This Has to be Pretty Uncommon

[fishnfur]

Hmm..... any relationship of that cat in question to your avatar photo?   No way!!  Is that what killed him???  You dropped the shell on the rock, it went off and hit the cat crossing the road (after it attempted to rip out your throat) and now he is full-body mounted in your family room???  Too weird!        Seriously - good story, even without the embellishment. 

[NOCK NOCK]

True story, except I did have time to pick the shell up and reload. Put the gun up, cat was centered and looking back at me, boom, dead kitty.

[The Big Game Hunter]

With hunting season basically upon us this year, I wanted to raise a little awareness and hopefully decrease the odds of this happening to anyone else.  A few seasons ago, I took my eleven year old son out for his first deer hunt, as he had previously completed the hunter education course.  We arrived at the location we would be starting from, and pulled in to the paved parking area.  I instructed him to stay in the truck for a few minutes while I readied our stuff for the hike. While I was fumbling around with packs and gear etc, I dropped a 7mm WSM cartridge (a round I would be using in my own firearm) onto the ground.  It landed upright, and primer down on one of the small rocks embedded in the asphalt below. Yes, there was a loud boom, and no it wasn't very funny.  There was also at least one other vehicle in the lot at the time, which I don't think was another hunting party, and they didn't stick around too much longer after that.  There are a lot of folks on here, and for those that may not know, when this happened the bullet did not go anywhere as it was not in a confined tube to project out of.  But the powder does fire and explode, sending shrapnel here and there.  Be careful out there this season, and something to watch out for.

I had a similar thing happen once when I was deployed involving one of my Soldiers and a 5.56x45mm cartridge he dropped. He caught a tiny piece of brass in his neck, but it was fortunately very minor. Literally just a scratch. That's the sort of thing that's really scary and confusing when it happens, but as long as you don't get hit in the eye, it probably won't seriously injure anyone.