A wonderful afternoon of firearms goodness was diminished, only slightly, by an unintended firing of my .50 muzzle loader.
A friend from law school drove up from Richmond today to join me in gun play at the Centerville Izaak Walton League.
We started out shooting clay pigeons-3 rounds of skeet and 2 rounds of trap (don’t ask what my score was). A great way to get started, and one of the finest uses of a lovely Saturday morning I can think of.
After smoking a couple of stogies, as the day was heating up, we headed down to the rifle range.
Started on .45 Colt (300 grain sierra game king in souped up Ruger Blackhawk loadings). And then shot some Colt govt models- my Stainless Series 80, his mid 50s Colt Commander and a sweet Argentinian 1911 (Sistema?? It had a prancing pony on it and indicated it was made pursuant to Colts patent).
He then took out a gorgeous blued and wood CZ-52 in 7.62×25. It wasn’t a 5.7, but the cartridge looked similar. It was one sweet little shooter.
We went backwards, of course, and finished with my Ruger Mark II.
Next up were the rifles. I loaded some of my nail driving .280s. We put 2 groups of 4 in 2 separate cloverleafs. I’m used to it, but my buddy thought the rem 700 mountain Rifle had a pretty bruising kick.
Which I guess it did, especially compared to my Schmidt Rubicon. “Its smooth, like butter on the supple breasts of a playboy bunny.” That would have been the quote of the day.
Next up was Russ’s 8mm Czech Mauser (actually 7.92). -fantastic action, milsurp trigger. But not bad, and a heck of a lot more pleasant than his Mosin Nagent (which I had never actually shot before). The Mosin was a model 38. Action was VERY tight and tough to work, but then if they only give you 5 rounds you got worse things to worry about. It kicked like a rodeo bull though, and while I didn’t see the flash while shooting, it was HUGE when standing behind and observing.
The range officer called 15 minutes to closing, so we put it away and as Russ had never shot a smoke-pole I grabbed my Remington ML700 and loaded it up. He fired and the range officer announced 3 minutes
I opened the bolt
I cleared the spent primer
I loaded 2 777 charges.
I put a bullet in the sabot and rammed it in.
I put on the safety.
Pointed the gun down range.
Loaded a percussion cap
Closed the bolt BOOOOM!
WTF???
Says Russ-”You didn’t touch the fucking trigger, did you?”
Nope
Which means . . . Even with the safety on and me not touching the trigger simply closing the bolt set it off.
Luckily, no one was hurt because WE KEPT THE MUZZLE POINTED DOWN RANGE.
Yep, they may be annoying to hear after awhile but if you follow them, the 4 rules will keep you safe.
RULE I: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED
RULE II: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY
RULE III: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET
RULE IV: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET
In the meantime, 8 weeks out, I need to bring my muzzle loader to the Smith to figure out what’s wrong?
Remington doesn’t make these any more, but I suspect I should give them a heads up too.
Any thoughts?
UPDATE
Spent the day tromping around in Maryland in the Swamps of the Eastern Shore (South of Cambridge) looking at a couple of hunting leases. Got back tonight and spent some time cleaning my guns and checking out the Remington ML 700. 15 of 15 times (unloaded) when I closed the bolt is set the percussion hammer. Regardless of whether the safety was on or not (and for that matter, the trigger doesn’t seem to work). Not sure what happened, and if its a problem with the bolt (likely), the safety (clearly), or the trigger, but either way its an incredibly dangerous situation. The gun is out of warranty, but I suspect this is something that Remington has to deal with – since this gun is dangerous to use (and a liability waiting to happen).
UPDATE #2 10:58 am Monday Morning
Called Remington up this morning. Told the operator what happened, she immediately put me through to customer service. Associate said that she had never heard of anything like this happening before, but that it was – as I described – clearly a safety issue (when I told her it scared the be jesus out of me on the firing line, she said “I bet it did”) and something they can take care of even though the gun is out of its 2 year warranty. Gave me an address and asked that I draft a letter detailing what happened and ship the rifle via UPS to their Ilion, NY factory. I stressed the need to get it back in time for muzzle loader firearm season and she didn’t think that would be an issue at all.
Now that is some customer service!!
I will keep you updated on how this transpires.
UPDATE August 31, 2009
Well, I got my rifle back today. Looks like they actually tried to deliver it via UPS while I was gone, but the package required both a COD and an ID and so I had to go to UPS. First delivery attempt was on August 25, meaning they recieved it, fixed it, and shipped it back to me, all within about a week. Cool.
I was a little bit annoyed about the COD though – I can understand paying for shipping, but they charged me for a new trigger. Actually, they only charged me half price. And as the invoice pointed out, the problem was clearly mine – basically I wasn’t cleaning the trigger properly and being a smokepole, it rusted up. Oh well. I pulled out the owners manual again, and I can clearly see what I did wrong.
Still, it strikes me as bizare that when the trigger gets rusted and fails – it fails in a manner that undermines the guns safety system (and allows for repeated undermining of the safety). Rather, it should have been designed to fail so it was inoperable.
Of course, Remington no longer makes the ML700 – so maybe that’s why.
Anyway, it will be fired again this weekend. And cleaned appropriately. And It will put venison in the freezer October 10th!
