[Slamfire]

Mentions of negligent discharge reminded me of an event that happened to a bud of mine.

He was competing service rifle at the Camp Perry National Matches. This ND happened during the standing stage where you shoot 10 rounds for score at 200 yards. He said a Junior next to him was “handling his rifle dangerously” and Junior’s AR15 rifle managed to ND a round in the airspace between Bud’s arm and body, I assume taking a divot out of the firing line.

Luckily no one was hurt.

Now what I think was happening was Junior was sweeping the firing line while loading his rifle and the rifle slamfired. I saw one competitor at the Nationals, shooting standing, who raised his AR match rifle up to his face, the rifle parallel with the firing line, he put a round in the port, put his hand through the carrying handle to hit the bolt release, with the rifle parallel with the firing line. If this rifle had slamfired, the bullet was going to be traveling in the direction of a bunch of people. At that time nothing was done, I hope if line judges ever see him in the future they have the authority to DQ the guy and get him off the range.

What people do not take into account is the possibility of a slamfire with rifles that have free floating firing pins. Anytime a firing pin rebounds off a primer there is a real finite probability of a firing pin initiated slamfire due to a sensitive primer.

Don’t load these rifles with the muzzle in line with anything that you don’t want to kill.

I saw a number of shooters put their AR15 muzzle on their shooting stool, put a round in the chamber, and hit the bolt release. Enough reports of AR’s slamfiring through the shooter’s stool surfaced that now it is illegal to rest a loaded rifle on the shooting stool.