Here's the video. The article follows. Hope ya'll enjoy.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu2Oo393nLk[/ame]
If you look at the gunhandling skills commonly taught, the most time-consuming, the most demanding, manipulation has to be those concerned with fixing a 'double feed'. Solving this problem is sometimes referred to as 'Remedial Action' because it is not resolved by applying 'Immediate Action', or 'Tap, Rack, etc'
The classic process for addressing the 'double feed' consists of Lock, Rip, Work, Tap, Rack, Bang.
First, we Lock the slide to the rear to remove the spring tension of the partially compressed recoil spring attempting to return the slide to its' forward position. Next, we Rip the magazine from the weapon, removing the ammunition source, allowing the slide to return fully forward. We work the slide fully forward and rearward to maximize the likelihood of extracting & ejecting the round/brass from the chamber. This manipulation is generally repeated three times. Having cleared the chamber, we fully insert a fresh magazine into the gun [Tap], Rack the slide to chamber a round from the new mag and shoot as indicated by our reassessment of the problem.
A number of years ago a simplified remedial action drill began to make the rounds. There were several variations being put forth with the common theme of skipping the Lock phase and beginning your remedial action by forcefully ripping the mag from the gun. Some guys were teaching that you pull the mag just enough to allow the slide to close, without removing the mag from the mag well, reinsert the mag and continue shooting. This looked very cool & slick but one problem was that, often enough, the top round in the mag would dislodge and become trapped inside the mag well between the closed slide and the magazine. This prevented the mag from being seated, one round could be fired [assuming that the round in the chamber was, in fact, a live round...not normally the case with a spontaneously occurring double feed] and then caused a new stoppage as the loose round wound up in the path of the slide in some odd position. Another variation had the shooter rip the mag completely out of the gun, which allowed the slide to move forward, then reinserted and firing continued. Again, the huge assumption that the round in the chamber was a good one persisted.
Generally, when you have a 'double feed', what you have is a Failure to Extract. In other words, Gun Went Bang and when the slide began moving rearward the extractor failed to remove the fired brass from the chamber. As the slide begins to return to its fully forward position, it attempts to feed a new round from the magazine. Since the empty brass wasn't pulled out & thrown away, the new round can't make it into the chamber. If all you do is remove the magazine, allowing to slide to close, you haven't actually got a live round into the chamber. You've gotten the slide closed, a piece of fired brass in the chamber and live ammo in the magazine.
The short format Remedial Action that I have settled on consists of Rip, Work, Tap, Rack.
First, we Rip the magazine completely out of the weapon. Next, Work the action fully Twice. When working with live ammo or dummy rounds, the stoppage sorts itself easily. When a double feed occurs unexpectedly, very often the round in the chamber is much more solidly in place and may require more work to remove. Letting the slide slam forward the first time will, hopefully, allow the extractor to snap over the cartridge rim. Pulling the slide all the way to the rear, allowing extraction & ejection, is the next step and it is repeated to maximize the likelihood of successfully clearing the chamber prior to insertion of the new magazine. Mag is seated [tap], Slide is Racked.
One Hand gun work is every bit as vital, if not more so, than two hand gun work. We should strive to be as competent with either hand as we are when utilizing both hands. Just as we work right and left hand drawstroke, we should work left and right hand reloads, Immediate Action [Tap, Rack] and Remedial Action. I've written elsewhere about the need for sights that support one hand slide manipulation [metal sights rigidly mounted to the gun & the front face of the rear sight maintaining a 90-degree relationship to the slide].
Now I'll talk about magazine &/or gun design that supports dealing with Remedial Action. If you look at the magazines originally supplied with the S&W M&P pistols, you will see an example of a magazine baseplate that does support the technique. The wide baseplate provides a lip that you can readily hook on a belt to rip the mag out of the gun.
If you look at a factory Glock mag, this is not the case. There is very little space around the bottom of the grip and the magazine baseplate on a Glock 17 or 19. If you insert a Glock 17 mag into a 19, suddenly you have a lot of real estate to work with. Of course, this increases the footprint of the package and a lot of guys will complain about this. Another option is to remove the thin sidewalls/plastic bevel on the bottom of the grip. This will result in exposing somewhere between ¼ and ½ inch more of the bottom of the magazine, allowing the shooter to hook the lip of the baseplate and rip the mag out of the gun.
Some people have said, “How important is it to be able to clear a double feed one hand only?” Granted, it is a very unlikely situation. For most of us, having to use a firearm defensively is a very unlikely situation. That doesn't mean we should ignore that potentiality. If you set up your gear so that it supports an unlikely, but vitally important should you find yourself in need of it, skillset AND it has no negative impact on your primary skillset, why would you opt to not do so?
In the grand old days, Jeff Cooper opined that a defensive pistol needed to be Reliable, have Sights that you could use at speed, a Trigger that you could manage and a Dehorn job so that the gun was not uncomfortable to handle.
