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Parrothead · 03-27-2008, 04:35 AM

I have to confess something here for the sake of everyone's safety. I made a mistake in target selection that resulted in (thankfully) minor injury to a friend. I am not nearly as familiar with shotguns as I am with rifles and pistols. I'm just getting back into shooting after many years

I'm just getting back into shooting and went out in the desert with a couple of friends who also happen to be my lead tech and a supervisor at work. The supervisor handed me the 12ga semi-auto and said have fun. I had already shot everything with the 12ga but the kitchen sink, so I took aim at the kitchen sink someone had left out in the desert.

You can probably see where this is going.

I hit the sink, it fell over, and quite a few pellets (we were using #9 birdshot) came right back at us. We were all wearing eye and ear protection, and while most of the pellets bounced off of us, at least one hit the supervisor's bare arm and drew blood.

I'm used to rifles and pistols. We had been shooting at the sink all day with those and no problems. I figured that the shot would still be in one general mass and would just knock the sink over. I was wrong.

Yes, my co-workers now either refer to me as "Cheney" and refuse to let me live the incident down.

My friends accepted my apologies and I learned a very important lesson - know what your ammunition will do to a target and how it will react on impact and when in doubt, DON'T SHOOT!!!

03-27-2008, 04:35 AM	#1
Parrothead Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 101	Safety Lesson Learned The Hard Way I have to confess something here for the sake of everyone's safety. I made a mistake in target selection that resulted in (thankfully) minor injury to a friend. I am not nearly as familiar with shotguns as I am with rifles and pistols. I'm just getting back into shooting after many years I'm just getting back into shooting and went out in the desert with a couple of friends who also happen to be my lead tech and a supervisor at work. The supervisor handed me the 12ga semi-auto and said have fun. I had already shot everything with the 12ga but the kitchen sink, so I took aim at the kitchen sink someone had left out in the desert. You can probably see where this is going. I hit the sink, it fell over, and quite a few pellets (we were using #9 birdshot) came right back at us. We were all wearing eye and ear protection, and while most of the pellets bounced off of us, at least one hit the supervisor's bare arm and drew blood. I'm used to rifles and pistols. We had been shooting at the sink all day with those and no problems. I figured that the shot would still be in one general mass and would just knock the sink over. I was wrong. Yes, my co-workers now either refer to me as "Cheney" and refuse to let me live the incident down. My friends accepted my apologies and I learned a very important lesson - know what your ammunition will do to a target and how it will react on impact and when in doubt, DON'T SHOOT!!!