Out of Battery Ignition, How Frequent?

[Mark D]

Segue from the 9mm vs .45 1911 thread...


Things I really do not like about 9mm 1911s, the longer than standard ejector that can result in out of battery ignition if ejecting a live round and it gets caught between the edge of the ejection port and turned sideways. I’ve seen it happen in real life and on the gunternet, it is an issue. A medium-length ejector can work and prevent this, but most factory 9mm guns are setup with a LONG ejector.

A couple of my early instructors warned students not to cup a hand over the ejection port to capture an ejected live round, because of the possibility of an out of battery ignition. According to them, the possible injury to one's hand could be severe.

I've also seen national level shooters and instructors use this very method to capture a live round when unloading. I mentioned it to REDACTED at a class once, and he looked at me like I was an idiot and said he'd never heard of it.

How big a risk is it really, assuming we're using a stock modern pistol (G19/HK/Beretta/M&P/etc)?

Edit: Removed instructor's name to help keep the discussion focused on the main issue, not the instructor.
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[RevolverRob]

So the thing to remember about the 9mm 1911 example. It’s a case of multiple factors stacking to cause an issue.

The 1911 dimensions are designed around a longer cartridge. The shorter 9mms basically have enough room with the slide retracted to be able to “bounce around a bit” when a live round is being ejected. This PLUS the longer nose of the standard 9mm 1911 ejector is what makes this particular problem more common in the 1911.

In other pistols designed around the 9mm cartridge you’ll have shorter ejectors + shorter slide stroke that matches the cartridge. For the vast majority of modern guns I wouldn’t worry too much about it. There isn’t enough room, really, for the cartridge to get jammed in that way, instead you would usually end up with a stove pipe.

FWIW, my preferred method for this administrative loading is to drop the mag and pull the slide back until the round bumps the ejector, but not enough to force the round out the ejection port, instead, just let it dribble out of the mag well.

[olstyn]

The ejector of any pistol is a pointy, stiff piece of metal. Ram a primer into it and it's certainly possible for it to set off the primer. It's probably relatively low probability, but it's definitely possible, and there are plenty of other ways of recovering an ejected cartridge. I file covering the ejection port with your hand under "not worth the risk" because of the stakes part of the odd/stakes calculation. I really don't need my hand blown up.

[Lon]

I know of 3 different out of battery detonations that have happened to me or friends of mine

Mine - back in 2009/2010 at a big USPSA match. Had one with my .40 2011. Have that one on video as well as the casing that went off. Occurred after a FTF all the way. Part of casing ended up in my finger. Nothing big, just did a little range surgery with a knife. About a week later I cut the rest out sitting at m desk at work. Blew the magazine out the bottom. Cracked the top of the slide as well.


https://youtu.be/oPxQpADkug0

Maybe a year later a friend had one with a .38 Super Comp 2011 open gun as he was unloading and showing clear. Part of the casing ended up in his neck. He was care flighted from the range.

Third one happened with a 90’s manufactured Sig 228. Occurred during a reload with a partial mag. The bottom of the slide hit the primer and detonated the round. Part of the casing is still in the arm of an Officer (now a Chief) I know. There’s a reason the bottom of Sig slides are all now radiused instead of having a 90 degree corner. Sig was aware of the issue when we called them.

54672

So 3 examples out of literally millions of rounds fired I’ve been around over the course of 25+ years of competing and police work.

[Nephrology]

I know of 3 different out of battery detonations that have happened to me or friends of mine

Mine - back in 2009/2010 at a big USPSA match. Had one with my .40 2011. Have that one on video as well as the casing that went off. Occurred after a FTF all the way. Part of casing ended up in my finger. Nothing big, just did a little range surgery with a knife. About a week later I cut the rest out sitting at m desk at work. Blew the magazine out the bottom. Cracked the top of the slide as well.


Yikes. Still shoot 2011s these days?

