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Thread: Low Light Malfunction Clearing

  1. #1
    Supporting Business NH Shooter's Avatar
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    Low Light Malfunction Clearing

    In a low light "stoppage" situation, where one cannot not visually assess the nature of the stoppage (but for the sake of argument assume a click-but-no-bang vs. a dead trigger), I would lean toward a worst case scenario. In such a case, regardless of knowing exactly what the stoppage is, I would;

    1. remove magazine
    2. cycle the slide a few times and lock back
    3. re-insert mag and drop the slide

    In other words, I would not assume a simple failure to fire (bad round) that could be addressed by just racking the slide. Again, all of this in the context of low or no light and not using any hand held illumination to help diagnose the stoppage.

    Thoughts and/or suggestions?
    Last edited by NH Shooter; 07-21-2018 at 06:21 AM.

  2. #2
    I think this would have to be situational, but I'm also likely to want to discard the magazine if I have another. It's faster, and on dark IDPA stages, I've watched others try to 'clear a malfunction' when the actual root cause was lack of bullets in the mag (or lack of a magazine at all).

    Playing devil's advocate, is it really recommended to take the time to diagnose stoppages even if there is light? There's really only two, maybe three things I'm going to to fix a malfunction in a hurry (tap/rack/bang and drop mag, rack slide several times, toss in a new mag). It might be faster just to do them.

  3. #3
    Site Supporter Jay Cunningham's Avatar
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    The traditional immediate action (TRB) can be accomplished so quickly and instinctively that's there's almost no reason not to default to it. One should certainly be adept at remedial action as you described, but this gets into territory of "you will default to your level of experience".

    Another thing - I've heard TRB described as not being able to clear certain malfunctions, or even making certain malfunctions worse. This can be true. However, I've come to find that TRB performed a particular way is much more effective.

    I call it SMACK ROLL RACK.

    • SMACK the magazine hard. Don't bring your gun down onto your hand... bring the palm of your hand up to your gun.
    • ROLL the gun inboard as far as you can so that it is almost inverted. Take your arm and wrist to their limits.
    • RACK the slide aggressively whilst the gun is inverted. Use the support hand thumb and index finger to pinch the rear of the slide.


    This will clear more malfunctions more reliably that the traditional TRB.
    Last edited by Jay Cunningham; 07-21-2018 at 07:08 AM.

  4. #4
    Site Supporter JohnO's Avatar
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    I've trained all the malfunction procedures. So much so that I have broken no fewer than 4 extractors in Glocks and 1911s doing double feed clearances. I have pretty much decided to stop doing type 3 clearance drills for two reasons. One is the damage I have caused. Two is the fact that when I actually experienced a real world double feed malfunction the clearance protocol was worthless with a broken extractor. Larry Vickers was standing next to me when it happened in his class. I had to switch guns until I replaced the extractor. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.

    In low light or no light you can palpate the breach/chamber. Probing with a finger also works if you don't want to take your eyes off something/someone.

    Tally of busted extractors: G23 (2), G21 (1), 1911 (1). The 1911 being the most inconvenient as the gun needed to go back to Ed Brown to blend the base of the extractor to to the slide.
    Last edited by JohnO; 07-21-2018 at 07:40 AM.

  5. #5
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    What Jay said then if no love pull magazine, rack, rack, rack, insert mag, rack. If no love, plan C.

  6. #6
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    There are two basic malfunction procedures and both have been covered so far. They're called different names by different folks, but I call them Fail to Fire stoppages and Feedway stoppages. Fail to fire are most common due to unlocked magazine, slide slightly out of battery, bad round, empty chamber and I also put the stovepiped case in there because the fail to fire routine clears all. The procedure is tap the magazine floorplate to make sure it's locked on, roll the gun ejection port down (to make gravity our friend) and a hard cycle of the slide to clear the problem and allow the slide to chamber a new round. If that move doesn't work or if you do it poorly you have a feedway stoppage and...

