Describe a malfunction that was not easily clearable.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Reading Tom Given's newsletter -another thread, he describes a malfunction that couldn't cleared easily. The slide was forward of where it should have been. Thus, the user was out of luck without a BUG.

That got me thinking of similar non-fixables that weird (not just a broken spring, have had that).

I go for two, I had:

1. A 2nd Gen G19, the empty casing was impaled on the firing pin that was sticking out. Like a stuck pig through the primer. It would not flick off.

2. Another 2nd Gen G19. The empty casing rotated in space such that the mouth of the casing was facing backwards towards the breech face and horizontal. The slide slammed on it and crumpled it a tad into the face. That was a total stop and get out the anvil to heat the gun up and hammer it (just kidding on the last part).

Others?

[Josh Runkle]

I was 18. It was a sterling mark ii .380. I was brand new to firearms. Gun was missing a detent spring in the takedown. The gun fired; when it cycled, the screw, normal held in place by the spring, turned, and the part that blocks the slide from moving forward was moved into position to take the gun apart. (Slide comes off like a ppk) I fire the next round and the slide comes back and off and the spring flings the slide down range...like 20 feet downrange. Yeah, that was interesting to explain to the range officer.

Another one I've always hated are things like double feeds on guns like ppks, because you can't do the "lock" step for malfunction clearance.

I've also seen (but never from one of my guns) a few bolt override malfunctions during carbine classes.

Had a student once wedge a .40 round into a 9mm chamber of a 226. That was a piece of work to get out.

Honestly, though, I've been pretty blessed with having few malfunctions, and even those being fairly easy to solve. The worst ones are usually ones I set up for a malfunction clearing drill.

[scw2]

I had my TRS break while dry firing. At that point I had fewer than 500 live rounds through my gun but thousands of dry fire reps. I guess you could manually reset the trigger to keep firing but the need for a BUG is readily apparent to me now. What to get....

[Cool Breeze]

I was shooting a Glock 26 and during firing, the empty case ejected properly and as the slide came forward to strip off a new round from the magazine and - somehow and someway - the edge of the casing got caught on the feedramp as the bullet was going up the feed ramp. This resulted in the edge of the feedramp digging into the edge of the casing and causing the casing to literally be peeled back and the feedramp digging itself halfway through the cartridge. The gun didn't go fully into battery and a tap-rack didn't work because I couldn't get the slide back.

I am not sure I explained that right but it happened and it almost took the jaws of life to pull the slide back. I had to get the range safety officer to help be because I had no idea what happened.

[farscott]

I have had three, all on 1911-pattern pistols.

1) Extractor hook sheared on a Series '80 Colt. No way to extract the fired case other than using a pencil to punch out the fired casing. Tap, rack, and repeat did not help in any sense of the word.

2) Officer's ACP bushing tab sheared off, launching bushing and recoil spring downrange. That one was obvious.

3) Magazine catch sheared, dumping magazine on the ground.

[Drang]

North Star Range, Cp Stanley, Korea, M16A2 bolt over-ride. (For anyone not familiar, the cartridge gets wedged between the bolt and the charging handle. Shooter probably didn't lock the charging handle forward. Don't think it was actually Specialist Flake, but this was 16 years ago...)
I'd heard of them, but never seen one, and don't think I had ever learned how to clear it. This was in an aviation battalion, and they were all about M60Ds and M9s, only support pukes had '16s. I was RSO, had a bunch of pilot WOs as safeties, most of them knew jack about M16s...

[1911Nut]

Remington 870 Wingmaster. Hunting Gambel quail and flushed a covey. Fired one shot and knocked down a bird. Racked the slide and prepared to fire a second shot. Trigger would not activate. Fiddled with shotgun for 15 minutes before giving up and driving home. (Despite the fact that there were literally dozens of quail all over the hillside where I was hunting).

When I got home and pulled the gun apart, I found that the culprit was a LIVE primer stuck behind the trigger, binding it up and not allowing it to move. Factory Winchester ammo 7 1/2 shot. Finally had to use a pair of needle nose pliers to squish the primer flat enough to remove it from where it was. (Closed my eyes and looked away when doing this - not real technical).

Witnessed two other really interesting ones, coincidentally also both Remington 870 shotguns. Same malfunction, both occurring during defensive shotgun classes, and the classes were 15 years apart! (Different shotguns and different operators, though). The magazine tube cap, magazine spring, and barrel fell off in the middle of a string of fire. That was definitely a time consuming malfunction for both guys. Especially the second one. It happened at night and took about 10 minutes to even FIND the magazine spring!

[ReverendMeat]

LWRC came in with the BCG stuck halfway to the rear. Ended up having to remove the buffer tube and go to town with a mallet to get the BCG to move. Turned out the firing pin retainer broke apart and the bits wedged the carrier into the upper real good.

[Malamute]

I broke 3 transfer bars in Ruger single actions from dry firing. I stopped dry firing them after that. Need to get some snap caps.

A girlfriend had one of the Llama mini-1911 22's as a purse gun. She was a bit behind me on a trail once, I heard her shoot, went back to see what was up. She was sitting on the ground with the gun in pieces. She saw a squirrel, took a shot, and the slide launched off the frame forward and sort of scattered parts. It went back together OK. I never trusted it after that.

Stuck a bullet in a barrel in a 45-70 once. I stopped using IMR 4198 after that. Started using stuff to help keep the powder by the primer on loads that didnt fill the case very much. Used a handle from a fireplace poker to drive it out I think.

[BehindBlueI's]

Bent crane caused the cylinder to come into contact with the forcing cone on a Taurus model 85.