Your worst time you accidently damaged or destroyed a firearm

I recently had a rifle stock professionally refinished after let's just say, a mental mistake - letting it fall onto the metal grate of my tripod. Thankfully, I've never had a vehicle-related accident with a firearm, such as running off with one laying on the roof or in the bed of a pickup, or dropped one from a ladder stand (knock on wood). I've heard all sorts of stories of shotguns falling into lakes, rifles sliding down asphalt roads, or run one being run over by an ATV or other vehicle. Still, I'm sure there are a lot more stories of firearms that took the blow from someone's mental brain fart.

while mounting the scope, it rolled over and put the first "dings" on this beautifully stocked model 70 Super Grade

It wasn’t mine but about 30 years ago I took a guy that worked for Winchester guns quail hunting. As I started down the highway I saw something bouncing in the road. Stopped and went back. It was his Winchchester a model 21 Grand American grade . He left it on top off the dog trailer when we pulled out. Broken stock, bent barrels. He was sick about it. the gun was made in the 50s.
He got it repaired of course.

I would have cried, literally.

Alcohol and hunting have ruined and lost a lot of firearms. My dad left his Citori on the roof of his truck when I was in high school and we never saw it again.

Even worse: When I was in college my roommate and I were guiding a group of 8 dove hunters. We built a fire and started really drinking cleaning a 10 man limit. Several hours later one of the guys said, “ Where’s the dogs?” We whistled and they were already out of earshot. You would think they would have been too tired after retrieving all of those dove to run off. They weren’t. Two weeks went by and we thought we’d lost a lab and Brittany. A rancher called us 30 miles away and asked if we were missing a couple of skinny dogs. They were going through his trash and he told them to load up and they jumped in the back of his truck. We never made that mistake again.

I ruined a couple of guns when I was living in apartment in Nashville. I was working on the road for two weeks. Guns were in the downstairs closet. Water heater leaked up stairs. Bad situation.

I never damaged a rifle permanently, thank goodness. But, many years ago I was rabbit hunting along the bank of the Mississippi River when the world was frozen. Trying to get a shot on a rabbit, I slipped on the ice and started a slow bumpy slide down toward the river. I tossed the rifle while trying to stop my slide. Destroyed the scope and cracked the stock.

Wasn't mine but a guy I was duck hunting with had a brand new, never fired, straight out of the box 10ga with a beautiful stock.

We were on Caddo Lake in a canoe and he laid it across the rails....when he shifted his weight in it went. As I recall it was in the low 40's with a mist rain when he stripped down and went in after it. After about 5 minutes he found it with mud in every crevice. Getting him back in the boat with out dunking me was a real trick.

Mine was pretty simple. I had just bought a Marlin 444P about 20 years ago. I was stalking a exotic goat that made his way onto the place when I tripped on a shed antler from a 10 point. I was stunned that I didnt ding my gun when I fell so I got up and put the shed in my rear pocket then slung my rifle on to my shoulder and guess what happened........yep that shed antler left a nice little scratch and ding on the stock.

About 30 years ago I was sighting in my Ruger No.1 7mm mag at the range and put it in the rifle rack behind me. The person seating beside me was shooting a 300 win mag, and when he fired the concussion knocked over my Ruger. It scratched up my stock pretty bad, but the worst part was it totally ruined my Leupold scope. Luckily I was able to get the scoped repaired free, but the Ruger still has the scar.

None yet other than all the ones that fell in a lake or something.

Not mine....but a person I know very well sent me this pic.

He failed to recognize a 'squib' load and sent a good one right behind it.

His own reloads.

First time hunting my Kimber Mountain Ascent that my family gave me for my 40th birthday. Leaned it against a tree... barrel hit a boulder on the way down leaving a nice reminder! Good thing is i was hunting one of my favorite spots and will always remember the gift and the scratch!

I consider it a beauty mark now!

When I was 18 I dropped my Mod94 30-30 that was made in ‘56. It was then, and still is a beautiful rifle without a scratch on it... only now it has a cracked stock. It landed straight up and down and split a sliver right off. I tried to glue it back myself, but it didn’t turn out well. I’m looking for a replacement stock and matching forend.

Nothing more than nicks and dings so far for me. I have dropped a nice pair of Nikon Binoculars out of a tower blind that busted. Oh, and one time while getting off of my 3 wheeler, my gun sling slipped off my shoulder and the but of the rifle hit a large rock pretty hard, there wasn't any visible damage but it messed up the scope. I didn't even know until the next morning when the largest non typical deer I have ever seen walked out at 80 yards and just stared at me, I eased the gun up to the window and looked through the scope, nothing but blur couldn't see chit. Watched him walk away.

