17 Jan 01

This from a friend at Beretta:

"Why do we do a chamber check every time our pistol is holstered?

A short time ago a Beretta pistol (92F) arrived at the factory from a small police department. It was locked up tight. We could not move the slide, trigger, decocking lever, magazine release, or the takedown lever. Gunsmiths had to use a mallet to field strip the gun. It was loaded.

The officer who was issued the gun discovered the problem when he went to do his twice-yearly qualification.

The chief called us and was angry, because this could have cost the officer his life. We'd done an initial examination and suggested that the officer must have cleaned his gun with contaminated solvent because, as our tech put it, 'It's as if the gun has been drenched in super glue!'

The chief then recalled that the officer in question was going through an unsavory divorce. Sure enough, a subsequent examination revealed that the gun had been glued shut with a strong adhesive in every joint, pin, moving part, etc.

The officer had not checked the condition of his gun since the last time his department qualified six months earlier. So, he was walking around, ON PATROL, with a gun which could not be made to fire for as long as six months!

The good habit of performing a chamber check prior to holstering or putting on the gunbelt would have revealed the problem the next morning!"

/John

17 Jan 01

Follow up from a LEO friend in Wyoming:

"After you take your gun apart, make sure it works after you reassemble it! A friend (Sheriff's deputy) recently detail stripped his series 80 Colt 45 auto. When he put it back together, he mistakenly got the firing pin safety parts in backwards. He then carried the pistol ON DUTY for five months before he discovered it was completely inoperable when he attempted to shoot it during a training exercise!"

Lessons: Check your carry gun daily. Shoot it often!

/John