Tap, rack, shoot

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haybaler

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I have to reveal my ignorance. I see a lot of references for the "tap, rack, shoot drill" when encountering a jam or a dud round. Could you all walk me through the drill.
Thanks
 
Tap the bottom of the magazine to make sure it is seated

Rack the slide to chamber a round or clear a dud

Shoot!

Obviously this doesn't work with more serious jams, but it is a good procedure for most minor problems.
 
The mantra isn't common sense but the procedure is. It's seat the mag and rack the slide. I dislike these mantras and acronyms as they complicate a simple procedure. It's like the Army's "SPORTS".
 
Also called "Tap rack bang". Without a doubt somebody'll post how you should verify your target before shoot, however that's pretty obvious.

I thought I'd add that the tap rack bang will get you past dud primers, stovepipes, and stuff like that.

However if after your first T R B, it still won't shoot, it's likely a double feed which gets cleared by ejecting/ pulling the magazine, racking the slide two or three times, reinserting a magazine, rack the slide again (to chamber a round).

I would heartily recommend that you obtain some snap caps in your gun's cartridge and set up some errors. In order to simulate a double feed, you must lock the slide back, drop a snap cap through the loading port into the barrel. Then insert a magazine with a snap cap loaded in it. When you release the slide, you'll have a double feed condition. The obvious advantage of this is that you'll get to practice doing it at home where you can easily find the ejected snap caps, plus if you start by slowly going through the motions without missing a step, you'll develop good gun handling habits that will transition to speedy and safe clearance drills.

At the range you might also try to mix things up a little by having a buddy load a magazine for you. Tell him to put a snap cap in there somewhere without letting you see. When you're shooting you'll get a stoppage, which is A) great clearance drill practice, and B) a tremendously effective way to determine if you pull the gun because of flinching. Just make sure that you paint your snap caps with some very bright paint so that you can find them on the ground afterwards!
 
The correct procedure is;

Tap the magazine

Rack the slide

Assess the threat (are you still justified to shoot)

Shoot if necessary
 
Thanks! That's exactly what I thought and I was doing it anyway. The ones that confuse me are when the slide won't quite go into battery by just a couple of mm's and the gun won't function although everything looks fine. A quick tap on the slide and it's good to go. That's only happened twice with my Ruger P90 and it was caused by crappy ammo.

Thanks for your replies.
 
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