Went hunting with one of my cousins years ago. I let him use my old 870. We were walking accross a low lying area after a big rain and he slipped in the clay and dropped it in a mud puddle. Other than needing some cleaning and oil its been fine ever since.

My uncle used to hunt on a place in rock springs, a realy rocky bumpy place. He was driving around a curve in his old bronco, and hit a bump, the passenger door came open and his sako 280 slid off the front seat out the door and he drove over it with the back tire. It crushed the stock, he got a replacement synthetic stock and all was good.

Why do these things never happen when a doe or lesser buck walks out in front of you.

I once missed a nice buck the same morning I let my rifle slip off a tree and fall back on the scope. The ground was soft with leaves so I didn't think it would matter. I looked a full two hours for the buck before finally giving up. I later found the rifle was hitting more than a foot high.

Climbing a tree deer hunting when I was 16 with the stock stuck in my back pocket because I didn't have a sling or rope. Yes it fell out when I got to a limb to set on and broke the stock. Not my brightest moment. Rifle was a Marlin 30-30.

I was stalking around a big granite hill one wet morning and slipped on the rocks and dropped my Winchester Model 70 XTR .25-06. That is the first deer rifle I ever owned, given to me by my dad. I was soooo pissed. I think my son might have learned some new words that morning. The fall dinged the tip of the barrel, dinged the Leupold scope and cracked the stock st the wrist. I repaired the stock with some wood glue and threaded brass rod (it came out pretty good), glass bedded it while I had it apart, and just touched up the dings on the barrel and scope. Still shoots great, and I still hunt with it often.

Not mine but I watched one slide out of the bed of a truck and get ran over by a semi, knowing exactly what it was I stopped to pick it up and the owner returned about the time I was going to drive off thankfully. We opened up the case and he had a broken stock, shattered leupold and a barrel that wasn’t very straight looking. The only positive that came out of that is it was a Remington 700 so he had a decent receiver to build something else.

I learned 2 things that day,

Number 1 is to always have your contact info inside your gun cases just in case a fluke happens and an honest citizen finds it looking to return it.

Number 2 is don’t let rule number 1 happen EVER..

Me too. I had a 21 trap grade 20 and babied it like newborn. I hunted with it though.
In the 80s that grand American was worth about 20 k in the 80s!

In the early 90s I purchase new in the box Colt Sportster H bar. The first time I went to shoot it I locked the bolt back, inserted a magazine, set the butt to my shoulder in a firing position and hit the bolt release. The gun slam fired before the first cartridge was chambered all the way and it blew up the gun. The really funny thing is this, the lower receiver was damaged beyond repair but when I received the gun back from Colt the new receiver had the old serial number on it. Colt also sent me a bunch of swag and paid the bill to have my hand stitched up. Because of this experience AR pattern rifles are not exactly my favorite although I do own a dozen or more of them today.

Dang! How bad were your injuries?

Not bad at all. Needed a few stitches in my right thumb from where the magazine sliced it .

Thanks for sharing. Glad you weren't hurt more seriously.

This is the first I've heard of such a failure being possible and would be eager to know if there is anything that can be done to avoid it. I'm also eager to learn, and suspect others are as well, if it's caused by a defective firearm, ammo, or perhaps a combination of the two.

^^^^ Any gun that has a free float firing pin can slam fire but if it's going to happen if typically happens when the bolt is fully locked into battery or almost fully. The Colt in question was not my first AR and I disassembled it and checked everything prior to firing it the first time. Everything appeared to be in order. The ammo I was using was also out of the box factory ammo but it was match ammo and I suspected had a soft cupped primer. Using a soft primer is a no no in an AR but I did not know that back then. You also don't want to use that type of primer in an M1A or M1 grand. Incidence of slam fires are well-documented In both of those rifles.

Edit: I sold the Colt 25+ years ago but remember the digits in the serial number. They were 06823 or 006823. If any of y'all happen to own that rifle I sure would like it back .

I got my first 1911, a Colt Combat Elite, when I was still an idiot, and the gun has the scratch to prove it! And then, as if I hadn’t hurt that poor pony enough, I went and bought a Kydex holster for it and ruined the poor gun some more [/u][u]