Scary - Gun Malfunction Discharge (Browning A5)

[Timberman22]

In light of the Baldwin interview and other thread posted I thought I would share of a scary situation that happened this past week while shooting some skeet with my son and Dad. My Dad had just shot a few skeet and walked back and handed the unloaded "old" Browning A5 20 ga. to my son. We were all standing together and with the gun pointed up in the air my son dropped a shell in the open chamber and hit the button to close the breach. Unexpectedly the gun went off in between the 3 of us. After I cleaned my britches and realized everyone was okay my first thought was to fuss at my son.....safety, safety, safety! Then I preached some more, then some more about loading the gun up front where we were shooting.

My son told me the gun went off on its on and he didn't touch the trigger. So, with the gun safety on I tried it myself and sure enough when the breach closed the gun fired. I took it to a gunsmith friend who tore it apart as he was very curious as to what had happened. Come to find out the hammer sheared off causing the malfunction. He said mechanically nothing else was wrong and out of 60 years messing with Browning A5's this is the 1st time he's seen a sheared hammer on one.

I just wanted to share our experience as it can be a learning experience for many moving forward.