Clearing jams.

[Working Man]

How do you practice clearing jams?
Do you use a dud round mixed in with the regular ones? Say one or two
mixed in each 10 or 12 rnd magazine and 3 or 4 magazines set up that way?
Would that be a good way to go about doing it?

A few threads here have got me thinking I should start practicing. Although
my CCW has never jammed, it still could.

[Vern Humphrey]

Yes. Almost everyone practices clearing malfunctions. Having a dummy round in your ammo box is a good idea -- you never know when you'll have a FTF that way. But you should practice other clearing drills, as well.

[Working Man]

But you should practice other clearing drills, as well

Ok, what sort of drills am I looking for? I am a standard range fixture
but never really thought about life or death drills. I very rarely eeeevvvver
have a jam of any kind so I never gave much thought. And my CCW has
never jammed.

I have practiced drawing my CCW and quick reload, what other types of
drills should I do?

[Preacherman]

I'll move this over to the Strategies & Tactics forum, where training issues are more often discussed. I'm sure many of our instructor members (and those who've trained under them) will help with suggestions.

[Working Man]

Preacherman, thanks.

[Vern Humphrey]

Ok, what sort of drills am I looking for? I am a standard range fixture
but never really thought about life or death drills. I very rarely eeeevvvver
have a jam of any kind so I never gave much thought. And my CCW has
never jammed.

I have practiced drawing my CCW and quick reload, what other types of
drills should I do?

The three most common drills are reloading, tap-rack-bang, and stovepipe.

Reloading you're already doing. Tap-rack-bang is immediate action for any stoppage without an obvious reason -- smack the magazine to seat it firmly, rack the slide, and shoot. This would apply to a failure to fire, failure to feed, or a failure to eject.

A stovepipe is an ejected case caught in the ejection port -- clear with the index finger of the weak hand and shoot.

Stoppages that cannot be cleared by these drills probably require at least partially stripping the gun.

[Clusive]

Here is a good drill to practice in case of a double feed:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu2.htm

Systems Check:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu1.htm

[pax]

Load your magazines with a couple of dummy rounds mixed in with your regular ammunition. Mix the magazines up so you don't know which positions the dummy rounds are in and aren't expecting them. Then go practice whatever kind of shooting you usually practice.

When you come to a "click" instead of a "bang," immediately:

Tap the magazine base to make sure it is seated in the gun

Rack the slide to put a new round into the chamber, and

Assess the target to see if you need to pull the trigger again. If you do, then BANG the next shot right out. (Don't forget the 'assess' part, because in real life, stuff can change just that fast and you don't want to shoot someone who has run away or surrendered -- or fire when an innocent has stepped in front of you.)

***

To practice double-feeds, load a magazine with one dummy round. Lock the slide back. Carefully place one dummy round into the chamber of the gun, then insert the dummy-round magazine. Gently lower the slide until both dummy rounds are jammed in double feed configuration.

To clear the double feed:

Tap, Rack, Assess. It won't work, but do not skip this step. You need to be able to clear malfs in the dark, without looking and a TRB is your diagnostic tool.

Strip the magazine (you may need to lock the slide back on your gun first; try it both ways to see.) Drop it into a pocket.

Rack, rack, rack, rack. Do this fast and hard; you are clearing the jammed round out and it might take more than a couple of racks. If the gun jams up hard (unlikely in practice but utterly possible in real life), hold the slide firmly with your weak hand and wham your opened strong hand into the grip of the gun.

Load a fresh magazine.

Rack again to put a new round in the chamber.

Assess and BANG.

***

Don't forget to practice smooth reloads while you're at it. Being able to do a smooth reload will let you clear a double feed a lot faster.

***

Once you can do all that pretty fast and pretty smoothly, practice doing it all while moving. You don't have to move fast at first (that'll come), but don't let your feet stop while you clear the malf or reload.

HTH

pax

[RyanM]

You may want to try loading an empty case in the magazine somewhere, more often than you use snap caps. As long as you're using good quality ammo from a reputable manufacturer (which means no WWB), the chances of a jam are much higher than the chances of a failure to fire.

