There are four rules for safe gun-handling. Four. They all count, all the time.
We are all likely to violate one of them at least once. When ya do so, take yer correction and fly right. Whinging that, "It ain't loaded," does not count; even empty, it's loaded, 'cos you are no more perfect than anyone else. That goes double if someone handed it to ya an' you failed to check.
Hey, I know: let's ask the man who owns a gun store!
Remember:
1. All guns are always loaded.
2. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
3. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
4. Know your target, what's behind it, and what's next to it.
And once you've reached the point where you pick up an electric drillmotor* and your finger goes unthinkingly along the frame instead of onto the trigger? Don't relax; work harder on maintaining conscious awareness of what you are doing.
Hat tip to Say Uncle.
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* I do not care how the hoi polloi say it, "drills" are the twisty-pointy things you put in the chuck of a hand drill -- powered or not -- or a drill press or even the tailstock of a lathe. Except when they are straight-flute types, but that's another subject. "Bits" have truncated tetrahedral shanks that fit braces or hexagonal ones that fit drivers/bitholders or cylindrical D-and-notch ones that fit Yankee screwdrivers, except for some antique types that use other tricks. Really. "Drill bit" is a horrid, horrid phrase that should be left out to rust.
Everybody calls them drill bits, but that's not really accurate as that term only applies to drills which go into a bit brace.
ReplyDeleteDrills are the cutting implement. A drill motor, isn't the proper term either, it's really either a hand drill, or power drill.
You want really confusing? Consider this: A Bridgeport style mill is generally called a "knee mill", but is in fact, a Universal turret mill, but they're never called that, and if you used the term to refer to said mill, you'd get odd looks in just about any machineshop.
How about Rotabroachs which aren't broaches, but actually precision holesaws?
Then there's the indexable insert designations, which require a chart to decipher what they actually are..
And people wonder why I use terms like "doohickey" :)
Drills are the twisty things. Drillmotors are one of many ways to utilise them. You are indeed correct, M'lady.
ReplyDeleteI won't buy an electric tool that doesn't have a trigger guard, for that reason (uncomfy finger placement) Put your finger on a drillmotor when you don't expect to, and it can be as dangerous as improper firearms use.
I have an old Milwaukee drill that I made an aluminum trigger guard for, out of sheer orneriness.
I mean- of course- a milwaukee drillmotor.
ReplyDeletewow, did you just get smacked by John Scalzi or is everyone using 'hoi polloi' today?
ReplyDeleteDrill v. drill motor, it's like magazine v. clip. It bugs me to no end when I see a gun store owner or cop on TV talking about the "clip" when he means a magazine. It's enough to make you want to give up. Maybe I'll just call them "power heads" henceforth, like with chain saws...
ReplyDeleteI knew a guy who once shot himself in the knee with a nail gun. He was a house framer, and one day, standing around chatting he was holding his nail gun, bouncing it against his knee and fiddling with the trigger. The four rules apply with power tools too. Not called a nail gun for nothing.
I believe the term you are looking for is "twist drill".
ReplyDelete"Twist drill," "single-margin rail drill," "straight drill:" they's all drills and they make holes in metal and other dense materials. Bits -- as cutting tools -- make holes mostly in wood. Bits fit a brace. With the "universal" chuck found on most braces (I own four, from a delicate little Japanese one to an 11"-swing wonder), you can chuck up and use drills in 'em, if you must. They grab hex-shank diver bits nicely, too.
ReplyDeleteI only keep mine loaded when I've got a project goin'. It's very handy to just load up the (unpowered) hand drills and braces with what I need and not waste time changing out the cutting tools. --I have got to get my basement shop set up. It's starting to gnaw at me.
Ok. I'm going for the rules. Ya, need to work on them continously, always and forever. My husband is a good marksman. Knows the rules really well!!!! I always ask him to show me the gun is empty if I can't open the slide and if I can I check myself. I even check it when he hands it to me.
ReplyDeleteBut your right, we make mistakes, one of which is ingrained into my mind forever. I was standing forward of my husband and he was "dry firing" his pistol. I moved further off to the side. Next "dry" fire a round went off through my favorite TV and into the wall. OOOpps.
I did not know the drill/bit distinction.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I brought home several thousand brand new about 1/8 drills the other day from the dump. I'll never need one again...
But I'm mystified, who needs a thousand 1/8 drills?
swoon for the footnote
ReplyDeleteThe little ones break all the time, Staghounds. Especially in hand-held drillmotors operated by the impatient. Plus they're not often worth resharpening when they get dull. Factories buy 'em by the thousand.
ReplyDeleteThe common method for buying drills is by the "package", which is usually a dozen.
ReplyDeleteQuite frankly, you'd be amazed at how much tooling even a small machine shop goes through - 20K a year in tooling is nothing these days, when an endmill is $50.
Small HSS steel drills aren't generally resharpened, but then, in a production atmosphere, they're not really used, instead coated carbide is the preferred material. The downside is cost: 15 bucks for a drill is pretty much the norm, so resharpening is common(Darex, the parent company of the Drill doctors, got started making industrial machines on the same principle, only far more costly).
I maintain trigger finger discipline even when carrying 50 microwatt laser speedguns between test stations at The Laser Mine. Anyone who might have noticed has not commented.
ReplyDeleteBack in my misspent youth, I was taught by my drill instructor to "Keep your boogerhook off the bang switch till your sights are on the target".
ReplyDeleteFirearms or powertools makes no difference the rule still applies.
Faith, I'd been mulling over my response to your report -- er, pun not intended. It's still what it was: "Holy cow!"
ReplyDeleteOne of the instructors over at Pop Guns tells the story of coming home, making his sidearm safe, and moving down the hallway, taking aim at various items: photos, knicknacks, a cuckoo clock...BANG! No one else in the house at the time. He found it quite an awakening.
I must be having senioritis, for I swear I made a comment of some kind.
ReplyDeleteOh well, couldn't have been that meaningful....
I haven't clipped any, E-B! Perhaps you commented on the blog I linked to?
ReplyDeleteWell I wish I knew a factory that wanted to buy them, must have cost a fortune originally.
ReplyDeleteNothing there, either. I must be going crazy.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, when I picked up this rifle, I opened the bolt and made a comment about making sure it was safe before handling it. The guy at the gunshop told me "don't worry about it."
I do worry about it. As much as I don't want to get accidentally shot in a gun store, I sure as hell don't want to accidentally whack someone else!
I once heard a rant about how some kid was wasked how many motors there are in his dad's car, by some psychologist/learning ed type.
ReplyDeleteHe answered, rightly, "at least 7, probably more if you count the tape player".
The psych/ed type started to correct kiddo, who then looked at him and said oh, "you mean the one internal combustion _engine_"
Poor pscyh major changed the topic.
(for the record 4 electric windows, 2 window wipers, and a starter)
If the kid had counted the fan in the heater/defroster or the fan on the radiator....
ReplyDeleteHeh. Betcha can't say "Drill bit" twenty times realfast.
ReplyDeleteJust tried. Can. --Never make that sort of bet with a former disc jockey.
ReplyDelete"The seething sea ceaseth, and thus sufficieth us."
"The sixth Sheik's sixth sheep's sick."
Ahh, those were the days...! ;)
Along about rep 15, it stops making sense.