Low Light Malfunction Clearing

[Wayne Dobbs]

I know that there are shortcuts on these clearance drills that lots of folks do. They include not locking the slide on a feedway stoppage and not tapping the magazine on a fail to fire. I feel like these are bad ideas. The manipulations are such that they work on any service pistol platform and in virtually any circumstance of such stoppages occurring. When you freelance them, you're asking for failure. If you're in a fight with a pistol, you're already in deep shit, and to have a stoppage is really bad. Why would you do something that might not work and that you're "customizing" for your pistol? How can you guarantee that the pistol you have in your fight is the one you planned on and not a pick up or loaner (thinking OCONUS and Commie state situations)? If you learn, practice and do the known quantity methods, you get the correct results. Finally, many (most?) folks are going to change systems once or twice during a police career and some of us change them a couple of times in a year! Witness the resurgence of the TDA Berettas here. Serious users must have something that works across the spectrum and not a customized approach. If you think that's wrong, you haven't seen somebody have a stoppage in a stress situation.

I've cleared two in stress training situations with Sims (which is notoriously unreliable), one each of a fail to fire and feedway stoppage. The fail to fire was as a bad guy with a Glock blue gun and I cleared it so quickly and shot the cop about six feet away that we were both shocked. I was admonished for not surrendering. The feedway stoppage was as a good guy on a State Department pre-deployment train up with a Beretta M9. That one got compliments from the monitors because it was done reflexively and quickly. Both were results of LOTS of perfect practice on doing something that's no fun and that I don't like to do. That's a training secret on anything physical, by the way. Do something you're not good at or don't like and do it perfectly and repetitively.

[JustOneGun]

That’s a good general guideline, but is a lot to process for most. Plus, smack-roll-rack can fix dead trigger results.

This was my thought. Overall I'm with Wayne on this. It's hard to beat the tap/rack/roll with port down as a first step. That fixes most problems. The problems that it doesn't fix, it usually diagnosis well. Rack the slide and the slide locks back, well perhaps you should load the empty gun. Or the slide doesn't want to go back then go to a feed way clearance.

My second thought was that people will go to great lengths to get their pistol shooting fantastic but not change the magazine springs until there is a problem. In my experience, most gunfight fixable feed way malfunctions requiring the magazine to be stripped are caused by weak magazine springs. That's a good reason to carry a spare magazine as a civilian or off duty. It's also a good reason to find a schedule to replace the mag springs that works for you and your gun. On my carry gun I change my mag springs every year.

[GJM]

Just remembered that I had an unexpected problem (P09 ignition) in a match a month ago, and edited it down to just the clearance.

[1Rangemaster]

The Tap is a remedy that can fix a problem that the weapon system may or may not have at the moment. By discounting or eliminating the Tap you could be sealing your fate. It may have been an unseated magazine, empty chamber, out of battery or a dud round. Logic dictates you execute a remediation that solves all those problems. Hence the Tap then rack. Investigation into the actual cause is not time well spent. Assumption that the magazine is seated could be your last guess ever. The minimal amount of time it takes to perform the Tap is well spent.

Yes. I perhaps wasn’t clear with my earlier example; I don't agree with eliminating the tap. I have had a mag unlock (but not fall) in competition(extended mag catch depressed as I snatched off table in scenario) and during a qual(either I did’nt seat it during a in holster [admin.] reload, or holster/seatbelt depressed catch). In both cases just a slide tug wouldn’t have worked. Personal experience is a motivator. I’ll continue to tap, rack and carry on. Reference the OP: in the dark, tap, rack(flashlight handling if present following Wayne Dobbs recommendations). If that did not solve issue, it becomes situational: cover(present?) and clear/reload, second gun(not often present-now retired), “tactical withdrawal”or blades and blunt instruments...
Off the top of my head, I don’t recall Claude Werner mentioning an instance of stoppage clearances in “civilian” defense(as well as emergency loading). Final thought: decide on some response and PRACTICE it for Mr. Murphy-even if it’s just a dummy round every now and then for your choice of immediate action.

[scjbash]

I don't by any means believe a tap is wrong. When I'm teaching novice shooters I don't even mention the idea of eliminating the tap. I'm personally comfortable with it though. I don't bounce around to different carry guns and have no interest in changing what I'm carrying. I avoid commie states like the plague and it's extremely rare for me to be out of the country so that has no influence on what I do. I understand being ready for everything but the reality is that the chance of me needing a gun, not having mine, getting my hands on another one, and having a stoppage requiring a tap is so astronomically small I'm willing to risk it. As an armed citizen if I'm shooting some asshole it's going to be an anomaly if I'm not using my gun to shoot a criminal in a close range and very fast encounter. It comes down to the chance of that being the moment I have a rare type of stoppage vs training a technique that gets the gun back in play the quickest for the vast majority of them. I think there's a much greater chance of me being shot by said criminal asshole than me needing a tap, so I've made the decision to go with the technique that better addresses that probability.

TANSTAAFL, and one day I may be bleeding out in a gas station parking lot wishing I would have tapped. Realistically I'm more likely to be laying there having a heart attack and wishing I carried aspirin instead of chap stick.

[Erick Gelhaus]

Both entities I teach for use (after Tap, Roll&Rack) Lock, Rip, Rack x3, Reload for the reason Wayne mentions - we know it works across all platforms in use by those we are teaching.

Since competition, matches, etc reared its head in this thread ... shot my first match in a couple decades last weekend. One of my takeways was that having malfunction clearence at an ingrained level was not a thing. Well, at least not among the 25 +/- shooters I was squaded with.

[Jay Cunningham]

I experienced a classic stovepipe today which I instantly cleared with a SMACK ROLL RACK. The only reason that I know it was a stovepipe was because my eyes saw it as I was fixing it -I spent zero time in diagnosis.

I had been instructed in a previous life that immediate action will only make a stovepipe worse. Well, maybe without the inverted roll.

Anywho I don’t know how long it took to fix but was on the order of a blink of an eye.

[Redhat]

I experienced a classic stovepipe today which I instantly cleared with a SMACK ROLL RACK. The only reason that I know it was a stovepipe was because my eyes saw it as I was fixing it -I spent zero time in diagnosis.

I had been instructed in a previous life that immediate action will only make a stovepipe worse. Well, maybe without the inverted roll.

Anywho I don’t know how long it took to fix but was on the order of a blink of an eye.

I've seen it happen many times with AR's but not so much with pistols

[Redhat]

Both entities I teach for use (after Tap, Roll&Rack) Lock, Rip, Rack x3, Reload for the reason Wayne mentions - we know it works across all platforms in use by those we are teaching.

Since competition, matches, etc reared its head in this thread ... shot my first match in a couple decades last weekend. One of my takeways was that having malfunction clearence at an ingrained level was not a thing. Well, at least not among the 25 +/- shooters I was squaded with.

I get the Rack x 3 part but why lock the slide back to reload the next mag? I don't think you specifically mentioned that but I believe it came up somewhere in this thread.

[Erick Gelhaus]

I get the Rack x 3 part but why lock the slide back to reload the next mag? I don't think you specifically mentioned that but I believe it came up somewhere in this thread.

I'm not sure why I'm being asked about it; especially since I do not and did not advocate it. Maybe whoever did can answer.