Today’s Pro Tip will be on concealed carry malfunctions. It happens to everyone. Over 30 years of being in the business, I’ve seen just about every type of malfunction.  First, we’re going to cover operator error. It’s very important to hang onto the gun with a nice firm grip, allowing the slide to come all the way to the rear, stop, allowing the round to come up and pick up off the magazine correctly. Firm grip.

If we take a look at the compact 1911 style guns, we notice about 30 percent of the slide has been taken off of the carry gun.  This increases slide speed, which can decrease reliability. So, that’s why it’s important to hang onto the gun tightly.

This malfunction is called a stove pipe. The reasons why stove pipes happen are three different things. Shooter error, by not hanging onto the gun tight enough, the magazine could be bad, or the ammunition could be light and not driving the slide all the way to the rear.

Here’s how you clear it. Put your hand on the back of the slide, come to the rear, letting the hull fall out, and letting the next round feed into place properly.

This malfunction is a failure to feed.  And you’re saying, Todd, how do you clear that? O.K, this situation right here has to do with two things, it’s either magazine related or the ammunition.  How do you clear it?  We can do what you call a tap, rack, ready.  We can hit the bottom of the magazine and try to drop the slide.  In this case, it didn’t do it.  So what I want to do is lock the slide to the rear, take the magazine out, push the bullet in correctly, shove it back in, pick up the next round, back on line.

For the past 100 years manufacturers of semi-autos have been building guns to accept a round-nosed bullet.  A lot of manufacturers build defense ammo where the profile of the bullet is a little bit different than the round-nose.  You may have difficulty feeding in your firearm.  Make sure you test the different types to be sure your gun will operate.

The lifeline to any semi-auto will always be the magazine.  It’s very important to inspect it, clean the inside of it from debris and carbon, and the lips get bent on them.  You can always have malfunctions related back to the firearm… But most of all, I like to mark the bottom of my magazines with a number.  This is number four.  If I’m having a problem on the range and I’m having consistent issues with it, this magazine goes into the trash. 

Always understand, this is the key to making the gun operate.  All the malfunctions we’ve seen to this point may be very simple.  Read your owner’s manual, clean and lubricate your gun.  If it doesn’t work for you, take it to your local gun shop and get a different model. Good luck and safe shooting.

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