doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Bad experience with snap caps?

Incredible.

A discussion about a serious safety issue becomes political, complete with cartoons.

The assertion apparently being that "If you make a 'stupid' mistake, you must not be very smart and certainly not of the same idological ilk as superior people such as I."

Here's a fact... as people age, they run into congitive changes that affect their memory. There isn't much you can do about it, but it will happen to you. Guaranteed.

Someday, you will wonder what the hell happened to your favorite box of cereal, only to find it in the refrigerator. You may load you car for a shooting trip, later to discover you packed the wrong barrel for the gun.

People do these things because they are people.

The snap cap issue is really quite simple. There are steps you can take, before the accident occurs, to reduce or eliminate the risk.

Don't think stuff like this can't happen to anybody, including your brilliant self.

In aviation we like to see young aviators realize their own fallibility at an early stage. It's always pretty easy to set up the cocky ones for a lesson that either leads to some personal soul searching and a change of behavior or to elimination from the program.

Everybody will make mistakes in life, some more serious than others.

A snap cap is nothing more than a time bomb.

Only a time bomb if you make it so. Any loaded firearm is a time bomb.There are those that think hunting with a round in the chamber is a time bomb. Getting in your vehicle and driving down the road is inherently more dangerous than using snap caps.

I work on a few shotguns evey once and awhile and it is heck of a lot safer to put a snap cap in the chamber and tst for function than a live round and I don't have to leave the shop to do it.

Condemning snap caps because of the potential to mistake a live round for a snap cap makes about as much sense as a previous post on this forum that condemned hand detachable locks because of the potential to remove the locks & misplace them.

In the case of the snap caps, when dropping the hammer on a snap cap or on an empty chamber in all circumstances the gun must be pointed in a safe direction. I do think it is desirable for snap caps to look distinctively different from live rounds & most that I have seen do.

I don't want to be harsh but both cases, if a person is that clueless & unobservant perhaps the time has come to stop handling firearms & other potentially dangerous things.

Hello Shotgunjones:

The issue that I had with the snap caps happened many years ago. After I made the initial post I remembered more clearly what had transpired.

There were NO loaded shells in my gun! What was in the gun were the two "snap caps" that I had made from fired shells. I realized that this may lead to a potential problem in the future. At no time, did I have loaded shells in the gun. I was attempting to determine how to time the ejectors on my O/U.

The only time that I have a shell in a SxS or an O/U is at a range or when my dog gets birdy or goes on point! Now an automatic shotgun is a different story! They take more attention to safety than the the break action gun!

When I looked at the home made snap caps realized that this was not a good idea as they looked similar to loaded shells. That was the end of using home made snap caps!

In any case, nothing happened and the entire event was very anticlimactic, but I did learn a lesson.

Enough for now.

Be well my friend,

Leomat

My point being... and I want to be clear on this...

People get into habit patterns and routines. They do stuff almost autonomically, not giving proper thought to simple basic things at times because life gets repetitive and routine.

We all do this. And...

This is when Murphy strikes.

Shotgunjones...the very foundation of my belief in miracles is the fact that I have survived 70 years of my own stupidity.

Ted...the only dem I would ever vote for would have to be running for the border!

Exactly! And this is why we as gun owners have to be more disciplined than anybody. This is why we should treat every gun as if it was loaded, and why we should teach and reinforce that same lesson to every young shooter we bring to the sport. This is why, if I hand my elderly Dad my newest toy to examine, the first thing he'll do is open it and make sure it's unloaded. If I assure him that it's unloaded, he'll say, "In God we trust...I'll double check." His mind is still very sharp, but if I do the same ten years from now, he'll do the same out of the lifelong habit, pattern, and routine you spoke of. He drilled the same into my head before the first time I touched a gun, and he made me understand that if I screwed up even once, I would not be trusted to go shooting or hunting with him or my Uncles and cousins. I believed him, and more than anything, I did not want to jeopardize that. The NRA Certified Instructors who supervised the indoor range in my high school taught us also to treat every gun as if it was loaded, and to never point it at anyone even after we verified it was unloaded. They too let us know this was a zero tolerance rule. There were thousands of round fired in my school every week, but never a problem. Now guns are demonized to the point that a 5 year old girl gets a 10 day suspension for having a Hello Kitty Bubble Gun, and a 6 year old boy gets suspended for pointing his finger and saying "bang bang". That's why it bothered me to see the opinion that a snap cap is nothing more than a time bomb. We hear much the same from the anti's who say that a gun in the home is an accident waiting to happen. Yes, there are gun accidents, but virtually every one could be prevented through safe gun handling habits. And safe gun habits will naturally become routine and unconsciously automatic. We have to be extra careful because of the times we live in. Every time someone is killed or injured by an accidental discharge, the anti's seize upon that incident. But when someone backs over a kid on a tricycle in the driveway, no one will call for outlawing cars. Snap caps don't kill people. People kill people.

Very nice, keith.

You 'get it'.

Those who took their basic gun safety lessons to heart, and swore to be a lifelong safe shooter by obeying the simple rules first presented cringed a little when they learned about the 'snap cap' concept. I know I did.

We're going to put something that resembles a shell into the chamber and drop the hammer on it to preserve the mainspring. This is going to be routine when casing the gun. What could go wrong?

The question here seems to be...

Is the routine use of snap caps a 'safe gun handling habit'?

Personally, I don't use them routinely. It just seems to be a snake in the grass, and it's not that I don't trust myself. It's just one risk I can totally eliminate.

I'm aware of several AD's caused by careless use of snaps, including the loss of half a foot. True, the people had nobody to blame other than themselves.

I guess if this thread makes someone more careful, it's served it's purpose.

Normally intelligent people sometimes do stupid stuff.

"Those who took their basic gun safety lesson to heart, and swore to be a lifelong safe shooter by obeying the simple rules first presented cringed a little when they learned about the "snap cap" concept.
Shotgunjones - you PRESUME to speak for a goodly number of folks, there.
Be advised, Sir, you DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME.
If you choose to cringe at the thought of an inanimate snap cap, that is your problem. I do not so choose.
However, I do recognize the potential problem when a snap cap is present with live ammo. A shooter who has a snap cap on or about his/her person, and is tired, harried, or otherwise distracted, is a combination that is potentially tragic.

I'll stick with 'cringe' Ian.

"Recoil in distaste"

I felt much the same when being taught how to prop start an airplane engine after being told never to put any of my body parts in the propeller arc.

It's potentially hazardous if not done absolutely correctly, but sometimes it has to be done. Best learn how. And don't screw up.

This is a great discussion and I appreciate you pointing out how I presume to speak for others. Of course, that's not my intent.