A student in a CCW class if they could see my Wilson CQB, I drew it removed magazine, racked out the one in the chamber,and checked chamber, handed it to the student muzzle down, he then racked the slide, (from where I was standing, I could see the chamber and it was still empty) and dried fired pistol, he racked the slide again, but this time when he pressed the trigger it went "BANG" instead of click. Well we all jumped, but he did have it pointed at the ground it was nothing more than that.
So what happened? I'm pretty sure when I removed magazine, the top round peeled off, and was laying in the mag-well, and since we were keeping the muzzle down, it just laid there, after being racked a couple of times the round slid from the mag-well into the chamber, and at least "safe direction" saved us from anything bad happening.
After the class left I did try to repeat it, but couldn't get a round to peel out of magazine, and by just laying the round in mag-well, I couldn't get quite get the angle for it to "feed" into chamber, in 6 tries, I only got it to slide across the chamber, looking like a stovepipe. I guess the student was just holding it at an angle that allowed it to shimmy into the chamber
Sort of a perfect storm, but one that will not be repeated
9 comments:
Thanks for alerting us to the possibility. I never saw one like that. It's a good reminder that all four rules are important, all of the time.
I was showing another Instructor what happen, and using dummy rounds, did get it to repeat today
That is freakin' weird.
it's good practice to check the chamber and mag well!
That would have prevented this!
When I was taught how to verify that a semi-auto is unloaded, I was taught to visually and physically (with pinkie finger) check the chamber, and to also look down through the mag well to verify that the magazine was indeed not there and that no rounds were left behind. It was stressed that no gun was verified clear unless this whole check was completed, all at once (not separately, like "oops, forgot to check the mag well, I'll go back and check just that").
For years I thought that this was the standard procedure and that everyone was taught this. In fact, it's the procedure that I teach when showing a new shooter the ropes. I wonder if the person teaching me had seen this sort of thing happen and modified his training method to head off this kind of thing.
Certainly, this was probably a one-in-a-million occurrence. Thanks for having the guts to admit that a gun that you personally cleared had an AD. A lot of people wouldn't want to admit that. This way we can all learn without having to see this first hand.
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Thanks for sharing your experience with this.
I make it a rule to always in a safe direction lift the handgun to point up, making sure that the round is ejected, and that anything that could be in the chamber or mag well will fall out.
Holy Crap! Been shooting and defense carrying since 1969, and HAVE had an AD (thankfully with the muzzle in a safe, downrange, direction), but I never, ever, have looked into the mag well. I may have seen daylight coming through with the slide locked back, but never thought to really make the effort to be certain. THANK YOU for this tip. It matters not how long you've been actively involved in the shooting sports. You can, and should, ALWAYS know that your learning is never done.
Yep 99.999% of the time the gun is pointed out or slightly up, in this instance, due to proximity of others, had kept the muzzle pointed down, and the student kept the muzzle pointed down, so it was a learning experience, that you have to be watchful for even the odd things that might affect safety
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