Wow, haven't heard the term hangfire for forever. Never witnessed one, in the Academy setting where each cadet fires about 850 to 1000 rounds, or out.

The "wait for 30 seconds" routine doesn't fit into modern immediate actions wherein the gun is immediately addressed and gotten back into the fight.

Here's an issue: We fight like we train. If your gun goes click and you wait 30 seconds, are you training for the range, or training for self defense?

In a gunfight, the immediate action drill is to rack and fire again, no waiting. A specific pistol may have the ability to recock on the trigger pull to try again, which is another immediate action to take. That feature was discussed online years ago for that ability.

Waiting 30 seconds for a hangfire while taking rounds? Not so much. I recently was firing 22 year old PMC, and had three non fires in the first magazine. P365's dont recock on the trigger pull, so it was a slo mo rack and refire. I picked up the rounds after the magazine was empty, the primers were dented, never even thought about a hangfire until I read this thread.

The frequency of non fires is much higher to hangfires, and your training intent on the range is your choice. How many stories of a hangfire going off laying on the ground do we hear? I never have. Are we getting hangfires from hot soaking the cartridge while waiting it out?

A “cook-off” is when a cartridge discharges because it is left in a chamber that is hot enough to ignite the powder without action of the primer. They won’t occur except with very unusual shooting activities. I therefore believe they have no bearing on how a hangfire is handled.

But to reiterate, I also believe that the “30 second” rule is inappropriate if shooting or training for any serious purpose. If we have a misfire, keep the gun pointed in a safe direction and if we can’t wait, clear the malfunction as quickly as possible. And don’t shoot Joe-Bob’s (or anyone else’s) reloads.

My biggest concern about immediate action philosophy is not hangfires (which like many others here I have never experienced or even observed with modern ammunition, and also a round hang-firing after being ejected from a semi-auto is far less concerning than one discharging in an indexed cylinder of a revolver), but rather squibs. I have seen and experienced those, both with reloads and factory ammo, and if we train people to tap-rack-ready (which let's be honest, is basically tap-rack-fire in a range environment) mindlessly every time they experience a malfunction, we're potentially setting them up to have a gun blow up in their hand.

I agree that we need to train to bring a gun back into action as quickly as possible after a malfunction, and in a real world gunfight the immediacy of the situation trumps the safety concern of squibs or hangfires, no question. If you're taking rounds and your gun goes down, you need to get it back in action and put lead on target as quickly as possible, otherwise you're dead. But in a range environment, even one dedicated to serious training, the safety of the shooter takes a higher priority, IMO.

I was shooting with another cop buddy one time when he had a squib. He's a very knowledgeable shooter and reloader, but he's also been a cop his entire adult life, and his training is all LE based. He of course did the tactically correct thing and immediately jacked in another round and pulled the trigger. He should have gone out and bought a lottery ticket, because that second round was another squib. He realized something was wrong after that one, so we pulled the barrel and determined it was obstructed. It was pretty sobering when we got a rod and punched a bullet out, then realized there was still another one in there.

I still teach and practice the immediate action drill, as I believe it's important, and absolutely the correct course of action in a real life gunfight. But IMO we also have to use our heads and make informed decisions about what we're doing on the range. I talk over squibs as part of my intro to firearms class, show pictures, and explain causes, outcomes, and symptoms. And I tell them that if they feel something like that on the range, STOP. IMO it's important to recognize what your gun is doing and why, and be able to react appropriately...not for the real-life gunfight where you're going to do whatever it takes to get back into action as quickly as possible, but for safety on the range. "Train like you fight" has it's limits...we don't train without eye or ear protection, or with live people downrange...we shouldn't throw our diagnostic brains out the window entirely in the interest of speed, either.

With the current ammo situation, I expect that we're going to see more malfunctions. I saw a lot the last time this happened, as I believe QC went downhill with the increased volume of production. I haven't seen enough factory ammo this time around to know if the same issue is present or not, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

I have never experienced a hangfire in any gun I own since starting in 1962. Nor have I witnessed one over 25 years with about 2,500 students that have taken our courses. Nor have I ever witnessed one in my large SD pistol group that shoots weekly.

Having said that, it might be more likely in a rimfire than centerfire. Regardless, I'd leave the gun safely pointed downrange for a few minutes before clearing/diagnosing. If you have one, I'd also avoid buying lottery tickets for at least a month.

I agree that many (most?) aspects of training will be different from real life or death situations, but although as a practical matter it’s impossible to condition shooters to recognize squibs through practice, they should be able to recognize the difference between a normal discharge or a failure to fire and a squib load which has different characteristics than either. The times I’ve witnessed a squib or near-squib occur, the shooters recognized that something unusual had happened and stopped shooting.

I believe it’s a classic risk/benefit analysis that each of us must make for themselves.

