2nd strike capability?

[RobMoore]

I have never had a semi auto with "second strike" capability fail to fire on the first time, and suddenly work on the second without removing the round and refeeding it. The round is either a dud, or there is something wrong with the gun, such as it being slightly out of battery. TAP-RACK fixes both of these. Simply clicking again changes nothing about the situation.

You would be foolish to train yourself to try "clicking" again as a failure drill, hoping that someday it will work when it is your last round, which you won't know anyway, because people don't count rounds successfully in gunfights.

If you come upon the odds of
#1 getting into a gunfight
#2 going through ALL your ammunition except that last round
#3 having that last round be viable, yet fail to fire on the first click
I think its safe to say step #4 isn't going to be the round firing on the second click. Your luck has shown otherwise.

 

[Sam1911]

I think it is important and I'm tired of manufacturer's calling autos without second strike capability DAO. It is not double action anything unless pulling the trigger cocks AND releases the striker/firing pin/hammer. You don't want to have to tap and rack if the only ammo you have left in your gun is the last live round that you just ejected onto the ground.

I really don't get it.

1) It is established that, if you are in a gun fight, you WON'T be counting rounds. Ergo, you will not realize that your dud is the last round in the mag.

2) It is established that Tap-Rack-Bang is the BEST response to ALL autoloader malfunctions because it clears the highest number of different malfs. quickly, getting you back in the game. SO, that is what you are going to try first.

Ergo: If you find a dud, and you Tap-Rack-... and the gun goes to slide lock, that round is on the ground ANYWAY, before your brain has time to ponder the situation. So a second strike is irrelevant.

As AK103K says, you either reload or, failing the forethought to have brought another mag, you move to another plan.

How is this so confusing?

-Sam

 

[Ben86]

It is established that Tap-Rack-Bang is the BEST response to ALL autoloader malfunctions

Not so, if it is a double feed it will just make it worse. I still believe in taking a quick glance at your gun to identify the problem is best. Perhaps not possible in all situations, but I don't think it should be taught to never bother looking, just tap rack bang it back into action.

 

[Jeff F]

Need second strike capability, carry a revolver.

 

[Sam1911]

Ben86, please quote my entire line if you want to use part of what I said as an example. It may be important. In this case, it is:

It is established that Tap-Rack-Bang is the BEST response to ALL autoloader malfunctions because it clears the highest number of different malfs. quickly, getting you back in the game.

It also won't fix a broken firing pin, a bent mag lip, a broken hammer strut, or a large number of other problems. But, for the most common set of problems that an otherwise proved functional gun might experience, it takes care of a great number of them.

And, if your gun fails to extract and tries to feed a fresh round on top of the spent case (I assume this is what you meant by "double-feed" ... I've never seen a handgun try to strip two rounds out of the mag at the same time), at worst you're back where you started and can "Strip, Rack, Reload, Rack, Bang."

Or were you going to explain how cycling the trigger and "second-striking" would help you out if your gun fails to extract / "double-feeds"? If so, wow! I need to learn that technique!

-Sam

 

[RobMoore]

Ben: Tap Rack is a primary, or immediate action to clear the gun. I've seen it work for certain types of malfunctions that I thought were only clearable using the secondary, or remedial action. I set up students guns to do this all the time. Most of the time they do have to perform secondary, but not every time. Use Tap Rack first, then go to remedial if necessary.

By secondary, I mean removal of the magazine and cycling of the gun. That is the typical method being taught.

I prefer to lock it open first, because a) that takes most of the pressure off the magazine and makes removing it easier, and b) allows the obstruction to fall free once the magazine is removed. Most of the time actually cycling the gun isn't necessary when you lock it to the rear first. Lock (the gun open), Pull (the magazine out), Look (that the gun is clear), Load (the magazine).

Bang, bang, bang, click (or nothing): Tap Rack, still nothing: Lock Pull Look Load.

During that "look" phase, if I see a spent casing failed to extract, I just cycle the gun once or twice and move on from there. I actually had to do that at on a stage at the Blackwater IDPA Shootout this past fall.

