Funny stories

[Albanyco]

I thought it would be fun to see what some of you have to share. I've had plenty of mishaps, and I thought I would share one to start off with.

I had been hunting the past few days with my father and grandfather without much luck about 15 years ago. I was new to muzzleloaders and this was my first year hunting with a firearm for deer. I had gotten into the habit of using a ball puller to pull my load from my gun after an unsuccessful day of hunting. The night before, I had pulled the load, as I like to start with a fresh charge after having a miss fire on a nice doe a few days earlier. For whatever reason, I was having trouble dumping the powder out after pulling the Great Plains bullet I had seated on top of it. I ended up using the patch worm to screw into the caked powder and dump it out bit by bit. I was confident I got it all out and prepared for the next morning. That morning, my grandfather and I arrived out our hunting spot, and after putting on my heavy jacket and hat I capped my rifle to clear the nipple. My grandfather was digging around in his hunting bag and I pointed the rifle in a safe direction and pulled the trigger. KA-BANG! I watched dumbfounded as my ramrod shot out of my rifle, over the stream I was standing next to and into some particularly nasty brush on the opposite bank.....sh*t. I had run a dry patch down the barrel with my ramrod the night before to soak up any oils in the breech area, there must have been some powder packed into the bolster area. My grandfather jumped about 3 feet in the air, and let loose a string of particular gritty vernacular. Sheepishly I crossed the stream and spent several minutes entangled in thorns before I finally found my ramrod.

My grandfather is still around, but hung up his guns a few years back because of his health. Good memories :thumbsup:

 

[Rifleman1776]

I question that an accidential discharge is funny. Glad you pointed in a safe direction. When you had a failure to fire you cruded up the breech and that attracted moisture which caused your hardening of the charge.
For hunting, my practice is to completely clean the rifle and degrease the breech. Often I'll squire carburetor cleaner through the flash/touchhole then swab. Then I will put in my charge and prb. Not all will agree with the next step, but I then swab the bore above with a light coating of WD-40 to protect it from high humidity hunting conditions. I never had a failure to fire on my favorite rifle, a flintlock. Once, due to illness and other factors, I did not use the rifle for two years. The hunting charge inside fired instantly when I shot it.
No need to pull the ball and charge. Moisture on burned crud is your enemy.

 

[matt denison]

Jeepers, I thought this thread as going to be funny stories, not lectures on safety, correct posture. Without minor mistakes there wouldn't be any funny stories.

Here's one.

I took a newbie pilgrim out to the local gravel pit where we do our shooting. The primise was that we were goingto bench a musket over the hood of my Chevy pickup - something that I have done many times without incident. I put a large piece of canvas over the hood to protect the paint then stack sand bags to the correct height to simulate offhand shooting but with a rest. Works real good. So. I take three of shots and put them in the ten ring. I am, after all, the big dog around here. The pilgrim is suitably impressed. We walk down range to look at the group. Suddenly the pilgrim says, "is that supposed to happen?" I looked back at my truck to see the canvas going up in flames! !!!! My truck apears to be burning up. Worse yet the powder horn, bag, and sand bags are about to go up in flames too!!! So I ran like a scared cat (I was scared) back to the truck in plenty of time to save the horn and sweep the canvas to the ground before any damage to the truck. Whew. Now that is how you make an impression on a pilgrim. Obviously hot cinders from the muzzle of the gun had simmered until they got the canvas hot enough to flame up. I don't use that set-up anymore.

 

[Billnpatti]

A friend and I had gone hunting. It was unusually cold and he took a catalytic heater and a blanket to the blind with him. I went to my stand and waited to see a deer. I heard him shoot and thought I heard the telltail thump of a ball hitting a deer. When he left the blind to check on his deer, he was so excited that he just shrugged off his blanket and took his bag, rifle and horn and went out of the blind. In a little while I heard him call for help and then saw smoke. What he didn't know was that he had tossed the blanket on top of the heater and it caught fire. By the time I got to his blind, it was burning up. We had nothing to fight the fire with so we just had to push the burning blind over and let it burn. Fortunately, he had taken his rifle with him when he went to check on the deer but his stool, blanket, heater and a few comfort items went up in flames. On the plus side, he did have a deer to take home.

 

[Zonie]

Years ago, our Forums first moderator and a man who contributed greatly to the Forum we all enjoy told a humorous story that deserves to be told again.

Musketman passed on a few years ago but I knew him well enough to know he would be first in line in this Topic to tell it again.

Because he can't tell the story now, I've copied it for your amusement.

I might as well make this story official, even though I have told it many times before.

It was the opening day of deer season, 1982. I am one of those people with bad sinus problems, seems I am always plugged up and sneezing or something. It was the first day of deer season and I had no choice but to go deer hunting with a sinus cold. I gathered my gear and a bottle of nasal spray and quickly stuffed what I could into my hunting coat and we left the house before sun up.

I was using my T/C Renegade .54 caliber flintlock, my brother Roger had his T/C Hawken .50 caliber and brother Ron always uses his 12 gauge Smith & Wesson model 1000 shotgun with a slug barrel.