If you're using a gun that feeds empties, like a 1911, squish the mouth of the case with pliers. Or you could modify some snap caps somehow so that they won't feed. Or if you can get them to where they'll only feed some of the time, you'd have no idea which malfunction to expect, in addition to when it will be.

[Lupinus]

I don't have to set up practice for this.

My mauser constantly feeds wrong, I get one mallfunction each time I put the magazine in...somewhere it there it will usualy screw up.

And that gun is a pain in the arse. Little button to drop the mag? Nooooo. There is a latch on the bottom that hooks under the mag. Lever to unlock the slide? Ha! The only way to unlock it is to put the magazine in.

The mag part bothers me the most, it is literaly impossible to take the magazine out and keep it pointed compeetly down range.

Its a nice gun but we have a love hate relationship.

....Guess there is a reason they lost the war lol.

[beerslurpy]

I dont think I've experience a jam on the AK or Saiga yet. I honestly expected the 12 gauge to choke a few times, but it just keeps spewing empty shells out the side and bruising my shoulder.

I have experienced one jam on the kel-tec P3AT that took a second to clear and a few jams on the IMI Jericho (baby eagle) that took the same time. Always a FTF. Overall reliable guns though.

I shot another guy's M4gery and it jammed all the time and often took minutes to restore to functionality. Yay for Olympic ammo.

My old 10/22 went through thousands of rounds and never jammed.

None of the manually operated guns ever fail either lol hidden advice. I personally think a revolver would make a great self defense gun if you didnt want to worry about jamming or kabooming.

[Navy joe]

The key for me is to randomly load the mags the night before the range session or have someone else load them. Snap caps just tell me when I am flinching and that the gun didn't go bang. TRB works everytime. I prefer random fired cases, you never know what you will get especially when you load 2-3 empty cases in sequence. Some feed, some jam horribly. Another option I have thought of and not tried is to modify a magazine to not work well. bugger up the follower, clip the spring too short, keep it clearly marked for training. I do keep several glock mags that no longer lock the slide back due to follower damage, they have some training value. A recommendation is to practice more than one method, especially one-handed. What I don't do because most of my life is on a square public range is to practice getting the hell out of Dodge whilst you fix your gun. Something to think about since I don't like the stand there and bleed option.

Another thought is do you teach yourself to automatically clear a malfunction? This may be good, gun games have taught me to clear and move on. A better idea might be to learn to assess first, then clear. Not assess the gun, you already know it didn't go bang. Assess the rest of your life. What is the threat, how close, cover, BUG, other force options? Should you even bother trying to clear the gun, or clear while moving to cover? Get a different weapon, or just close the distance and beat your enemy with your defunct gun? A lot of questions I don't have answers for but think about.

[NMshooter]

When I let my .22lr conversion for my 1911 get really dirty I get to practice clearing all the types of malfunctions...:o

Repetition is important, you should be familiar enough that when a malfunction occurs your response is immediate.

Be more concerned with getting the firearm back up and running than beating the clock. If you go too fast and fumble you have made things worse.

Have a second firearm and practice transitioning to it, particularly with a long gun as primary. This takes some practice to find what works. Do not be surprised if you end up with one of those "tactical" slings, though you can make do with a two point sling and a lot of practice.

Above all keep going! Standing still and doing nothing is certainly worse than anything else you could be doing.

[nfl1990]

You probaly would not wish to do this in practice, but dropping the primary maybe the fastest way to transition.

[Dave R]

You probaly would not wish to do this in practice, but dropping the primary maybe the fastest way to transition.Probably IS worth practicing if you carry a BUG.

[Working Man]

A lot of good information, thanks all.
Seems I should put together a few different scenarios and regularly rotate
through them. Sounds like 3 or 4 magazines with a mix of live, dud, and jam
rnds should fit the bill while at the range, each time at the range as sort of
a warm up. I can practice clearing duds and jams at home just to have the
motion down pat and practice moving (can't do that at my range).

pax, thanks for the step by step on the double feed, I hadn't thought
about that one.

Probably IS worth practicing if you carry a BUG.

I can get an air soft of my CCW or close enough to practice drop and switch.

[Trebor]

I personally think a revolver would make a great self defense gun if you didnt want to worry about jamming or kabooming.
.

