Describe a malfunction that was not easily clearable.

[pangloss]

A friend of mine was shooting his .380 S&W Bodyguard. Somehow the fired brass would eject normally, but the next round often gets ahead of the extractor. The round loads into the chamber but since it is ahead of the slide, the gun won't go into battery. This happened numerous times in one range session with a clean gun and Prvi Partizan ammo. We were able to pry the live round out with a leatherman. The process is considerably faster after the 3rd or 4th time. (The range session prior, he was shooting silver bear. FYI, silver bear primers are too hard for a Bodyguard.)

[Wendell]

A Para P16-40LTD will feed a cartridge (accidentally) loaded into the magazine backwards, but it won't fire it.

That minor technical limitation is a real stage-stopper.

[gorgo331]

A case head separation in a Mark 5 Enfield. Fired the round, hit the target and opened the bolt. Only the case head popped out. Had to (forcefully) insert a .45 caliber cleaning brush into the breech to pull the rest of the case out of the chamber. Messed up the brush, but we managed to clear the rifle and keep on shooting. I found out later that this is not an unusual condition on Enfield rifles. The chamber diameters are a little sloppy to allow for the gunk of war, etc. Resizing the brass once too often eventually wears it out and the case will fatigue. A special tool was made to get the stuck brass out of the chamber, but we didn't have one of those