[farscott]

Back when I shot Limited 10 (early 2000s) with my SVI .40, a shooting buddy had the same basic pistol. Both SVI .40 built by the same guy. At the end of the stage, he cycled the slide to eject the loaded round. The primer hit the ejector. Of course, the case failed, spraying his hand with brass and powder. He was shaken but okay, but I never again covered the ejection port to catch a live round.

Somewhere I have the video showing the incident.

[JTQ]

Ernest Langdon within the first minute of this video on the Beretta 92 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VP4X6FVa4E

There used to be a Clint Smith (probably an FMG Pubs video) video on mag changes (I think it was on Administrative reloads) where he mentions the same comment Langdon does, but I can't find it now.

[Lon]

Yikes. Still shoot 2011s these days?

Nope. Sold that one after getting it fixed. Been shooting mostly stock guns since.

Here’s the casing:
54685
54686

[Trooper224]

Witnessed it once back in the 90's with a Glock 21. Not an advisable procedure.

[Mark D]

Good info folks. I'll continue to let the round hit the deck.

[RevolverRob]

Good info folks. I'll continue to let the round hit the deck.

Best practice.

If you find the round, pick it up and dust it off and use it to top off a mag. But if not, forget it...a few cents to a quarter at the most isn't worth the potential damage to hand and gun.

[Nephrology]

Best practice.

If you find the round, pick it up and dust it off and use it to top off a mag. But if not, forget it...a few cents to a quarter at the most isn't worth the potential damage to hand and gun.

I remember someone told me something to that effect when I was early in my USPSA shooting career and a very broke recent college grad. I had been picking up 9mm cartridges I found on the deck because "Free ammo" and someone on my squad reminded me that 1. plenty of folks shooting reloaded 9mm major and 2. it's on the deck for a reason. Even as a broke 21 y/o I recognized that my glock 17 was worth much more than $0.25. Haven't done it since.

[Jim Watson]

I have been present for one of those Unload and Show Clear discharges.
At the first IDPA Nationals, I heard a strange report and looked around to see a guy coming off the range with a bloody hand. He had covered the ejection port to catch the ejected round and it popped on the ejector. A match staffer hustled him off to the ER. He came back later with his hand in a bulky bandage, in spectator mode for the rest of the match.

At another big match, I was in the area but not on the bay for one of the much less common Dropped On a Rock discharges. That one did no injury but it sure got everybody's attention.

Title "out of battery ignition" had me expecting a discussion of the Common Internet Excuse for Demolished Glocks.

[jeep45238]

My 9mm DW 1911's both came factory with short extractors. I've explained at matches why I let the round fly and worry about it later when showing clear - most scoff at it, and others hoard ammo off the ground. Yesterday at my side job one of my older coworkers was bragging about this bag of free ammo that had been in a flood, and he was going to shoot it.

Some folks you just can't get the cheap or dumb factors out by explaining facts. Others are pretty hip to it.

[Clusterfrack]

Best practice.

If you find the round, pick it up and dust it off and use it to top off a mag. But if not, forget it...a few cents to a quarter at the most isn't worth the potential damage to hand and gun.

If you do that, be fucking certain it’s really your round. I did that back in my Glock 34 days, and I really thought it was mine. Turned out to be someone else’s 9 major load. Now, that got everyone’s attention. The RO stopped me because he thought my gun blew up.

[Balisong]

Title "out of battery ignition" had me expecting a discussion of the Common Internet Excuse for Demolished Glocks.

Those discussions are no longer necessary as everyone now knows those are due to limp wristing.

Anyways, I've never seen this phenomenon in person, but in one of the earliest classes I took they warned us about the practice of cupping the hand over to retain the cartridge. I took it to heart and never did it since.

[1911Nut]

I attended my first pistol training class at Gunsite (then called the American Pistol Institute) when I took a 5 1/2 day API250 class in March 1981.

My two instructors were Jeff Cooper (founder and owner of API) and Clint Smith (operations manager).