 

[Ben86]

Sorry Sam1911 I'll be sure to quote your whole contradictory sentence next time.

I see the usefulness in the TRB drill, but my point is that I don't see it as an excuse to not look at the gun first and see what the problem is, as some people seem teach. Also, from what I can tell most people pull the trigger, or at least attempt to, multiple times before realizing there is a problem. Hence my argument is that second strike capability, while not crucial, is good to have.

 

[RobMoore]

I'd say those "most people" need more practice, not "second strike" capable guns.

The biggest error I see with people is stopping to stare at the gun in wonder when it doesn't work. They pull the trigger, click (or nothing), they stop, bring it down to chest level, and look at it.

Its almost a joke me and my fellow instructors have. We teach "Tap, Rack, Bang", and when people who have been out of training more than a few months have a malfunction they perform

Stop -what you're doing
Stare - at the gun, as if to say "why aren't you working"
Raise - your hand, to tell the instructor behind you "hey, stop the course, my gun jammed"

sometime they add a Smack the side of the gun for good measure.

 

[Ben86]

I would love to see someone smack the side of a gun in bewilderment to try and get it working properly, that's hilarious!

Do you teach your students to glance at the gun before the TRB drill, or to look at the gun if the TRB drill does not clear the malfunction.?

 

[RobMoore]

I teach a quick glance as you bring it in to the "work space" to see if it is out of battery, or obstructed (stovepipe?), hopefully recognizing when tap-rack is appropriate, and when other clearance will be needed.

 

[LiveLife]

How about this to consider?

Tap-Rack-Bang is an integral part of our match shooting to quickly clear most semi-auto problems (FTE/double feed requires more).

You can do Tap-Rack-Bang on ANY semi-auto, INCLUDING the semi-auto pistols with the double(multi)-strike trigger. So, having the double(multi)-strike trigger is an additional feature you can choose not to use. I have a PT145Pro with DA/SA and multi-strike trigger and I treat the trigger like my other Glocks.

If Glock offered external safety option in addition to the internal safeties, you could choose to use or not use the external safety. I just view the multiple-strike trigger option as another feature. I have never used the accessory rails on my pistols, but I don't hate them. It's another feature.

 

[Sam1911]

Sorry Sam1911 I'll be sure to quote your whole contradictory sentence next time.

Excuse me? I find no contradiction in the sentence I wrote. Enlighten me.

I see the usefulness in the TRB drill, but my point is that I don't see it as an excuse to not look at the gun first and see what the problem is, as some people seem teach.

First of all, looking at the gun isn't very useful. It can tell you if you have a stovepipe or a failure-to-feed or such (NOW can we go ahead and TRB?), but it can't tell you the whether your hammer fell on a dud round or the mag wasn't seated fully and no round was chambered. You look and you see the gun is in battery and the hammer is down. What do you do next? Second strike? On a dud? Great. Maybe it goes off. Maybe it doesn't. (NOW can we go ahead and TRB?) Or did it fall on an empty chamber because the mag was slightly unseated? (NOW can we go ahead and TRB?)

So I suppose you should really take more than a second to peer at the gun and figure out what went wrong. Turn it over and look at the mag. Is it seated? Looks like it. Well, then -- I probably have a dud. Let's roll the dice on that again! Now, what were we doing here? Oh, right, I'm in the middle of a gunfight!



If you practice malfunction clearing the way that most accomplished shooters and trainers appear to teach it, there is no time wasted in looking at the gun and trying to comprehend WHY it stopped. Who cares WHY it stopped? All you need to comprehend is "click." The response to "click" is Tap-Rack-Bang. That gets your next shot downrange fastest -- in the majority of failure cases.

It doesn't matter if the round was a dud -- Tap-Rack-Bang.
It doesn't matter if the mag wasn't seated -- Tap-Rack-Bang.
It doesn't matter if the round was out-of-spec and the gun didn't go into battery fully -- Tap-Rack-Bang.