I'd modify that slightly by saying that the sights also must support one hand gun use and the mag/grip interface must also support one hand gun work.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu2Oo393nLk[/ame]
If you look at the gunhandling skills commonly taught, the most time-consuming, the most demanding, manipulation has to be those concerned with fixing a 'double feed'. Solving this problem is sometimes referred to as 'Remedial Action' because it is not resolved by applying 'Immediate Action', or 'Tap, Rack, etc'
The classic process for addressing the 'double feed' consists of Lock, Rip, Work, Tap, Rack, Bang.
First, we Lock the slide to the rear to remove the spring tension of the partially compressed recoil spring attempting to return the slide to its' forward position. Next, we Rip the magazine from the weapon, removing the ammunition source, allowing the slide to return fully forward. We work the slide fully forward and rearward to maximize the likelihood of extracting & ejecting the round/brass from the chamber. This manipulation is generally repeated three times. Having cleared the chamber, we fully insert a fresh magazine into the gun [Tap], Rack the slide to chamber a round from the new mag and shoot as indicated by our reassessment of the problem.
A number of years ago a simplified remedial action drill began to make the rounds. There were several variations being put forth with the common theme of skipping the Lock phase and beginning your remedial action by forcefully ripping the mag from the gun. Some guys were teaching that you pull the mag just enough to allow the slide to close, without removing the mag from the mag well, reinsert the mag and continue shooting. This looked very cool & slick but one problem was that, often enough, the top round in the mag would dislodge and become trapped inside the mag well between the closed slide and the magazine. This prevented the mag from being seated, one round could be fired [assuming that the round in the chamber was, in fact, a live round...not normally the case with a spontaneously occurring double feed] and then caused a new stoppage as the loose round wound up in the path of the slide in some odd position. Another variation had the shooter rip the mag completely out of the gun, which allowed the slide to move forward, then reinserted and firing continued. Again, the huge assumption that the round in the chamber was a good one persisted.
Generally, when you have a 'double feed', what you have is a Failure to Extract. In other words, Gun Went Bang and when the slide began moving rearward the extractor failed to remove the fired brass from the chamber. As the slide begins to return to its fully forward position, it attempts to feed a new round from the magazine. Since the empty brass wasn't pulled out & thrown away, the new round can't make it into the chamber. If all you do is remove the magazine, allowing to slide to close, you haven't actually got a live round into the chamber. You've gotten the slide closed, a piece of fired brass in the chamber and live ammo in the magazine.
The short format Remedial Action that I have settled on consists of Rip, Work, Tap, Rack.
First, we Rip the magazine completely out of the weapon. Next, Work the action fully Twice. When working with live ammo or dummy rounds, the stoppage sorts itself easily. When a double feed occurs unexpectedly, very often the round in the chamber is much more solidly in place and may require more work to remove. Letting the slide slam forward the first time will, hopefully, allow the extractor to snap over the cartridge rim. Pulling the slide all the way to the rear, allowing extraction & ejection, is the next step and it is repeated to maximize the likelihood of successfully clearing the chamber prior to insertion of the new magazine. Mag is seated [tap], Slide is Racked.
One Hand gun work is every bit as vital, if not more so, than two hand gun work. We should strive to be as competent with either hand as we are when utilizing both hands. Just as we work right and left hand drawstroke, we should work left and right hand reloads, Immediate Action [Tap, Rack] and Remedial Action. I've written elsewhere about the need for sights that support one hand slide manipulation [metal sights rigidly mounted to the gun & the front face of the rear sight maintaining a 90-degree relationship to the slide].
Now I'll talk about magazine &/or gun design that supports dealing with Remedial Action. If you look at the magazines originally supplied with the S&W M&P pistols, you will see an example of a magazine baseplate that does support the technique. The wide baseplate provides a lip that you can readily hook on a belt to rip the mag out of the gun.
If you look at a factory Glock mag, this is not the case. There is very little space around the bottom of the grip and the magazine baseplate on a Glock 17 or 19. If you insert a Glock 17 mag into a 19, suddenly you have a lot of real estate to work with. Of course, this increases the footprint of the package and a lot of guys will complain about this. Another option is to remove the thin sidewalls/plastic bevel on the bottom of the grip. This will result in exposing somewhere between ¼ and ½ inch more of the bottom of the magazine, allowing the shooter to hook the lip of the baseplate and rip the mag out of the gun.
Some people have said, “How important is it to be able to clear a double feed one hand only?” Granted, it is a very unlikely situation. For most of us, having to use a firearm defensively is a very unlikely situation. That doesn't mean we should ignore that potentiality. If you set up your gear so that it supports an unlikely, but vitally important should you find yourself in need of it, skillset AND it has no negative impact on your primary skillset, why would you opt to not do so?
In the grand old days, Jeff Cooper opined that a defensive pistol needed to be Reliable, have Sights that you could use at speed, a Trigger that you could manage and a Dehorn job so that the gun was not uncomfortable to handle.
I'd modify that slightly by saying that the sights also must support one hand gun use and the mag/grip interface must also support one hand gun work.