We arrived at a local farm just as the sun coming up and I was sneezing the whole way there, my older brothers decided to put me up wind so I would send the deer in their direction because of all the noise and all the extra scent I was making. I reluctantly agreed and headed off in my appointed direction, sniffling and dripping the whole way there. I positioned myself in a small grove of trees that bordered a corn field, primed my muzzleloader and waited.

There was a light snow on the ground and the cold air felt good on my enflamed sinuses, I was trying to breathe in through my nose to get enough of the cold air in to take the swelling down. Needless to say my nose was plugged solid so I reached into my pocket without looking to grab my bottle of nasal spray to get some relief. I was watching for deer and not the contents of my pocket during this operation, found the small plastic bottle by touch alone and pulled it out.

Unbeknownst to me (remember, I didn't look), I grabbed my spray bottle of Doe-In-Heat buck lure by mistake and sprayed a healthy squirt of it up my nose. Let me tell you this, there is nothing that will get your attention faster than the burning sensation of 100% deer estrogen and urine on an enflamed nasal passage. I let out a scream that echoed across the corn field in the still morning air, my brothers must have heard me yell because I don't remember calling them. By the time they arrived my gun was laying in the snow and I was on my knees shoving snow up my nose with both hands in a feeble attempt to dilute the urine enough to stop the burning.

My eyes went bloodshot and quickly swelled shut, "It burns!" I screamed, my face was covered with snow and reeked of doe urine. They gathered my belonging and emptied my gun, then both of my brothers helped me out of the woods, laughing hysterically all the way.

Years later they still joke about that day, it's funny now but at the time I found no humor in it.

Musketman

 

[Albanyco]

LOL, buck lure nasal spray! I can barley stand the smell of it on the ground, let alone up my nose!

Anyone ever go hunting and forget your rifle? I have!

 

[mooman76]

No but I've known people who forgot their bullets. I forgot my broadheads once for an archery hunt.

 

[AZbpBurner]

I have bag, boxes, and pouches filled with all the stuff I need to go shoot a particular firearm. One box has cylinder loaders, balls and caps, for my cap & ball revolvers.

Another bag has contents for my caplock rifles. Yet others for my flintlocks, and even a box of stuff for the Gallagher breechloading carbine.

I keep the ball containers full, patches and lube in good supply, and the appropriate horns or flasks filled.

When I grab a particular rifle for a day of shooting I only need to grab the right bag and go. While it could happen, I've never grabbed the wrong bag [well, not yet].

One particular rifle was minus rod, which was hanging up being stained and oiled - didn't make any difference, since I have several range rods I always use.

Got to the range, set up the bench, and found that I had no range rod.

My truck has little sissy fold-down back seats, which are of no use at all, as are the equally useless headrests. I removed the headrests, and .30-06 shells make perfect pegs to hold a range rod in place up against the rear window. That range has no other home, and is ALWAYS there ...

 

[sidelock]

I remember Musketman well. Always enjoyed reading him.

 

[tenngun]

Was out hunting near an old abandon church and cemetary. A small dirt road ran to the cemetary between the woods and a deer trail cut across it. The spring before a wind had fell a tree into the church,leaving a pile of branchs that I could sit in and watch the trail. I took off my vest but otherwise was just in nut brown pants shirt and wool coat. I was at ground level just setting in among the branchs,but in no way camoflogged. I heard a truck comming up the drive.It stopped about 15 yards in front of me and I could see a couple in it, maybe in their 60s. They had a tc looking rifle on the gunrack. My first thought was I had been invaded.But to my surprise the wife got out,took two steps toward me, dropped her pants and moisened a bit of ground.Stood up, returned to the truck and they drove off.I could not see how she couldn't see me. I felt she was looking right at me as she walked clear of the truck. It was all I could do to stop from sending a ball in to an oak on my left and her right side. Although with her bladder empty I didnt want to scare anything else out of her :haha:

 

[Roguedog]

I don't know how funny this is as it sure wasn't funny to me. Anyway, we were duck hunting in West Tennessee and we had to wade in to access our blind. It had been raining non stop for a couple of days so the water was pretty high and the water level was about an inch below my waders. As the rain had stopped at this time, we felt that the water level should start going down. As a measure, we marked the blind at water level to determine how much it would recede. To my horror, the water level in the blind went up three inches. I knew that my waders would flood with water if I tried to wade out. My partners didn't have that problem as they were both around 6'3" and had a little more clearance than I did. Here's the funny part, I had to take off my waders and swim back to shore in very cold water. Luckily, I only had to go about 35 yards. At any rate, my pards laughed hysterically watching me wade/swim back to shore in just my underwear. Why underwear you ask? Well, I had to have something dry to put on when I got back on land.

