Weirdest malfunctions you've had

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dakota.potts

New member
What are some strange malfunctions you've had with your firearm? Hopefully while at a shooting range where it's not life or death, but any good stories. I'll start with mine.

* I was at the range with my family and my mom was shooting her Sig P238 and there was a guy shooting next to her with the gun that it was based off of (Colt Mustang?) He pulled it from his holster in the small of his back, cleared it, and offered it to me to inspect it and hold it. I returned the favor and went to grab my gun. I cleared it, but for some reason thought it would be a good idea to twist my wrist when I did so so that gravity would help it out of the chamber. Somehow the bullet ended up popping out of the chamber, turning around 180 degrees, and landing back into the chamber facing backwards! Before I knew any of this happened, I let go of the slide and the force of the slide coming forward pushed the wide rim of the case into the feed ramp so that it was stuck. Had to take it inside and the owner/gunsmith popped it out for me somehow.

* Also with my CZ 75. I was working on magazine transitions with 2 rounds in each magazine. I put the first two shots where I wanted them and had a good groove. I had an effective reload and was feeling good. I went to tap the magazine in firmly with my support hand. When I hit it, the magazine self-destructed. The baseplate shot out followed by the spring and the 2 rounds that were in it. The hull of the magazine was still in the gun and took a little force to come out. It turns out that, when I had disassembled the magazine for cleaning, I hadn't connected the stopper all the way with the magazine. When I tapped it with my support hand, it slid the base plate off, allowing the spring to stretch fully and shoot the contents onto the floor. After I made safe, I was laughing too hard to put the magazine back together for a minute. I only figured out how it happened because I almost did it again :eek: Luckily I only slid the floorplate up about halfway the second time and that's when I realized what was happening.
 
Heck, you didn't even break anything.
Besides, those were driver error, not equipment failures.

At a run-n-gun match, one of the participants jammed an after market, steel magazine into his polymer pistol, only to have the mag release cut in half.
Parts go flying out of the frame in three directions, with the loaded mag bouncing off the ground, spewing rounds all over the place.

At another match, a guy forgets his ammo and "borrows" a little from everyone.
During a stage run, he discovers some overcharged rounds, the hard way.
Big noise, mag and grips go flying, shreds of brass chasing folks all over the range.
No major damage, fortunately, but it was probably the last time he left home without his own ammo.
What some people will do to eliminate the competition.....

I could go on and on.
Ya' see the funniest stuff at matches.

My particular favorite is when someone is in too great a hurry to reload and they don't quite seat the mag.
Then they yank the trigger and see their loaded mag fall right out at their feet.
 
Here's a weird one a customer had: I sold an 18-year old his first rifle, a Daniel Defence M4 V5. He brought it back a few weeks later saying he let his younger brother shoot it, then went to the other end of the range, and when he came back his brother had managed to get a piece of brass stuck just outside of the chamber. Apparently his brother had tried to clear it with a pair of pliers through the ejection port, but was unsuccessful.

I looked at the rifle and there was a piece of empty brass crushed and wrapped partway around the bolt behind the locking lugs and in front of the bolt carrier. I managed to break the rifle down in half and remove it, and that's when I noticed that the primer had not been hit at all but the bullet was missing and the front of the case had been torn off - presumably from the pliers. The rifle was fine except for a bunch of dings and scrapes around the ejection port from the pliers.

He had no idea how his brother had managed to do this - and I couldn't figure it out either - but my guess is that it had something to do with the forward assist. I advised him not to allow his brother to ever shoot the rifle again unsupervised and he readily agreed.
 
It wasn't with my firearm; but I was shooting with a guy whose gun jammed when a small bullet fragment ricocheted back from a steel target and caught in the slide of the pistol--preventing it from going fully into battery.
 
I've had and seen a few.

1. At the range with a friend, his SW Sigma polymer framed pistol simply disintegrated. Picture a piece of plastic frozen and shattered into pieces. That's what it looked like - shards of broken plastic frame. SW honored the warranty and sent him a check, which he used to buy a Sig Sauer or Glock or 1911. I don't recall.

2. I was shooting some reloads made by someone else. I'll never do that again. Had a Kaboom. Blew the mag out of the bottom of the gun. I was okay, and so was the gun. Lesson learned: Don't shoot reloads from other people.

