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Saw this thread on another forum I frequent, and thought it might be worthwhile to share here. Here is the relevant piece from the original post:
I was at the range today with my brother with my springfield loaded with a new kimber conversion kit. We shot a good bit and I was shooting the converted Springfield at the time. I was trying to count my rounds since the slide doesn't lock back. I went through a magazine when the gun went click and I dropped the mag. I walked back to the shooting table where brother was standing. I laid the gun on the table, hammer forward and no finger near the trigger. I will be honest, I "thought" the gun was cold. I laid it on the table, then the gun went off. After the fact I retraced the scene to the best of my ability. I had a range bag on the the table. the bullet went into the side of the of the bag, bounced off a full coke can in the bag, then hit the zipper of the bag and turned almost a 70 degree angle & then entered my brothers arm. the bullet stopped at the very edge of his elbow.
So, the obvious things to be learned here are 1) gun points downrange at all times, and 2) make the gun safe before setting it down (slide locked back). These are certainly excellent points and it never hurts to be reminded of them. However, my thought when reading this was different.
When I took Defensive Pistol 101 from Rochester Personal Defense, we were taught malfunction clearing. If you pull the trigger and the gun doesn't go bang, you immediately smack the magazine upwards into the gun, rack the slide, and pull the trigger again, commonly known as "tap-rack-bang". Those of you familiar with this idea know that it will fix most common feeding issues, and it is easy to ingrain in your muscle memory. I regularly practice with dummy rounds mixed into my magazines, both to ingrain this behavior as well as to detect if I am flinching.
The relevance here is that if the shooter in the above post had practiced with TRB, and hadn't been trying to count rounds (another tactical bad idea), there would have been a safety benefit as well. The shooter would have pulled the trigger, *click*, and immediately tap-rack-banged. The ejected hangfire would have hit the ground, gone off, and likely not have injured anyone.
In fact, I even remember asking the instructor what would happen if a hangfire was the source of the malfunction and now was on the ground at your feet when it went off. The answer was that without the pressure of the chamber to direct the explosion, the bullet would likely only move a couple of inches, and if anything would only maybe cut your ankle a little, which sure beats not having a functioning weapon during a critical incident.
So, in conclusion, in addition to being tactically beneficial, ingraining proper malfunction clearing into one's training regimen in this case would have also prevented a tragedy.
I was at the range today with my brother with my springfield loaded with a new kimber conversion kit. We shot a good bit and I was shooting the converted Springfield at the time. I was trying to count my rounds since the slide doesn't lock back. I went through a magazine when the gun went click and I dropped the mag. I walked back to the shooting table where brother was standing. I laid the gun on the table, hammer forward and no finger near the trigger. I will be honest, I "thought" the gun was cold. I laid it on the table, then the gun went off. After the fact I retraced the scene to the best of my ability. I had a range bag on the the table. the bullet went into the side of the of the bag, bounced off a full coke can in the bag, then hit the zipper of the bag and turned almost a 70 degree angle & then entered my brothers arm. the bullet stopped at the very edge of his elbow.
So, the obvious things to be learned here are 1) gun points downrange at all times, and 2) make the gun safe before setting it down (slide locked back). These are certainly excellent points and it never hurts to be reminded of them. However, my thought when reading this was different.
When I took Defensive Pistol 101 from Rochester Personal Defense, we were taught malfunction clearing. If you pull the trigger and the gun doesn't go bang, you immediately smack the magazine upwards into the gun, rack the slide, and pull the trigger again, commonly known as "tap-rack-bang". Those of you familiar with this idea know that it will fix most common feeding issues, and it is easy to ingrain in your muscle memory. I regularly practice with dummy rounds mixed into my magazines, both to ingrain this behavior as well as to detect if I am flinching.
The relevance here is that if the shooter in the above post had practiced with TRB, and hadn't been trying to count rounds (another tactical bad idea), there would have been a safety benefit as well. The shooter would have pulled the trigger, *click*, and immediately tap-rack-banged. The ejected hangfire would have hit the ground, gone off, and likely not have injured anyone.
In fact, I even remember asking the instructor what would happen if a hangfire was the source of the malfunction and now was on the ground at your feet when it went off. The answer was that without the pressure of the chamber to direct the explosion, the bullet would likely only move a couple of inches, and if anything would only maybe cut your ankle a little, which sure beats not having a functioning weapon during a critical incident.
So, in conclusion, in addition to being tactically beneficial, ingraining proper malfunction clearing into one's training regimen in this case would have also prevented a tragedy.