Jeff

 

[Rifleman1776]

Now...that's funny. :wink: :rotf: :applause:
RIP Musketman. :hatsoff:

 

[Rifleman1776]

:wink: :grin:

 

[Rifleman1776]

I'll add that to the list of reasons why I don't duck hunt. :grin:

 

[Patocazador]

I took a friend who is a great hunt talker with me muzzleloading. I put him in a tree after walking for 30 minutes. During the whole trip to the spot plus the walk in, he never stopped talking. I just wanted to get him to the stand and get far away to a spot where the woods hadn't been disturbed by the yacking.
I got to a good spot and after an hour a decent 6-point came along. I shot a bit high and broke his back. I started to reload when I realized I had been in such a hurry with the 'yacker', I had forgotten everything but the gun and some caps. I climbed down and pulled out a non-lockblade pocket knife to cut his throat. He wasn't as crippled as I thought and I had to stick him in the lungs 3 or 4 times because he tried to horn me every time I tried to cut his throat. He finally died about 20 min. later and I felt like manure watching him suffer through it.

Although the 'yacker' wasn't the whole reason I forgot my bag, I never took him with me again although he still asks to go. However, he never fails to remind me how stupid I was to forget my bag. :yakyak:

 

[rickystl]

Back in the 1970's I drove about 1/4th the way from St. Louis to Friendship before I realized - I forgot my gun!! Boy, was my wife mad!! Had to turn around and drive home to get it. :slap:

 

[M. De Land]

We have an annual kids day hear in Alaska at the shooting range in Birchwood.
I was in charge of one of the muzzle loading ranges where kids could come and hear a brief history of the arm they were about to learn how to load and shoot.
The segments were about a half hour each and the goal was to let each kid fire the arm once after the brief history,loading instruction and safety lecture.
I had run out of time during the previous session and had remove the cap from the loaded arm and placed it back in the loading stand.
In comes the new class, history lesson done I proceed to show and example of how to show that the vent is clear by pointing down range a few feet at a leafy weed so they can see how the cap moves the plant leaves to indicate a clear vent.
I had forgotten de-capping the loaded gun and assuming an empty gun I pointed at a weed a few feet down range and as the plant disappears in a cloud of dust and smoke leaving a smoldering hole in the ground , they were duly impressed on how to clear a vent! :rotf:
In my shock and embarrassment I had to explain what had happened.
Probably a safety lesson none of us will ever forget!
Each kid proceeded to shoot the gun in turn and lined back up as fast as possible to try it again.
It's funny to me now but at the time was humiliating as well as shocking.
It probably though, taught that group more about accidents and consequence than anything I could have purposely done.
The incident makes me laugh now but at the time I wasn't laughing! :grin:

 

[Zonie]

A number of years ago I was on a muzzleloading deer hunt with several other guys.

As sometimes happens, one of them was the typical "know it all", always bragging about his past deer hunts and how smart he was.

Most of us liked to do our own things so each of us headed off in a different direction after the elusive deer. Hunting wasn't very good but during the day, one shot was heard, not too far away.

When we got back to camp that evening, sure enough, the braggart had been the one making the shot and he had dragged the deer back to camp.

Of course, he was more than a little happy at getting his deer and was rubbing in the fact that none of the rest of us had so much as gotten a shot. That's when someone mentioned how a good dinner of liver and onions sure would be good.

That's when the bragging stopped.
It seems to save weight the braggart had left the liver with the gut pile back in the woods.

After a bit of harassing, he grabbged a flashlight and agreed to go back and retrieve our dinner and disappeared into the foliage.

20 minutes later he reappeared carrying something.

A quick examination of our dinner revealed that he didn't retrieve the liver. He had brought us a good pile of lungs.

From that moment on he was always referred to as "Ole' Lungs & Onions" until the day he died.

 

[bubba.50]

my brother-in-law who's a city boy of a northern persuasion wanted me to take him deer huntin'. went to the farm I had permission to hunt on & sent him to an area where I knew he'd have a good chance at a doe. sure enough about an hour later I heard what sounded like a young war from his direction. emptied his Marlin lever & his .357 sidearm both but, he got his deer. he knew enough to know he had to dress it so he split it up the middle then stood there in confusion as he couldn't find any guts. another hunter drawn to the shots & without laughin' at him showed him that ya hafta cut through the abdominals, not just the skin & helped him out with it(not knowin' if he had any shells left I wasn't about to go into the war zone). then, genius that he is, he drug it up over about three hills & down instead of just down the cut & straight down the creek to the truck 'cause he "didn't want to get it wet". in spite of all that he kept his interest in huntin' & turned out to be pretty fair at it. for a yankee city boy anyways.

 

[bpd303]

Long ago and far away, when I was but a pup, I went hunting by myself in the Florida Everglades with my 40 cal. After wading through the river of grass for a while I came upon one of the hammocks that dot that place and spotted a nice big razorback boar. He hadn't spotted or smelled me so I was able to get within range.

I took my shot and it was a good one. The boar was dead, but didn't know it yet. He promptly came after me, with his six inch tusks glistening in the noonday sun. Looking around for something to climb reveled nothing but palmetto bushes no taller than I.

Not having enough time to reload and no backup gun, my only choice was to use the gun as a club, which ended the struggle and saved my hide.

Now that the gun has a new stock and 50 years later, I can laugh about it and still remember the taste of that roasted pig.

Learned my lesson, never venture out without my 1847 Walker when hunting with a single shot.