Hats off to Brian Sloan!

[allaboutshooting]

   
Doris and I were in Harmony, North Carolina yesterday for an NWTF Sanctioned Still Target Shoot. Hurricane Irene was on the coast several hours directly east of us and we could feel the effects with the gusting wind. The crowd was small but the company was good.

We all were enjoying the event when a potentially really bad accident occurred. The first knowledge I had was when I saw blood flowing from the head of Brian Sloan. It turns out that his scope and base had separated from the receiver of his gun and hit him in the forehead, cutting a large gash right between his eyes.

Brian had just had several guns drilled and tapped and had bases, rings and scopes mounted. One of those was the one that "bit" him. When we looked at the base, only 1 screw was left in it and it was bent backward from the force of the recoil.

We'd already shot 3 rounds by that time and with just a little cleansing and a Band-Aid, Brian continued to coach his team (3 JAKES & 1 Lady) and to shoot the ML Class, 20 Gauge Open Class and 12 Gauge Open Class, and he shot well. That's one tough guy!

Brian is one of those men that we all should admire. He spends countless hours coaching and supporting youth sports, baseball, football, soccer and shooting. He's been responsible for introducing many youngsters and women to still target shooting over the years and is also one of the best still target shooters I've seen over the last 11 years. More importantly, he's just a good man.

A special thanks to the folks at "Hunting Creek Preserves" in Harmony for hosting us and to Janie Stephens for officiating and scoring the shoot. It was a good day with good friends.

Thanks,
Clark

[vaturkey]

Thanks Clark for sharing this with us. Hope yourself & Doris done well in the shoot. Thanks to Brian for being so involved with the youngsters in sports & the shooting world. Glad he wasn't hurt too seriously .

  vaturkey   

[allaboutshooting]

Thanks Clark for sharing this with us. Hope yourself & Doris done well in the shoot. Thanks to Brian for being so involved with the youngsters in sports & the shooting world. Glad he wasn't hurt too seriously .

  vaturkey   

You're welcome. Brian is a fine man and it was bad to see such an accident. Many times we take for granted that our equipment will hold up, that it's installed properly and that it will work as designed. Most of the time all that happens. When it doesn't it can be very bad.

The 3 forward screws apparently came loose, allowing all the force to be transferred to the rear screw and then it all gave way, resulting in the base, rings and scope going backward into his head. It was a very nasty cut and quite deep.

Thanks,
Clark

P.S. Doris won the Lady's Class and was 2nd in the 20 Gauge Open Class. I won the 12 Gauge Open Class.

[hookedspur]

 "P.S. Doris won the Lady's Class and was 2nd in the 20 Gauge Open Class. I won the 12 Gauge Open Class. "




   Outstanding Clark  

[GOLD HUNTER]

Glad he doing good and wasn't hurt too bad..... thats gota hurt

[Preacher]

I know it was bad ,   but it could hve been much worse,   Praying for a full recovery.

[WyoHunter]

Glad it wasn't more serious than that. Any thoughts on what caused the mounts to fail Clark?

[allaboutshooting]

Glad it wasn't more serious than that. Any thoughts on what caused the mounts to fail Clark?

Brian and I looked at the receiver several times during the day and the most forward screws had very little thread purchase, it appeared. There was some evidence of thread locker but Brian said he'd put that on, post mount apparently.

It appeared that the screws had loosened and put all the stress on the rear screw, from the way it was bent. That took a lot of force.

Brian also uses high rings and his scopes are pretty heavy. It just looked like a lot of stress on some pretty short screws with just a few threads in the receiver.

I've seen lots of folks get "scope eye" from getting too close to the scope but I've not seen a scope come totally off a receiver. In years past, before I started using JB Weld on bases, I had a couple of bases come loose but never all the way off.

Thanks,
Clark