To properly unload our pistol, we were taught to drop the magazine, cup our support hand over the chamber of our caliber .45 ACP 1911 Government Model pistols and invert the pistol with the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, retract the slide with that "cupped" support hand, and allow the chambered round to fall into the palm of our support hand.

We were also taught to perform a press check of a loaded weapon by disengaging the thumb safety while holding the pistol in our strong hand, and to hook our support hand thumb INSIDE the front of the trigger guard, then curl our support hand index finger over the outside of the recoil spring plug under the barrel, and "pinch" the slide open far enough to confirm a cartridge was chambered.

That's the way it was done. I never recall hearing any conversations about safety issues with these two procedures beyond the Four Safety Rules that were continuously repeated and imprinted into every student's brain from the beginning of the class on Monday morning until its end at noon on Saturday. It was a non-issue at that time. There were never any problems with the process being performed safely by any student, to my knowledge. Everyone in our class was shooting a 1911 pistol except for one student from Costa Rica who was training with an HK P7M8 pistol. I do not know if he was taught a different manual of arms than we 1911 shooters were taught.

Prior to my training at Gunsite, I had participated in "combat" matches in southern Arizona for about three years. During that time, I had always unloaded my pistol by (after removing the magazine) holding the gun in my strong hand, grasping the cocking serrations at the rear of the slide with my support hand, then retracting the slide, allowing the chambered round to fall to ground.

I had seldom performed "press checks" to my pistol before my Gunsite training, but when I did, I held the pistol in my strong hand and grasped the cocking serrations at the rear of the slide with my support hand and retracted the slide far enough to confirm that there was a cartridge in the chamber.

Following my initial training at Gunsite in 1981, I continued to participate in various "practical style" pistol matches in southern AZ until 1988. My participation was fairly intermittent, and 99.5% of the competition was in and around the Tucson, AZ area. I followed the exact same "Gunsite" procedure for unloading my pistol and for "press checking" my pistol during every match I participated in, and did the same on the very rare times that I practiced or manipulated my pistol. My experience was 100% with 1911 pistols in .45 ACP caliber.

I can vaguely recall two or three times when my process was questioned (with no alarm expressed), and in each case I was simply asked where I leaned to unload my pistol and do a "press check". I advised them of the source of my training, and also indicated I would be glad to follow alternative approaches if required to do so due to club safety rules or preferred practices, but was never required to do so. I know of at least two or three participants in these matches that followed the same practices and were Gunsite graduates.

I completely discontinued participation in competitive pistol shooting in late 1988, as my work requirements pretty much kept me busy 6-7 days a week for long hours every day.

I returned to Gunsite for further pistol training in 1993, for a shotgun class in 1995, and for a Concealed Carry certification class in 2006. In each of those classes, there was either a lot or a little pistol shooting required, I still was shooting a 1911 pistol in caliber .45 ACP, and I followed the exact same procedures for unloading and press checking the pistol I had been taught at Gunsite in 1981.

I retired in 2007 and by late 2008 decided I would like to return to competitive pistol shooting. The world was different. 1911 shooters seemed to be the exception instead of the rule. Competition, training, guns, holsters, shoes, ear protection, eye protection, timers, scoring systems, targets, equipment and course of fire rules, and several other things about the sport had changed. Glocks, CZ's, and numerous other brands of pistols were in common use. The 9mm ruled.

I researched competitive shooting extensively, and then attended some steel, USPSA, and IDPA matches in the Mesa/Phoenix area as strictly an observer. I purchased my first Glock 9mm pistol (the first time I had ever owned a 9mm pistol) in early 2009 and attended a two-day "Pistol Tuneup" class at Gunsite.

At Gunsite, the processes and procedures for unloading a pistol and performing a press check had been amended , just as I had observed in my research and personal observation of the matches I had attended as an observer. Up until the time I began researching competitive shooting with the intent of returning as a participant, I had NEVER observed or heard of a person being injured by an out of battery detonation while unloading a pistol. When my research began, I heard about a LOT of incidents where this had occurred.

