.500 S&W Double Taps
Accidental double tapping of .500 S&W revolvers is apparently quite common. This video demonstrates …
A few years ago S&W investigated the phenomena. They discovered, as you have probably already guessed, that the double taps were the result of what was essentially bump firing. If the gun recoiled quick enough, while the shooter was still applying trigger pressure, the trigger would reset and then, when the trigger finger caught up with the trigger, another round would fire. S&W filmed this video to demonstrate that their revolvers were not faulty …
[ Many thanks to jdun1911 for emailing me the link. ]
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I've shot my friend's S&W 500 plenty of times with no problems and I've never had any hand gun instruction. I'm shocked that this can happen.
So what exactly does a person have to do wrong to make the gun go off unintended?
I've owned my 500 since 2009 and shot hundreds of rounds without incident. Today, though, I had a double fire. Normally I never cock it before firing, but today I decided to try it out and on my second shot I double fired. After watching several double fire video's on youtube I have noticed that one thing they all have in common is the shooter cock's the gun before making their shot. I will bring mine to a gunsmith before shooting again to be safe but I believe cocking the weapon before shooting is the enabler of the situation.