3. Shooting a pistol at the range, I had a magazine totally fall apart when the baseplate fell off, dumping the spring and ammo all over the ground. Lesson: Always carry a spare mag for self defense.

4. Had an AR15 totally seize up and lock the bolt in the star chamber. Took me and 2 friends with lots of tools 15-30 minutes of stripping, banging on it, prying, etc. to get it loose. Lesson: AR15s don't like Wolf or steel case ammo.
 
Weirdest jam

Nib 2003 glock g19. Two or three rounds out of 100 would stovepipe no matter what ammo I used and after 500 rounds it ended up on a trade for another weapon not bashing glock but my luck not the best and it was on that one.
 
AR blew up on the next position, wrong powder. Somehow the T handle passed through his head and hit me in the face (since his head was between me and the gun) and broke my glasses and nose.
Had the forend in one hand and the pistol grip and stock in the other and nothing in-between.
 
If I use the +P Wilson mags in my 1911s with weaker hammer and recoil springs, the jarring of the slide going back sometimes pops the last round out of the mag and clear out of the ejection port.
 
Old Glock - the firing pin pierced the primer and the empty was hung on that with the next round jammed against it. You could tap rack till the cows came home to clear that one.

Taurus Pt-22. Two things: 1 - ejected a live round rather than loading it.
2. Slammed shut on a live 22LR and bent it in half.
 
years ago I had an H&K 91 (.308) that would do a weird thing. Shooting about 1 rnd per second, or slower, and using the appropriate ammo, everything was normal.

Shooting faster, and somewhere around shot #6 or so, it would extract the fired case, rotate it 180 degrees and feed it base first into the chamber.

Never did figure out why, or how that was happening, but it happened on more than one occasion.

Traded the HK away when I got my Springfield M1A. :D

Also had a .44 Auto Mag push the barrel assembly off the frame when the bolt returned to battery. Seems that the recoil was causing the barrel latch to swing open. I deepened the detent notch on the latch, and the issue went away.
 
Weird one just this morning in my Marlin 39. The round that was going in to the chamber seemed to be stuck and the lever would barely move. Used a knife blade to wiggle it out, and it almost seemed like the bullet had been smashed all the way back into the casing. Odd for a .22LR. Even after it was out though the lever still didn't want to move, so I broke it down. There was another round wrapped around the action and almost crushed into a U shape. No idea how that happened.
 
Weird? No. Interesting, yes! I had a Diamondback DB9 blow up in my hand on just the 2nd shot after buying it new. The RT side of the frame just below the slide let go. It stung like crazy and I felt the heat on my face. I sent it to DB, they sent back a new one, I took it to the LGS where I bought it and he gave me a Kahr CM9 as replacement, straight up.
 
My worst jam was a primer came out if a .223 case when shooting my AR15 and got stuck between the bolt and upper receiver. Could not disassemble because bolt was partially retracted and stuck. Took many repetitions of using charging handle to move back a tiny fraction then the forward assist a tiny fraction. Finally worked loose. Had no idea what happened until the crushed primer fell out finally.
 
Shooting a M-16.
Had a live primer back out of the pocket on a many times fired .223 as it was being fed into the chamber.
The primer was still just barely seated and was resting next to the ejector. It's protusion was enough to stop the case head from feeding onto the bolt face.
Should have got a photo, it was a unique stoppage.
Lesson learned: keep better track of the number of firings on my cases!

JT
 
Friend tried out one of those 'full' auto bump fire doodads on his AR. It jammed the gun solid as a rock. The round was mashed in it. Another buddy who was an engineer figured out how to get to it and take it apart.
 
Shooting submachineguns
I have seen an empty somehow get between the ejector and the bolt face in a Uzi. Popped the top cover off and pulled it out with my Leatherman. I have seen an empty get above the chamber in a MP5 between the bolt and into the cocking tube area.

Brain malfunctions
I was shooting a PSL and my buddy's son was standing to my right. I noticed he was ducking and dodging around while I fired. I asked him what he was doing. He told me that one of the ejected brass had hit him and he was avoiding the others. Why are you still standing in the path of where the brass is ejecting, I asked.
 
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