1911 Ejection: issue or freak accident?

T

t3dd13

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Location
Under a bridge where a troll used to live...
Firearm: .45 cal, Norc 1911A1 from the deal
Ammo: the .45 norc ammo also from the deal

Background info: I have done some minor tuning based off of some advice on the many threads and articles here but nothing overly hardcore. Just some lapping compound on the slide rail, polishing the feed ramp and mag release, added a Kimber magwell. Minor stuff.

So the incident is as follows.

Shooting down range I was shooting my Norc 1911 last started the gun off with maybe about 75 rounds. I didn't much sleep so I wasn't in the best of moods. I take a break and step back. My dad takes the norc and starts blasting away. Suddenly he keels over in pain. A casing, instead of popping in a nice arc to the right, went backwards and hit him squarely in the sternum with enough force to create a bruise and break a bit of skin.

I don't know what's wrong. Nor do I see anything wrong with the extractor. I'm regarding this as a freak accident until it happens again, but is it? or is there something wrong with the firearm?
 
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Sure it was impact and not a burn? In forty years I've been burned by hot cases on numerous occasions, but I've never seen a case eject with wounding velocity. If you shot after the event were things nominal or not?
 
T&G said:
Sure it was impact and not a burn? In forty years I've been burned by hot cases on numerous occasions, but I've never seen a case eject with wounding velocity. If you shot after the event were things nominal or not?
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Good question. I can't remember if he packed it up or finished the rest of the mag before packing it away. (Oh god, I'm scared of taking it out for my next range trip now.) I don't think it was a burn because I was able to see broken skin, however, I am under the impression from my own burns from casings they cauterize, not bleed.
 
Are you sure it was the ejected case and not a richocet. I have been hit many times by lead bouncing back. They pack a wallop and can draw blood if hit on bare skin. Reminds me of the time I took one to the nades while shooting bowling pins.
 
There are 2 parts that control the ejection of the spent casing.
The extractor pulls the case out of the chamber and back and the ejector ( the part on the frame )
kicks the case out of the port.
I had a .45 years ago that liked to throw empty, hot cases into my face until I had
the ejector tuned to throw the cases to the side.
 
Auggie Doggie said:
Did the bullet hit something and come back, or did it hit something else that did?

Auggie D.
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ChiliDawg said:
Are you sure it was the ejected case and not a richocet. I have been hit many times by lead bouncing back. They pack a wallop and can draw blood if hit on bare skin. Reminds me of the time I took one to the nades while shooting bowling pins.
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I have 96.3% confidence level that it was not a ricochet. Well at least not my dad's own bullet. Shooting at Target Sports Indoor Range who recently maintained the sloped backstop and sand pit. (or so I was told)

There are 2 parts that control the ejection of the spent casing.
The extractor pulls the case out of the chamber and back and the ejector ( the part on the frame ) kicks the case out of the port.
I had a .45 years ago that liked to throw empty, hot cases into my face until I had the ejector tuned to throw the cases to the side.
Click to expand...

I think I'll double check that parts in the name of safety.
 
t3dd13 said:
Good question. I can't remember if he packed it up or finished the rest of the mag before packing it away. (Oh god, I'm scared of taking it out for my next range trip now.) I don't think it was a burn because I was able to see broken skin, however, I am under the impression from my own burns from casings they cauterize, not bleed.
Click to expand...

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say maybe it was a combination of a burn and the sharp end of the casing hitting the skin and breaking it?
 
Sorry, but that was a ricochet. He is lucky it wasn't worse. I cannot imagine a 1911 fling brass hard enough straight back to make a man double over in pain, never mind break the skin through clothing. Indoor range? Yeah, ask the shooters at DVC ventures about ricochets...
 
If he got a bruise from it, it's a bounce-back off the back stop. Unless your dad is made out of wet kleenex, there's no way an ejected case it going to have anywhere near enough energy to do what you describe. Bullets, or fragments of bullets, come back off of steel back stops all the time. I've been hit by this stuff probably hundreds of times over the years.
 
I could throw the case directly at you and still wouldn't make a bruise. It simply doesn't have enough mass.

As others have stated it was probably a ricochet (most commonly it's a tiny piece of the jacket that comes back)
 
As others have said. Ricochet. Especially when you consider the mass and speed involved.

An example. Can we all agree that .223/556 ejects harder and faster than a 45 ever could?(this is just an assumption on my part, since rifles use gas ports and pistols are blowback)
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Again unless your dad was made of jello.
 
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