Posted on 08/11/2009 7:57:47 AM PDT by Notoriously Conservative
I came across this the other day, it isn't my account, but the account of an unfortunate gun owner. You can point to snopes, and say this isn't true, but in an episode of MythBusters, they proved it was plausible:
460XVR blew my thumb off today!
No joke, about 1/2 of my left thumb is gone ... what's left is a friggin mess.
It's pretty hard to type, and I'm only posting because you never know, it might save somebody else a thumb. I was using a 2-handed grip, fired off a Cor-Bon DPX .460 and the blast came violently out the side of the gun.
At first my thumb was so covered in blood that I couldn't see how bad it was ... and I was full of adrenaline and felt no pain. And honestly it looked really bad, my whole hand was covered in blood and it was kinda gushing.
The blown-off thumb was on my support hand. I'll re-create the grip tomorrow to see where my thumb was, but it's not like I didn't already know not to get any body part near the cylinder gap. And even if I totally screwed up and did, taking my thumb clean off seems a bit excessive?
Just be careful with those 460's. That case operates at such high pressure, it's just asking for trouble.
BTW, I bought my 460 new and had exactly 12 rounds through it. Info about the gun, it's a full-size 460 with the 8 3/4' barrel and factory installed compensator. It's one of the Whitetails Unlimited models. Ammo was 200gr Cor-Bon DPX.
The gun only had 12 or 13 rounds of the Cor-Bon through it, and 10 ..45 Long Colt rounds through it. So it was essentially still brand new.
Saw a hand specialist while there today. Lots of ways to try and save what's left, but first I just have to hope it doesn't get infected in the next few days ... then surgery early next week.
The hand specialist I spent a few hours with last night said that in gunshot wounds there is always a lot more damage than is first visible ... same with things like fireworks going off in your hand. A lot more flesh around the wound is dead, and will rot and fall off over the next couple days. That's why it's so important to keep clean, and that's also why they can't do surgery now. If they wrapped new skin over dead skin it would just puss out, possibly turn gang-green, and they'd have to start all over again.
This is an example of how he was holding his revolver. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
This is what's left of his thumb. 
More photos on Notoriously Conservative
No, as noted in my other posts, cannons like this are tactically (near) useless.
It’s a toy, and that’s fine. More power to them.
But it’s a toy.
I certainly support his right to buy it and play with it.
But I also stand by my statement that it’s silly. (The exception, perhaps, being trappers in the wilds of Alaska or the like.)
And as I said, someone with your exact attitude will tell you why your guns are useless since you can call 911 or take up bowling instead of target shooting. A guy with your attitude will say why do you need that tactical black rifle if all you need is a single shot skeet gun. The guy with your attitude would never understand a gunshow filled with memorabilia, collections, blackpowder muskets, single shots, drillings, class threes, etc. simply because they don't fit what you perceive as need.
No, I fully understand why a gun show has those things, and fully support the peoples’ right to buy stupid things.
Heck, I’d sell them if I could make a buck.
Bit like beenie babies. They’re stupid, but more power to people who have them.
Huge useless pistols are beenie babies for guys with compensation issues.
Happy for people to have beenie babies and huge useless pistols.
I reserve the right, however, to call both sorts of collectors silly.
Or guys that found out they can shoot farther and at smaller targets that you can only dream of since you don't have the proper tools. If someone didn't push their abilities, you would be living in a cave with a campfire.
When I had to shoot someone far away, I used my rifle.
By far, the “proper tool” for the job.
That hurts me everytime I see it
SO STOP IT!!
"Compensation issues" is the stupidest idea ever. Do women who have "huge useless pistols" have tiny clits?
I have never heard anyone but a liberal make the "compensation" argument.
Me too!
;<)
“I have never heard anyone but a liberal make the “compensation” argument.”
Fair enough; I’ve never seen anybody but a fat wannabe who lives in his mother’s basement buy such impractical weapons.
Again, I have nothing against people buying these weapons, but they are impractical toys.
It’s like a super-jacked up pickup that ceases to be useful off road or a boucing low rider that can barely make it out of the parking lot.
After a point, it’s silly.
Now silly is not “bad.”
I collect old cars. They are inefficient, difficult to drive, hard to find parts for, and expensive.
Collecting such cars is “silly.”
The distinction being I don’t pretend collecting old cars is anything but a silly hobby.
And in which case you learned nothing about the handgun.
I tried to help my dad learn how to use a revolver. He was failing to understand how to shoot a silhouette target 25 feet away. I turned my back to him for a few seconds and in frustration, he had wrapped his support hand completely around the front of the cylinder of the .357.
luckily, he actually listened to me before he lit it off.
I tried to get competitors to stop wrapping their thumbs around the back of their shooting hand when they fire a semi. You would never believe how many husbands taught their wives how to do that.
You don't get out much then. You totally disregarded my question about women that own them like one of our very own FReeperettes.
It was obscene and meant to be disregarded.
You read a different kind of “compensation” into my comment that wasn’t there; compensating for being powerless or insignificant is my intended meaning, not your obscenity.
I also didn’t learn much about catipults or the price of cheese in the West Bank.
A pistol is an unstable, relatively short barreled, weapon. By nature, a pistol is meant to be a close-range weapon, and is a fine close-range weapon. Indeed, perhaps the best.
When you want to reach out and touch someone, the practical use a rifle.
It’s more and more obvious you don’t know about shooting let alone a handgun. If you pushed your limitations, your results might surprise you.
You and I both know that is what the people who make the “compensation” argument are talking about.
Your silliness is overwhelming and your condescending attitude is transparent.
This is as futile as trying to explain that the Bill of Rights is not the Bill of Needs to a gun grabber.
No, that is not what I am talking about; that’s only your dirty mind projecting.
Again, I fully support the “right” of someone to buy this silly weapon.
It is, however, a silly, impractical, weapon.
It's a tough habit for some to break, and some insist on doing it right from the beginning. Even after demonstrating in slo-mo why that grip was a bad idea, I still had to walk down the line and move thumbs.
I learned one grip, one way, good on any handgun. The way I figure, it saves the trouble of having to adjust for whichever gun I might pick up in an emergency.
Like I said transparent.
You are looking sillier and sillier.
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