Thread: how to stay safe out there/the shit just got real

Originally Posted by timattalon

I was hunting an area solo looking for a few goats. I was hunting with the bolt OPEN on my rifle. I slipped on some scraggly pine sticks on the ground and fell over. Turns out it was a large pile of pine rubbish pushed into a hole with a dozer and not really covered with dirt. The rifle disappeared butt first into the scragg with the barrel pointing straight up at about ground level just beside where I had landed on top of the sticks. When I got clear and reached back for the rifle and lifted it up I saw that the fall had fully CLOSED the bolt. After checking the action, the fall had closed the bolt and chambered a round and was now fully cocked. As I had landed very close to the muzzle and rolled away by instinct, I also realised then that any twig could easily had moved the trigger causing t to fire. I now hunt with either the bolt closed on empty (solo) or with a single shot rifle with an empty chamber (in group or pair). That day could very easily have been the end of me and to this day I am very grateful that luck was on my side and that I lived to learn not to do something that I thought was the right thing to do.

Always point the rifle in a safe direction.

@timattalon

I take it your rifle was cock-on-open?

The current safety advice about hunting with the open action appears based on rifles that cock-on-close, particularly the Lee Enfield, which also has a relatively weak safety. Some cock-on-open rifles even give an audible click on pushing the bolt forwards. The advice really does not apply equally well to every bolt action rifle. Never mind the semis.