And so on. The beauty of the system is that you can do this MUCH faster than you can do a visual inspection and assess which solution to apply. (You're probably going to disagree with that, which is fine, but those who study these things say it is true.) You don't take your focus off the threat. You don't stop and ponder why your gun stopped. You just Tap-Rack-Bang, running on reflexive training.

If the malfunction is something more serious -- like a failure-to-extract, or as you called it a "double feed," -- then you will know quickly and can move to a secondary corrective action as we've already covered. If it's a broken part or other serious gun failure, you'll need a change of tactics. Again, clicking away at a "second-strike" trigger mechanism does nothing for any of these.

Also, from what I can tell most people pull the trigger, or at least attempt to, multiple times before realizing there is a problem.

This is a failure of training and experience. It is simply an incorrect habit allowed to develop. It should be weeded out just like jerking the trigger or anticipating recoil.

Hence my argument is that second strike capability, while not crucial, is good to have.

So, as you've conceded that you understand why TRB is generally the most appropriate response, and we've covered why looking at the gun is an unwise use of precious fractions of a second, so you're left defending the second-strike as a wing-and-a-prayer hope for folks with poor habits and training.

-Sam

 

[Sam1911]

I teach a quick glance as you bring it in to the "work space" to see if it is out of battery, or obstructed (stovepipe?), hopefully recognizing when tap-rack is appropriate, and when other clearance will be needed.

Rob, as noted above, I don't think even this glance is appropriate. Keep focus on the target/threat. TRB. It works. ALMOST always. If it DOESN'T work, move to STRIP-RACK-LOAD-RACK-BANG. If THAT doesn't work...today is not your day.

-Sam

 

[BullfrogKen]

I admit, I must retract an earlier statement of mine.

I've never seen such a feature talked up outside of a company's product literature and advertising, or lauded in the gun writer's article . . . which just happens to appear among pages and pages of gun advertising.

I must also now include the internet.


Amazing how susceptible some are to good marketing . . . .


Still waiting for someone who thinks this is such a good idea to point to towards the school, academy, department, or other well-respected source where he learned it. So far the sources are:

the manufacturer's marketing,
gun writers
and "well I think it's a good idea even if no one else does."

 

[Girodin]

There is a reason no reputable instructor teaches the pull the trigger again method. Tap rack bang is the correct response to getting a click. Pulling the trigger again is time wasted and unlikely to produce a bang. It is unlikely to produce a bang because a light primer strike is only one possible cause (and a pretty dang rare one with a proper gun and decent ammo) of the click. Even if it is the culprit there is a very good chance that a second pull of the trigger wont set it off.

What happens if your other hand has become useless and you're not able tap RACK and bang?

And that right there tells you everything you need to know about the knowledge and training of the person advocating pulling the trigger again (which with all likely hood will produce more clicks). Doing a one handed tap rack bang is a pretty basic skill. Anyone remotely competent with their gun can preform it. It probably takes about a second to do a one handed TRB. It is shocking to me that people can feel the need to carry guns but not the need to learn how to properly use them.

 

[LiveLife]

TRB. It works. ALMOST always. If it DOESN'T work, move to STRIP-RACK-LOAD-RACK-BANG. If THAT doesn't work...today is not your day.

"...today is not your day"??? No, No, No!!! That's when you reach for the BACK UP gun.

Never give up ...

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

Failures to fire, absent a major mechanical problem with the gun, are almost invariably from a dud round. It is very unlikely that such a round is going to go off the second time, either. I've taught myself to shuck the dud round and feed a new one, so "second strike" means little to me. The only time it has ever worked was with a Ruger Old Army (a cap-and-ball revolver) where it took two strikes on each cap to seat them firmly on the nipples so they would fire. (I solved this by going from a #10 to a #11 cap.)

 

[Ben86]

Excuse me? I find no contradiction in the sentence I wrote. Enlighten me.

It is established that Tap-Rack-Bang is the BEST response to ALL autoloader malfunctions because it clears the highest number of different malfs.