Nothing is perfect. I'm a big fan of revolvers for CCW. I carry one myself. But, they are mechanical devices and they can, and sometimes do, fail.

The good news is that I think they are generally less likely to malfunction then a semi-auto. The bad news is that when a revolver fails, it can fail HARD, to the point where you won't be able to get the gun back in the fight.

The first CCW class I taught I had a student with a Colt Peacekeeper (large frame .357 DA revolver, similiar to a Anaconda, but with a less expensive finish). Early on, she started having problems getting the empties out of the gun. After a few relays it got so bad she wasn't able to get the cylinder opened. I managed to open it, shook out some powder and crud, and let her back on the line. Two relays later it happened again, and I had to pull her off the line for the day. She had borrowed the gun from her dad and I don't think he'd cleaned it first. I attribute the malfunctions to unburned powder and debris in the works and probably under the extractor star.

In another class I had a student with a Smith Model 19 that started "skipping" chambers. He'd only get off 3 or 4 shots from a full cylinder of 6. It was a timing issue. I've had the same problem myself with a Model 28 that was shoot loose.

I've also seen revolvers fail to fire because the owner did a homemade "action job," usually by loosening the strain screw on a S&W, and the hammer didn't have enough energy to pop the primer.

I'm not trying to degrade revolvers here. Like I said, I think they are great choice for civilian self defense use, but they are mechanical objects and they can fail. You can reduce the probability of failure by keeping the gun clean and in good mechanical condition and by not attempting any home "gunsmithing" if you aren't qualified to muck about in the guts of the gun.

Even then, you should have a plan for failure. There is no "tap - rack -BANG" for revolvers, so the plan might be as simple as a second gun or the realization that you're going to have to go hand-to-hand or run away.

[Trebor]

Btw, as an addenum to my last post: I've seen more semi-auto's fail in my classes then revolvers, by a wide margin. Most of the guns that malfunctioned would experience multiple malfunctions by the end of the class. Some of the students got pretty decent at clearing drills by the end. At least two or three times that I remember I had to pull semi-auto's from the line because the student couldn't get them to run consistently. The worst was a Makarov that was constantly double feeding and stovepiping with Wolf 9x18 ammo.

On more then one occasion, the only way we could clear a jam was by running a range rod down the barrel from the muzzle end. You aren't likely to have a range rod with you in a fight (unless your Ayoob - He carries one as a key fob).

[JamisJockey]

The best way to practice these things is with a buddy, who at random will call out
"Malfunction" or "Jam" for you. Go through the process of Tap, Rack, Bang, or clearing an imagined stovepipe.

[UnknownSailor]

I was taught that a jam is anything you need tools to fix. Everything else is a malfunction.

Tap-rack-bang is immediate action. First thing you do. If that doesn't fix your problem, you have a Malfunction, and remedial action is called for. See pax's descripton for a double feed for a proper Remedial action.
One other thing.
I was taught to roll the ejection port down when doing an immediate action, so that any stovepipe falls out of the gun. Tap, rack and roll, bang if needed.
With the AR series platform, it's push-pull, rack, bang if needed.

[cracked butt]

Word of caution-

Tap rack bang is the right way to clean a jam or malfunction. However, if you are just plinking away at the range and you pull the trigger, the hammer falls, and it doesn't go bang, you might have a hangfire. If you unlock the breach by pulling back the slide and the cartridge goes off at the same time, you are going to be in for a world of hurt. Better to point it down range for a few seconds first unless you are in a real hurry- such as if someone were shooting back at you. If its a FTF or FTE as most often the case, by all means use the Tap, rack, bang drill.

[Bob F.]

Navy Joe: good post.

If you're a reloader: work up a load that fire, bullet easily clears the barrell, but just weak enough to NOT cycle the action. Toss a few in with the range ammo. BUT, make darned SURE they're not squibs, i.e.:bullet lodges in barrell.

Stay safe.
Bob

[chopinbloc]

With the AR series platform, it's push-pull, rack, bang if needed.


the immediate action the army teaches for the m16/m4 can be remembered by the acronym SPORTS

Slap the bottom of the magazine
Pull the charging handle
Observe the ejection port for an ejected round/case
Release the charging handle
Tap the forward assist
Squeeze the trigger