I'm glad I did the research, asked the questions, and took some refresher training prior to returning to competition in 2009. I shoot many, many more 9mm rounds downrange today than .45 rounds. I use or have used Glock, Springfield XDM, CZ, and even 9mm 1911/2011 pistols in competition, with just the occasional .45 added to keep things interesting.

Today I unload my pistol by removing the magazine, retracting the slide and allowing the chambered cartridge to fall to the ground, and I either retrieve it or don't retrieve it after my pistol is safely holstered and the range is declared clear by the safety officer. Doesn't cost much per year in lost ammo for the cartridges I fail to retrieve. If I pick up a loaded cartridge from the ground I KNOW it is MINE.

I seldom perform press checks today.

Different times, different learning experiences, different people, different sport than it was 40 years ago.

It's all good.

[olstyn]

Thanks for sharing your experience, 1911Nut. It's interesting to see how best practices have changed over time, especially as someone who only got into shooting with any seriousness about 10 years ago.

[Jesting Devil]

Given that cupping the round out of the ejection port is potentially hazardous, what are the opinions on the gamer style "flip and catch"? I.e. remove the mag, rack the slide back sharply ejecting the round into the air and catching it.

Obviously someone could sweep themselves chasing a flying round but with practice and muzzle awareness this seems better than the cupping method. This is usually what I do at matches and the range, if it isn't easily caught, I just let that round go.

[1911Nut]

Given that cupping the round out of the ejection port is potentially hazardous, what are the opinions on the gamer style "flip and catch"? I.e. remove the mag, rack the slide back sharply ejecting the round into the air and catching it.

Obviously someone could sweep themselves chasing a flying round but with practice and muzzle awareness this seems better than the cupping method. This is usually what I do at matches and the range, if it isn't easily caught, I just let that round go.

It looks cool. I've been guilty of it. I don't do it anymore. Just adding a potential bobble, loss of muzzle control, violation of the 180 degree rule, pissing off the safety officer, violating local range rules, etc.

Just for an opportunity to look "cool". And I can't reminiscing after a match about how cool someone looked when they unloaded.

[Caballoflaco]

I remember someone told me something to that effect when I was early in my USPSA shooting career and a very broke recent college grad. I had been picking up 9mm cartridges I found on the deck because "Free ammo" and someone on my squad reminded me that 1. plenty of folks shooting reloaded 9mm major and 2. it's on the deck for a reason. Even as a broke 21 y/o I recognized that my glock 17 was worth much more than $0.25. Haven't done it since.

The guys who mentored me during my first USPSA matches shared the same advice with me.

[0ddl0t]

I never understand why so many people yank the slide all the way back when unloading. Do they also yank a faucet wide open when they just need a trickle of water? Do they floor the accelerator until they reach highway speed?

What's wrong with slowly bringing the slide back so you don't have an out of battery detonation regardless of where your hand is?

[jeep45238]

I never understand why so many people yank the slide all the way back when unloading. Do they also yank a faucet wide open when they just need a trickle of water? Do they floor the accelerator until they reach highway speed?

What's wrong with slowly bringing the slide back so you don't have an out of battery detonation regardless of where your hand is?

Habit from working malfunction drills. Also much easier to engage the slide lock for showing clear (don't have two arms blocking the view of the chamber).

[JTQ]

I never understand why so many people yank the slide all the way back when unloading. Do they also yank a faucet wide open when they just need a trickle of water? Do they floor the accelerator until they reach highway speed?

What's wrong with slowly bringing the slide back so you don't have an out of battery detonation regardless of where your hand is?
On a Beretta 92 with an open slide, a live round probably gets out of ejection port pretty easily at any slide speed.

Getting a live round out of some other guns, such as a 1911, particularly one without an expanded ejection port does not always work at slow speed. High speed works better.