Editor’s Note: This article is not intended as training advice, but is merely the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of The Armory Life. Please seek qualified training and ensure proper safety protocols are followed when conducting any drills.
On a bright sunny day, you decide to go to the range to shoot your pistol. You grab 300 rounds of FMJ, hollow points, and other assorted ammunition that you had lying around in your garage. As you drive to the range, eager with anticipation, you mentally plan how you will first put the gun through its paces at 3, 5, and 7 yards, then progress to rapid-fire drills at the 15-yard line, and finally to some accuracy work at 25 yards.
You arrive at the range, sign in, pay the fees, and go to your assigned firing point. You check all the equipment, make sure the gun is properly lubricated, load four magazines to capacity, and put up the first paper target. You grab the pistol, load it, and align the sights on target for the moment of truth, the finger touches the trigger, and you fire the first shot.
Voila, right on target. As you continue shooting, you feel great; the gun is well-balanced, has a crisp trigger, and is more accurate than you. The shooting session becomes a relationship between man and his personal tool, where you develop an appreciation for your new companion that leads you to believe it will continue to function flawlessly throughout the day.
But what if it doesn’t? Will you be prepared if your incredibly reliable pistol isn’t for some reason when you need it? While your pistol might be totally above board, what if you come across some bad ammunition at the worst possible moment? Or, some other unforeseen issue?
To that end, during training and regular practice, it’s a good idea to create malfunctions in your gun to learn how to clear them — and be comfortable with it. Now, I’m talking about malfunctions that you can quickly fix on the spot by executing an Immediate Action Drill (IAD), such as Tap and Rack, before getting back in the fight. Some of the most common, fixable malfunctions are failure to feed, double feed, stovepipe, slide locking back prematurely, slide not locking back on an empty magazine and failure to fire.
Before we go into more detail addressing each of the above, I must first address, however, those malfunctions that cannot be fixed right away; the kind of malfunction that would at least require basic cleaning equipment, spare parts, tools, or a gunsmith to get the gun back in working order.
The “Unfixables”?
When I was teaching years ago, I saw firsthand the following malfunctions:
- While a broken front sight won’t stop the gun from functioning (the entire front sight post was gone during rapid reholstering on a kydex rig), the shooter could no longer make precise shots. The student was given a different gun to finish the shooting course.
- With a broken extractor, the shooter had to pry out the casing after the shot was fired and chamber a round from the magazine, fire, and repeat the process again. OMG! Compared to today’s standards of speed, it’s cumbersome and time-consuming, like firing a musket!
- I have broken the firing pin of a gun during extensive dry-firing. If the firing pin breaks during a real situation, you are pretty much done. When recommended, use snap caps for extended dry fire sessions. Lesson learned.
- High-pressure ammunition will accelerate the wear and tear of your gun. While testing high-pressure loads for reliability, I saw the pins coming out of the frame in polymer pistols. I have also seen the extractor pin on a pistol rearing its ugly head on top of the slide. Not good in any situation.
- While hunting wild hogs a few days ago with a friend at the onset of a cold front, a stiff wind gust knocked our portable ground blind on its side and dragged it a few feet, and with it, my friend’s rifle, which ended up collecting a lot of sand. After unloading the rifle, we were able to clear the sand and debris from the muzzle, but the action had accumulated enough sand to make it gritty and too hard to effectively close the bolt on a live round. With no cleaning equipment on hand, we called it a day. Psst! It was getting too cold anyway.
- Any obstruction in the barrel will present increased pressure conditions, which could cause catastrophic failure in the gun and serious injury to the shooter. I have seen a bullet lodged inside a barrel due to faulty ammo. If you encounter this, don’t try to shoot it out of the barrel using another live round behind it. Take it to a gunsmith if you can’t push it out with a cleaning rod after field stripping the gun.
… And, the Fixables
Now, let’s get back to the subject of intentionally creating (and solving) temporary mayhem. You will need your pistol, two magazines, holster, magazine pouch, five to 10 snap caps or plastic dummy rounds, one empty brass casing in your chosen caliber, and, if available, some form of cover. Use as much live ammo as you have on hand to repeat the drills, but bring at least 50 rounds. We’ll analyze and induce each malfunction individually.
Since some of the malfunctions can be corrected by the tap and rack drill, we’ll explain the drill as follows:
Upon encountering the malfunction, bring the gun closer to your midbody, while keeping the muzzle pointing downrange with your finger off the trigger, firmly tap the bottom of the magazine to fully seat it in the mag well with your support hand, come over the top of the slide and rack it to chamber a round. Another variant of this is to turn the gun upside down after tapping the magazine and rack it using the sling shot method.
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If the action is stuck, lock the slide to the rear, then grab the magazine base plate and quickly pull the mag out, and rack the slide multiple times to clear the action. Sometimes the action is jammed to the point of nonmovement in the slide; try your best to move the slide back and/or forcefully strip the magazine out and insert your spare mag into the gun to continue firing.
Now, let’s discuss some specific types of failures you can induce and therefore train for addressing.