This statement seemed contradictory to me because how can a drill be the best response to ALL when it works for MOST? I just don't like "one size fits all" responses to any situation. I prefer to identify the problem and act accordingly, so I still believe that a quick glance is the way to go. We can agree to disagree on this one. This has been an interesting debate, but I hate to high jack this thread.

 

[LiveLife]

I prefer to identify the problem and act accordingly, so I still believe that a quick glance is the way to go.

That would work IF there was sufficient lighting to SEE the chamber/ramp/round/magazine.

Our range master made us do our clearing drills with our eyes closed to imitate low/no light situations. Regardless of firearm used, it was tap, rack, bang - if no bang, lock slide, drop mag, clear/check chamber, replace mag/tap, rack, bang. He often made his SWAT training teams do their room clearing drills with low light/almost no light to duplicate building losing electricity/power.

 

[dfjaws]

Need second strike capability, carry a revolver.

Or this...

 

[Sam1911]

Excuse me? I find no contradiction in the sentence I wrote. Enlighten me.

It is established that Tap-Rack-Bang is the BEST response to ALL autoloader malfunctions because it clears the highest number of different malfs.

This statement seemed contradictory to me because how can a drill be the best response to ALL when it works for MOST? I just don't like "one size fits all" responses to any situation. I prefer to identify the problem and act accordingly, so I still believe that a quick glance is the way to go. We can agree to disagree on this one. This has been an interesting debate, but I hate to high jack this thread.

TRB is the correct response to ALL autoloader malfunctions because in a gun fight you shouldn't be taking the time to analyze the situation and identify the problem. TRB is THE first response because it will deal with MOST problems in the shortest amount of time.

You don't like "one size fits all" responses, but that's what works the FASTEST the MOSTEST. Tap-Rack-Bang and you've just solved out-of-battery, unseated mag, dud round, bad primer, out of spec round, stove-pipe jam, and a variety of other variants.

As I've pointed out, staring at the gun DOESN'T tell you much. It really DOESN'T help. At best, it will help you understand WHY you should TRB...but we already knew that. (Hey, look, the mag's out. Hey, look, stovepipe. Hey, look, the gun's not in battery. Etc. Etc.) Or it confuses the issue by showing you that the hammer's down and the action is in battery which doesn't tell you WHAT the problem is. Could be a dud. Could be an empty chamber. Now I could snap that hammer again, but there's a vanishingly small chance that it will accomplish anything. GEE, BETTER TRB!

Yeah, it could be a failure to extract ("double feed"). That's pretty rare in a tested, functional, defensive gun. And if that's the ONE thing you're going to stop the gunfight and look for, then you're training for the least likely circumstance, to the detriment of your speed in all of the other, much more common, circumstances.

Who cares why? Don't glance. Don't analyze. Just TRB and go.

This has been thought through and tested by far better "gunnie" minds than me, and is taught by every trainer I've heard of.

-Sam

 

[RobMoore]

That is the first time I've heard "Mostest" used in a sentence since happy days. Bravo.

 

[AK103K]

TRB is the correct response to ALL autoloader malfunctions because in a gun fight you shouldn't be taking the time to analyze the situation and identify the problem.

Like it or dont, this is the correct answer.

If you dont understand that, then I think you need to critically, and realistically, reevaluate your priorities.

If you still want to argue that doing something other than a TRB is the correct course, then your going to have to provide something a little more substantial than just your opinion on the matter, or this will just go endlessly on.


Hmmm, I wonder if I can get a federal grant to study this? Its got to be worth a couple of mil, dont you think? Hell, two thirds of the study is already done here.

 

[Zerodefect]

Time out?

Do revolvers really have a second strike capability?? Don't they just move to the next chamber when you pull the trigger again? (<-semiauto guy)

What if its allready an empty chamber, then you have to go all the way around right?

 

[RobMoore]

Yeah, and I've seen IDPA revolver shooters fail to fire the 4th or 5th round in and have to click all the way around again. That normally isn't an ammo problem, but a faulty gun that has been tinkered with to lighten the trigger press. I don't know why they don't just go to the reload, but I don't shoot SSR/ESR.