Courtesy of Tactical Life
Everything manmade will fail. I don’t care how expensive or well maintained your car, your watch or your gun is—eventually, it will fail. There are several common types of pistol malfunctions, and you need to know how to quickly clear them to get back in the fight. Over 90 percent of pistol malfunctions are magazine related. The most common gun malfunction? A magazine that is not fully seated. Every time you load your pistol, you should rack the slide to put a round in the chamber, then eject the magazine and top it off. If the gun holds 10 rounds in the magazine, why would you walk around with only nine rounds in it? The problem is that it is more difficult to seat a fully loaded magazine. The round on top is compressed down when it pushes up against the bottom of the slide. Inevitably, sometimes the magazine won’t be pushed in until it fully “clicks” into place. The first time the gun fires, it will kick out the empty case, but it won’t pick up the next round and feed it into the chamber. The second shot becomes a click instead of a bang.
Gun Malfunction Clearance Drill 1: Tap, Rack, Target
The first solution for this begins with a proper loading sequence. After you load your pistol and reholster it, pop out the magazine and top it off. Then, reseat it in the mag well. Always give it a tug to make sure it is fully seated. Even after doing this, you can still have a magazine that isn’t fully seated if the magazine release button accidentally gets bumped. The second shot will be the dreaded click.
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