Ammo feed reliability test

[FunkytownNative]

If this is a silly question excuse me, but I am new to guns.

It seems like the on-deck round in a magazine sits tight while the chambered round is firing and the slide is moving rearward, and doesn't budge until it is picked up by the slide on its return forward. So, is it really necessary to fire so much dollar-a-round-ammo to test compatibility, rather than just emptying the magazine by manually cycling the action?

 

[travistheone]

sometimes the forces put upon the weapon during firing will change important things in the process. Go ahead and save the money yourself, my life is worth test firing as much as is needed to make me confident.

 

[FunkytownNative]

I should have phrased that "why is it necessary" rather than "is it necessary".

 

[geronimo509]

I first manually cycle the slide to check reliability. just make sure you slingshot it forward to get more correct results. However, I then proceed to test fire at least 100 rounds of it to make sure it functions.

As to "why it is necessary" It is necessary because some ammo or guns can be finicky and not work with certain ammo. Therefore if you buy some ammo and start carrying it, it might not be reliable and it could get you KILLED

 

[possum]

welcome to thr. yes manually cycling does have its place and it's uses. but like the above poster said, the violent act of firing, can and does do different things than you can simulate by manually cycling the weapon.

 

[mljdeckard]

Very necessary. Hand-cycling and fire-cycling are very different. A light load might not push hard enough to push the slide back, which would fail to cycle a new round, fail to eject, AND fail to cock the hammer. You wouldn't know this if you hand-cycled to test. If your ejector and extractor are improperly matched or tuned, they may only show it with certain loads. Everything an auto is engineered to do assumes that it is firing full-powered ammo.