British Highlander dies in Aberta while on live fire exercise.

[dragnet157]

Blanks of dummy rds? DA, never ever use any unauth methods of clearing a wpn regardless of natures of ammo, no matter what. If in doubt call an NCO to help you out.

Cheers,

Wes

Amen... All training regardless for war or peace time MUST be the same.  When I did my 3's in the PPCLI Battle School (NOT THE WESTERN AREA TRAINING CENTER!)we were reminded that "Train hard now.  Peace is were you have the time to master your skills because when there's a war on your time is up."  Chances are is he opened the feed tray and attempted to cock the weapon.  Sometimes a live round will be logged in the chamber of the weapon and if the cocking handle is realeased the action will go forward. This will cause a catastrophic explosion in the chamber resulting in death.  As for the idea of doing the "Charleston Stomp" to correct the stoppage I'm almost certain that the safety staff behind him would have stomped his head in for attempting that dance move.  No matter what a infantryman is dead and nothing will bring him back.  Remember that's our job.  It's incredibly dangerous and unfortunately dying is in the job description.  Rest hard brother.

 

[48Highlander]

Chances are is he opened the feed tray and attempted to cock the weapon.   Sometimes a live round will be logged in the chamber of the weapon and if the cocking handle is realeased the action will go forward. This will cause a catastrophic explosion in the chamber resulting in death.

Eh....you sure about that?   I seem to remember there being something in the "safety features" of the C9 that stated something like "the weapon will not fire unless the bolt is fully locked inside the chamber"   So, if you were to lodge a round in the chamber, and then squeeze the trigger with the tray open, all that should happen is that the bolt will enter the chamber, rotate and lock while simultaneously seating the round on the bolt face, and once locked the firing pin would protrude through the bolt face, striking the primer.   Since the bolt is already locked at this point, the weapon would fire as normal, without any "catastrophic explosions".

Even assuming a round were to go off inside the body of your C9, the casing for a 5.56mm NATO round does not hold very much explosive material.   If you're really unlucky it might put out an eye.

 

[GO!!!]

I'll agree with 48th - for once.

The C9 firing pin cannot engage the primer unless the bolt is seated and locked. If this happens with the feed tray open, the feed pawls won't work, and you'll probably get some really hot oil in yer face. And of course, it probably would'nt happen at all if the drills were done right.

Besides, I watched a .50 round blow off in the body - the wpns tech thought it might have been a slow burning round, the round went down the barrel, and the feed tray blew up, but not off. Gunner reloaded and continued firing.

 

[Lenna]

I was just sat on here, searching through the net to try and find more news on Dale's death.  I personally knew him and many of his friends, although we didn't get on as well as I wish we did not, I will certainly miss him.  I remember when I first went to the primary school "Milbank" with the teacher Mrs. Cowie.  Dale was small one of the smallest in our class, with glasses.  He was always the typical joker of the class.  What surprised me the most though, is his disliking to blood.  He used to faint at the very sight of it! 

When we hit high school he'd grown up so much, he left as soon as the middle of 5th year, when both mine and his class were joined together, as he wasn't that keen on school, but he was very much loved in Mr. Savory's class. 

I only actually found out about this incident yesterday (Monday) the day of his funeral from my mother and I was extremely saddened by it.  Many are.  Buckie is a very small town but Dale will always remain in our hearts. 

I just feel really guilty that I didn't get to know him more, and that I didn't even get to pay my respects.  He may not have been the closest friend to me but I will miss the fact I'll never get to see him around the town anymore or even get to try and make a proper friendship with him. 

R.I.P Dale.  Will miss you so much.

Tiffie x x