The single actual block-the-barrel squib I have ever observed in my nearly 19 years as a professional instructor was with commercial “remanufactured” ammunition. I have had none (knock wood) with the tens of thousands of rounds of factory ammo I’ve fired myself. Complete dud rounds, while very unusual, have been much more common, and of course failures to fire because there was nothing in the chamber to fire occur relatively frequently by comparison.

Whether a specific shooter would remember an admonition to stop shooting if something other than a simple failure to fire occurred is of course unknown, but I do believe that if all our training sessions include the policy of, “If the gun doesn’t discharge normally, stop, and check to ensure the barrel isn’t blocked,” it will lead to potentially serious consequences.
(These are just general comments about training and practices, and I am not saying that anyone here advocates such an extreme policy. There is a difference between mindless responses and knowledge and awareness. I am curious, though, whether the officer to whom the two squib incident occurred had received the squib awareness training.)

The group I shoot with every week has 3 guys who have had squibs and then tap, rack, boom.

As I've told them, you've got 3 indicators that there has been a squib. Sound, lack of recoil and no ejection.

Train yourself that if you get all 3 in a row, stop what you're doing.

So far, they've trained themselves well enough that it hasn't happened again. Some people won't be able to get past the adrenalin but a lot can.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
The group I shoot with every week has 3 guys who have had squibs and then tap, rack, boom.

Do you know what ammunition they were using?

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
The group I shoot with every week has 3 guys who have had squibs and then tap, rack, boom.

Do you know what ammunition they were using?

The squibs were reloads. None of them were experienced reloaders and they weren't paying sufficient attention to what they were doing when loading.

I gave them all clip on LED lights for their presses and told them to look in each and every case after the powder drop and before putting the bullet in the case mouth in the future.

I think they scared themselves enough that this will be the end of it.

quote:

I am curious, though, whether the officer to whom the two squib incident occurred had received the squib awareness training.)

I'm not sure about formal training...if he did, he didn't get it from me. But like I said he's a very experienced firearms guy and was well aware of the factors involved. Once he realized the cause of the malfunction it immediately hit him pretty hard. I've had a handful of squibs over the years...sometimes they're obvious, sometimes they're not, especially if you're shooting quickly with intense focus on the clock. Thankfully I've always been able to catch mine before sending another round down the pipe (in a couple of cases it didn't get far enough into the barrel to allow the cylinder to rotate or the next round in a semi-auto to chamber).

I did have one training experience that kind of speaks to this. We were doing simunition training, and the scenario involved two officers assisting a downed officer, while taking fire from a bad guy. One of us engaged while the other rendered aid behind cover. Well the Glock sim guns they gave us have always been crap in my experience. I've had numerous malfunctions with them, and it's almost expected that every time I pick one up it's not going to work right.

We got into the scenario and I was engaging the bad guy, and my gun started having malfunctions. I'd tap-rack and re-engage, send another round and it would jam again. I was getting pissed at the gun at this point, and even moreso that the shots I was having to work so hard to take (which I knew were good) were having no impact on the bad guy whatsoever. Finally the gun refused to go into battery. I considered throwing it at him, but I figured I'd probably get in trouble for that, so I made my buddy trade me guns since he was busy with the "casualty", and managed to finish out with that. When we got done, we found 5 squib rounds stuck in my barrel.

I'm a cautious shooter and reloader. If the gun does something weird on the range, I stop and check it. But that clearly had no impact on my ability or decision to conduct an immediate action drill without hesitation when rounds (well, sim rounds, but those things hurt!) were coming my way. In real life it probably would have been corrected quicker, as the gun would have likely blown up after the second shot, and I'd have had a backup to transition to with my mangled hand...but then again, in real life I wouldn't have been shooting a POS sim gun so it probably wouldn't have squibbed in the first place.

Thanks for both comments.
Useful insights.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
When we got done, we found 5 squib rounds stuck in my barrel.

But, Ha: That’s nothin’.

Wow, they even reloaded.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Thanks for both comments.
Useful insights.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
When we got done, we found 5 squib rounds stuck in my barrel.

But, Ha: That’s nothin’.

Now that's a testament to the strength of the gun.

OTOH, the barrel/cylinder gap let a lot of the gas get expelled before pressures got too high I imagine.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

But, Ha: That’s nothin’.

Yup, I actually use that very photo when I talk about squibs!

Yeah, I imagine the barrel-cylinder gap likely helped shed some pressure, and it's possible they were light .38s, and likely done on purpose. As pedropcola pointed out, there's more than 6 rounds in there. At least, I HOPE it was done on purpose!

That looks like the 8 3/8 inch barrel Model 27 or 28. Hope it could be repaired.

That’s funny. I’m sure cutting a barrel in half is repairable. Lol

Of course the barrel can't be repaired. You buy a replacement from S&W and install it. But, the markings, the polish, the blued finish...all different, potentially.