    It's a mess! This is caused by bad extractors, bad magazines, bad ammo, bad springs and all over sorts of "bad" (like bad fail to fire clearance manipulations!). There are several variations of this clearance routine out there, but I always teach the universal method, because I don't know what kind of pistol you'll have when this hard time shows up. It works on legacy (1911, 1935) pistols and on the striker fired guns. It starts with locking the slide manually to the rear with the slide stop lever, then ripping the magazine clear (it's likely being held in place by a partially fed round). Next, overhand grasp the slide and don't let go! Many folks let go between cycles and that adds time. Hold the slide at the rear and vigorously cycle it four or five times as fast as possible (should be able to do it in 1-1.5 seconds for all). This should've cleared all the problem out and now you have an empty pistol with the slide forward. Simply stroke a magazine onboard and again, using vigorous slide manipulation technique, chamber a new round and you're back up.

    As to what we do with the magazine that was onboard when the stoppage occurred, you have two choices: retain if it's the only magazine you have (and that's not good, because it may be the stoppage cause) and let it fall if you have an extra magazine.

    There are striker gun based methods that omit the manually locked slide for the first step but I don't use them or teach them because there are no guarantees that you'll always have a system that works with that method.

    Par times for a polished shooter for the fail to fire stoppage are about 1.5 seconds and for a feedway stoppage, a great time is around four seconds. Working on these in practice/training really sucks, but you should do a few every time you hit the range and learn to do them eyes off first and then eyes off and on the move next, because if you have one in a fight, you'll likely want to get your ass somewhere else at high speed.
    Regional Government Sales Manager for Aimpoint, Inc. USA
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Wayne Dobbs View Post

    Par times for a polished shooter for the fail to fire stoppage are about 1.5 seconds and for a feedway stoppage, a great time is around four seconds. Working on these in practice/training really sucks, but you should do a few every time you hit the range and learn to do them eyes off first and then eyes off and on the move next, because if you have one in a fight, you'll likely want to get your ass somewhere else at high speed.
    My plan is TRB, or if that doesn’t work, BUG, or if that isn’t an option, go Nike, because four seconds might be your life time.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  8. #8
    Supporting Business NH Shooter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRoland View Post
    Playing devil's advocate, is it really recommended to take the time to diagnose stoppages even if there is light?
    I think perhaps only in immediately observable cases: a fully closed slide (failure of cartridge to fire, failure to strip new round from magazine) might be resolved more quickly with a TRB, whereas a stovepipe or other more obvious stoppage would dictate the more extensive remediation.

    But in the dark one may not be able to determine quickly if the slide is fully closed, so does it might make sense to bypass TRB and go straight to the full clearing procedure?

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by NH Shooter View Post
    I think perhaps only in immediately observable cases: a fully closed slide (failure of cartridge to fire, failure to strip new round from magazine) might be resolved more quickly with a TRB, whereas a stovepipe or other more obvious stoppage would dictate the more extensive remediation.

    But in the dark one may not be able to determine quickly if the slide is fully closed, so does it might make sense to bypass TRB and go straight to the full clearing procedure?
    Only if you have at least four seconds to mess with, without getting hurt.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  10. #10
    Supporting Business NH Shooter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wayne Dobbs View Post
    Working on these in practice/training really sucks, but you should do a few every time you hit the range and learn to do them eyes off first and then eyes off and on the move next, because if you have one in a fight, you'll likely want to get your ass somewhere else at high speed.
    Wayne, thanks for your thoughts!

    My first inclination (as in how I think I'd react) at a click-instead-of-a-bang is indeed to get my ass out of harms way. Even if caught in the wide open, I believe my flight reflex would take control and point me to the nearest cover. Training to deal with a stoppage while moving makes good sense.

    Quote Originally Posted by GJM View Post
    My plan is TRB, or if that doesn’t work, BUG, or if that isn’t an option, go Nike, because four seconds might be your life time.
    No BUG mode for me (at least yet), but definitely "go Nike." So my default is to get the pistol back in action ASAP, preferably from behind cover or at least from concealment. I definitely do NOT want to be an easy static target while working on getting my pistol running, not even for a split second.

    Thus the reason for my OP of using the concealment of darkness and NOT depending on illumination to clear the stoppage: TRB or just default to the full enchilada?

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