A St. Louis, Missouri guy on an AR-15 forum had a bad accident with his S&W 460XVR Magnum a few days ago. He was shooting with a two handed hold and got his left thumb up near the lower front of the cylinder. The normal (powerful) gasses blowing out at the barrel/cylinder gap ripped the top of his left thumb off. I've added some of his posts &some pics. S&W 460XVR Magnum 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!
Thats going to leave a mark. In all my day of shooting (few I am sure compared to some) I have never had the urge to hold a revolver that way. I am assuming there is going to be some work done to correct the damage. What is the prognosis?
Yep, S&W will have to put a "Billboard" on the barrel like Ruger does. I hate to say the guy deserves it but stupid does hurt.
Areal man wouldn't flinch and still drill the "x",I can't imagine the number and volume of cuss words that would be ringing out from my position had i been foolish enough to do that.( Sonnnnn ov a beeeeeooootch!!!!!!!!!ouch gawwwwwwwdammmit! Motha pus bucket!!$$########&&&)uh anybody got any duct tape??? That hurts just looking at the grisly picture.
Can't fix stupid. Watched my Dad shoot a hole in his car door one morning while loading a Marlin .44 lever rifle for deer hunting. Gloves and that half-cock position just didn't quite work out the way he had hoped. Guess he was lucky he didn't shoot his foot, did manage tospill his coffee in his lap and I do not beleive I have ever heard such language coming from his mouth. I will confess that although I never have held a handgun like that, it was possibly in the realm of something that I might not have thought of but I'll bet a nickle that I'll never make that mistake.
That's funny! "Hey Honey, pour some beer on this thumb so I can keep shootin' a while! We got a glove?" taser1
On the plus side that's one fingerprint less for big brother to use against him. Nine more "accidents" and he'll be sitting pretty. Figuratively speaking of course.
looks like any numberof OSHA industrial accident horror movies I've had to sit through...Daayyyyuuuum!
Hopefuly the guy at least recognizes it as stupid hurts and that it was his own thing as opposed to trying to sue S&W because of his mistake. I mean most of us pull stupid at some point, his just cost a bit more than some, less than others.