a cap. Forgot it was still loaded. Let me tell you, a .50 call ml at 5:00 in the morning in a closed garage is LOUD. It blew a big chunk out of my garage floor and put about ten holes in my garage door. Scared the crap out of me.

Couldn't believe I did that.

Well.

I had an officer shoot himself in the leg, in front of me, while I was in the range booth.

We were on a cold range, and he had loaded his mags/pistol w/o telling anyone. Then he shoved his pistol into his holster, loaded, with his finger in the trigger guard.

He admitted this, during the investigation.

Never trust what the shooters say on the range. Only believe your eyes, and ears!

Two accidental discharges with the Leshiy. I also learned the hard way to make absolute sure that they breech closes all the way, my ears are still ringing from when it wasn't closed all the way (back when it was a little more stiff than it is now after being broken in a bit). I love gun though!

Not gun related, but worst accident I was right next to(the high rise building I was on was next to a brand new Sheraton high rise hotel being erected, where the accident occurred) this jobsite where two knuckle heads were playing grab butt on the 22nd floor, next to the man lift elevator, at quitting time. While waiting for the elevator to get to their floor, They were both playfully(stupidly) pushing on each other, and the journeyman pushed on his apprentice into the manlift door, but the elevator was on another floor. That plastic door is meant to swing inward onto the floor the elevator pulls up to. But this time it swung outward(these plastic doors are used from job to job, and was probably all old and beat up) and the apprentice fell out onto open air. The journeyman went to grab him and he, too, fell off the floor into space.



The apprentice slammed against steel bracing four floors down, that holds the erected elevator assembly and shot back into the floor that was four floors down. He pretty much bounced off of steel, and later on died from internal injuries.

The journeyman? He went down, all 22 floors, right onto the streets of downtown Sacramento, and was DRT, and flat as flat could be. 

That accident was the “talk of the town” for a looonnnggg time. Very unfortunate, but it goes to show, life is just a second away from being lost at all times, and yes, fffnn around on a job site, there is no place for. All it takes is one bad move, from not following procedures, not being on guard, taking shortcuts, and just being plain stupid. Bringing this all towards our little hobby of pcp guns and high pressure air, all it takes is one bad move. Just to give you an idea of the catastrophe that energy from pressurized air can do, a pipe fitter from one of our local shops was unbolting an end cap, a cap that they cap on pipe anytime the job calls for all piping to be checked for leaks by pressurizing with air. The story I heard was 60 or 70 psi, and this steel pipe was like 6” round schedule 80. The worker was told all air had been bled out. Well, it wasn’t, and that cap shot off and hit him in the face. That plate is like 1/4” thick steel. DRT, instantly. 



Can you imagine what 4500 psi will do?

M1 carbine while shooting some of my Grandpas old loads. Pieces of the stock peppered my face with enough force to cause numerous small nicks. You could see the outline around my eyes from where I had the safety glasses on.

Never ever shoot without eye protection, EVER