Failure to Feed. There are multiple reasons that cause this type of malfunction, such as a weak magazine spring or magazine not fully seated, a dirty feed ramp or chamber, or a weak recoil spring.
One of the easiest ways to create this malfunction is simply not to fully seat the magazine inside the mag well (which happens on occasion while rushing things). Insert the magazine in the gun but stop short of hearing the “click”. The gun will fire the round in the chamber, but it will likely fail to strip the next round off the magazine. A quick tap, rack should solve the issue. If the magazine falls during recoil because it wasn’t properly seated quickly reload with your spare mag. If this malfunction is caused by a round stuck on the feeding ramp or the chamber, you will have to lock the slide to the rear, extract the magazine, and rack the slide to clear the action.
You can create this malfunction by having dummy rounds loaded in your magazine and slowly easing the slide into battery.
Shoot Dirty. Ammunition is expensive, especially premium defensive loads. If you want to find out if your favorite hollow points will feed reliably in your new pistol without breaking the bank, shoot 200-300 rounds of practice ammunition through the pistol to accumulate as much fouling in the action as you can. Next, without cleaning the gun, shoot at least four fully loaded magazines of the hollow points.
If it jams, execute the malfunction drill every time it happens, and I would consider choosing another load. More importantly, if it snags when the gun is clean and lubricated, I would definitely go with another defensive round for your EDC. Your defensive rounds must work in your gun every time.
Double Feed. This happens when a round is already inside the chamber and another round is trying to feed on the ramp behind it. The cause of this can be a defective extractor, weak magazine spring, dirty gun or faulty ammunition.
To create this malfunction, open the action, lock the slide to the rear, manually insert a dummy round in the chamber and then, with a magazine loaded with dummy rounds, release the slide into battery. To clear the malfunction, lock the slide to the rear, strip the magazine, rack the slide multiple times to clear the action and insert a fresh magazine to chamber a new round.
Stovepipe. This happens when the extractor spring is weak and the casing is not ejected from the action, causing it to get caught between the slide and the barrel. A weak grip or insufficient powder charge can also cause this malfunction.
To create it, with a gun loaded with dummy rounds, partially open the action just enough to insert an empty casing standing upright in the space between the slide and the barrel, and let the action close, trapping the casing in the gap. To clear it, quickly tap the bottom of the magazine, sweep the casing off the slide in a backward motion with your hand and assess. The slide should be closed now; if the slide is not in full battery, tap the back of it to bring it into full battery.
If the empty casing remains inside the gun (not protruding from the ejection port but still stuck between the breech face and the barrel), tap, turn the gun so that the ejection port faces the ground, rack the slide using the slingshot method and let gravity do the work. This action will drop the empty casing to the ground and eject the round at the face of the chamber, stripping the next round from the magazine and loading it into the chamber.
Slide Locking Prematurely. This malfunction can be caused by pressure issues with ammunition and/or a defective slide stop, but it is mostly caused by human error: your thumb pushes the slide release upward, effectively locking the slide on a partially loaded magazine.
To create it, simply raise your thumb and make contact with the slide release in upward pressure during firing. To prevent this, keep your thumbs pointing forward during firing, away from the slide release.
Slide Not Locking on an Empty Magazine. This is the opposite of the previous malfunction listed above. Instead of your thumb pushing up the slide release to lock it, your thumb puts downward pressure on the release to prevent it from locking the slide back after the last round.
To create the malfunction, push down on the slide release towards the end of the string of fire. To prevent it from happening, modify your grip so that your thumb doesn’t exert pressure on the slide release. Additionally, this malfunction can be caused by high-pressure ammunition and also weak magazine springs, which need to have enough tension to raise the magazine follower in order to actuate the magazine release.
Failure to Fire. You press the trigger and hear a loud “click”. You are certain you just loaded a live round into the chamber, but perform a press check to verify. It is still there. It is maybe a bad primer. If you are at the range in a controlled environment, you should wait 30 seconds to one minute while pointing the gun downrange in case it fires in a delayed effect.
However, in a dynamic situation where you are getting shot at, execute the tap and rack drill to eject the faulty round and get back into the fight. To create this malfunction, load the magazine with dummy rounds and live rounds in random order, or alternate live rounds with dummy rounds, and go through the entire magazine until empty.
Don’t Baby Your Gun
A well-made semi-auto pistol is designed to repeatedly take the use and abuse of a slide violently moving back and forth on top of the frame during the shooting cycle. So, don’t feel like you have to baby your gun. Don’t ride the slide into battery while chambering a round, as the round can get stuck on the feeding ramp due to a sluggish-moving slide. And guess what, you just created a malfunction, which needs to be cleared with full vigor. Either by the overhand grip or the slingshot method, rack the slide like you mean it. Your life could depend on it.
Use Cover
Practice malfunction drills from behind cover. It only makes sense since you are at a vulnerable moment until you are ready to shoot again. If no cover is available, take a knee to present a smaller target to your adversary.
Conclusion
So there you have it. With a well-made gun and high-quality ammo, you may never experience any of these malfunctions. While this is great news, it also means you won’t be prepared if all the stars align against you at the moment you need it the most. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. That’s my recommendation!
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