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Thread: Accidental Discharge Question

  1. #1
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    Accidental Discharge Question

    I was not in attendance during this AD, however a coworker told me he was qualifying at the range on his old M-16 with other individuals qualifying on the same rifle. These are old school M-16's on loan to our agency from the Army, I don't have one issued as I carry my personal AR, so I'm not sure exactly which model it is. It's got the 20" barrel, A2 flash suppressor, fixed stock, carry handle.

    Anyway, supposedly someone racked the charging handle back to load a round into the chamber when the weapon had an AD from this action. Supposedly the rifle was on SAFE.

    I'm not very knowledgeable about the inner workings of the AR-15 / M-16 when it comes to the safety mechanisms. But I would like to know how this could happen? I guess the blamed the firing pin, but I don't know how that could be caused by a firing pin. Is this possible?

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    I don't believe it's possible. On safe AND no trigger pull? Just working the action? Nah.

    We stopped calling them accidental a long time ago for a reason. Negligent Discharge is the proper term. I've seen several that the responsible person honestly had no idea they caused it. But they did.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ronin64 View Post
    I was not in attendance during this AD, however a coworker told me he was qualifying at the range on his old M-16 with other individuals qualifying on the same rifle. These are old school M-16's on loan to our agency from the Army, I don't have one issued as I carry my personal AR, so I'm not sure exactly which model it is. It's got the 20" barrel, A2 flash suppressor, fixed stock, carry handle.

    Anyway, supposedly someone racked the charging handle back to load a round into the chamber when the weapon had an AD from this action. Supposedly the rifle was on SAFE.

    I'm not very knowledgeable about the inner workings of the AR-15 / M-16 when it comes to the safety mechanisms. But I would like to know how this could happen? I guess the blamed the firing pin, but I don't know how that could be caused by a firing pin. Is this possible?
    I suppose it's possible that something is awry with the FCG that resulted in the hammer being released, I don't know. But that would be my guess and where my money would lie provided of course that he truly didn't pull the trigger.

    But I will say that a firing pin having enough inertia to detonate the primer is extraordinarily unlikely. I've seen some math that postulated the height from which an AR would have to be dropped to create enough energy for the firing pin to fire a round on it's own, and it was high enough that there's no way charging the gun could cause it...perhaps shy of some freak ammunition issue.

    Also, it's physically impossible for the firing pin to be "stuck" because the rotation and movement of the bolt within the carrier pulls it far enough rearward that it cannot protrude out of the bolt face until the bolt is fully locked into the barrel extension.

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    Thanks for the technical responses.

    I told my coworker that I believed it was impossible for the firing pin to do that. I wish I was there so I could have evaluated the weapon after this Negligent Discharge. The round was fired into the concrete floor and no one was injured.

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    Well, I'll agree it is most probably operator error, and therefore a negligent discharge. More than the specs of the rifle, I'd be interested in the shooter's training, background, and experience.

    The way the bolt is designed, the firing pin cannot really become stuck forward. It can't move far enough forward when the bolt unlocks because it bottoms out on the carrier. You can't have a true slam-fire on an AR15.

    The only way I can see this being a mechanical flaw is that the sear and/or hammer could be defective, worn out, or damaged. I had a friend once upon a time who's rifle was occasionally doubling (not the issue here, I know). Everything was assembled correctly, and showed no readily apparent flaws. Cycling it by hand never let it happen. Apparently the concussion of firing was necessary to knock it loose. Changing the disconnect and spring solved the problem, though. This rifle was fairly new... not more than a thousand rounds or so down range.

    If it was not operator error, it is very likely an issue with the fire control group- and it may not replicate the incident readily.

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    Ammunition was mentioned. It's extremely unlikely, however it is possible that the firing pin could strike the primer and fire the round. It's happened before, and it wouldn't be the last time. A firing pin on the long end of spec, and a primer that's seated high in the casing could cause such an event.

    It would take a lot of things lining up perfectly for something like this to happen. Without more information, like if the round had been previously chambered, what kind of ammunition, etc. It's hard to say. Military weapons also tend to get really beat to hell before parts are replaced. It could have been a parts failure, as previously stated, in which case, yes, it still would be a negligent discharge, however, it would be negligence on the part of whoever was in charge of maintaining that weapon, rather than the operator. My guess would probably be probably operator error though.

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    It smells like a load of shit to me. And yes, there are accidental discharges. That is when the weapon fires through no fault of the person using it such as a mechanical failure or even a failure of the ammunition.

    In this case I would have a competent person do an examination of the weapon and attempt to recreate the incident.

    I wouldn't be surprised if the weapon was on FIRE and the person had ahold of the pistol grip and the finger was inserted into the trigger area while pulling the charging handle.



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    Quote Originally Posted by pira114 View Post
    I don't believe it's possible. On safe AND no trigger pull? Just working the action? Nah.

    We stopped calling them accidental a long time ago for a reason. Negligent Discharge is the proper term. I've seen several that the responsible person honestly had no idea they caused it. But they did.
    I wouldn't say it's not possible. Mechanisms wear and break then malfunction, sometimes in peculiar ways.

    I make a distinction between an accidental discharge and a negligent discharge. I had an AD Friday. Shooting my SCAR which has a rough trigger I attempted to take up the first stage but fired the gun accidentally. It was not a ND because the bullet hit the paper and the impact berm. Similarly another shooter had an AD when he charged his Remington 742. The evidently defective rifle fired but the bullet struck the ground 6 feet in front of the firing line, burying itself in the dirt. Just as intended.

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    I say it is possible, but highly improbable. When you chamber any round on an AR-15 the firing pin taps the primer and leaves a mark.

    If this round had been chambered multiple times, or had some stupid sensitive primer, it could have possibly discharged.

    The key here is, was the weapon pointed downrange or in a safe direction when it discharged?

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    The ammunition is Winchester Ranger 64gr JSP.

    These old military guns are beat down and people who they are issued to are very far from "gun guys". Typically they are never lubed and the crappy EOTech batteries are always dead.

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