Reverse-feed!

06 June 07

Reverse-feed:

Fortunately, the phenomenon is rare, but I've see it happen spontaneously several dozen times. It happened again last week when we doing a Pistol Course in Pittsburgh, PA. A shooter attempts to rack the slide of his autoloading pistol to the rear, but he gets his support-hand too far forward. As the live round, or empty case, ejects, it hits his hand, flips around, and then drops back into the receiver. As the slide then comes forward, the round,or case, is fed into the chamber backwards, ie: base first!

Of course, the slide subsequently fails go to into battery, and our " Tap-Rack-Resume" technique avails us nothing. Even our extended stoppage-reduction technique is not efficacious, as running the slide back and forth simply pounds the reversed/wedged case further into the chamber than it was at the start of the incident.

The result is a pistol that is out of action, at least for the short term. The wedged case will have to be pounded back out, via a range-rod, from the muzzle end. It can surely be done, but not quickly.

Why even bring this up? Because it bolsters our argument for routinely carrying a backup-gun. Most "stoppages" are easily and quickly reduced via our " emergency-action" procedure, and it is taught in a similar manner by nearly every instructor I know.

A "stoppage" is, or course, an unscheduled interruption in the normal " cycle-of-operation" of our weapon. However, students need to know that, although most common stoppages are easily reduceable, there are some, like a reverse-feed, that are not and will adamantly refuse to be fixed by any stoppage-reduction technique that is commonly taught.

For these, admittedly rare, occurrences, only a back-up gun will get you back into the fight quickly.

Who thinks he needs to carry a gun, probably needs to carry two!

/John