In order to be able to defend yourself in a deadly force encounter with your pistol, you need to know what to do to keep your pistol running if it jams or stops firing. That means you need to know how to quickly reload an empty gun, or quickly transition to a back-up gun (BUG) if you carry one.
An empty gun is a gun that is spent–that is; out of ammunition. The empty or spent magazine must be swapped or replaced with a charged (ideally fully charged) magazine and a round chambered in the pistol. What this boils down to are the following steps: (1) get the spent magazine out, (2) TAP the new magazine in, (3) RACK the slide to chamber a fresh round, and (4) BACK to ready, or whatever you were doing. This is essentially the drill when your pistol stops shooting or jams due to an operator error or pistol malfunction. The gun has to first be cleared and then reloaded.
There are different schools of thought on how to clear different types of pistol malfunctions, stoppages, or jams. Therefore, I am going to present my procedures here, which I think make good sense–because they work. You may first want to watch this video demonstration on the topic by Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch. I’ve trained with Clint and he is one of the best master firearms trainers in the field of small arms and armed personal defense.
MALFUNCTION TYPES:
Level I: This type of malfunction is the simplest. It may be caused by an unseated magazine or a bad round. We should train to employ the simplest procedures that will work in the majority of cases and with the majoirty of handguns. “Simple Is Good” (SIG). So, the drill is: TAP the magazine in place to make sure it is seated. RACK the slide to chamber a fresh round. And BACK to ready, or if the bullets are flying, or your in Code Red or Black, BANG! If you have a bad magazine, you need to TAP a fresh magazine into the gun (the reason to carry at least one loaded spare magazine!), RACK, and BACK, or BANG!
Level II-A: The first type of Level II is where you have an empty magazine, the chamber is empty because you have fired your last round, but the slide failed to lock back for whatever reason. Now you may not know that this is the case. So, once again, it’s TAP,RACK, BANG. Now if the gun really was empty, either the slide will lock back on the empty magazine or it won’t, depending on the pistol. Either way, at that point you will need to rapidly reload. On the other hand, if for whatever reason, the magazine was still partially charged, but the pistol did not chamber a round when it cycled, TAP, RACK, BANG will do the trick.
Level II: This is a FAILURE TO EJECT, usually in some form of stovepipe. The spent casing is caught in the partially open ejection port–either sticking up like a chimney or jammed crossways. Again, TAP, RACK, BANG typically does the trick. Some trainers recommend slapping the exuding casing rearward back and out with the forward edge of the support hand (like a rearward karate chop). However, you still need to subsequently cycle the slide (i.e., RACK and READY). So, might as well, do the TAP, RACK, BANG drill first.
Level III: This is a FAILURE TO EXTRACT. In other words, the spend casing in the chamber was not fully extracted from the chamber before the next, fresh round was chambered from the magazine. So, the unextracted spent casing and new round meet and get jammed together. This typically locks up the action and the slide is locked in some degree of an out of battery position. Often the pressure on the magazine makes it impossible to eject the magazine. So, what is the fix? You have TAPPED, RACKED, and the gun still won’t go bang becuase it is stuck–jammed.
Step 1. LOCK back the slide if you can.
Step 2. RIP the magazine out of the gun.
Step 3. WORK the slide (i.e., hand cycle it; rack it vigorously back and forth) to clear the gun.
Step 4. TAP a fresh, charged magazine into the magazine well.
Step 5. RACK the slide to chamber a fresh round.
Step 6. BACK to ready. The gun should be ready to go BANG.
Often, pistol stoppages and malfunctions are due to faulty magazines. As such, it is important to use reliable magazines designed for your pistol. Mec-Gar an Italian Company with manufacturing facilities in Italy and its US company headquarters also in Connecticut, makes some of the most reliable and durable pistol magazines in the planet for a wide variety of pistols.
Mec-Gar 18 round Beretta 92 magazine
Dave Lauck of D & L Sports makes some of the most relaible and durable 1911 magazines on the planet!
D & L Reliable 1911 magazines
Practice these drills dry with dummy rounds following all of the appropriate safety precautions for dry practice. Now, setting up these malfunctions requires some hands on instruction. It is well worth it to spend some time with a competent firearms instructor to learn how to set up these malfunctions and clear them–both dry with dummy rounds first and then with live rounds on the range.
Bruce N. Eimer, Ph.D.
NRA Certified Firearms Instructor
http://PersonalDefenseSolutions.net
