Weirdest malfunctions you've had

Oh I got a good one. So I was on vacation in Georgia went to this shooting range that let you shoot their full auto weapons for a fee. So having always wanted to shoot a Thompson submachine gun I rented it and bought some ammo. After a couple of minutes of instruction I walk up to the line and started to shoot controlled groups of about 3 rounds. I finish the first mag insert the second start shooting and all the sudden I feel burning on my arm and the gun jams. This is what happened it fired one round ripped off the rim of the casing and then shoved another one into the first casing minus the rim and then fired slightly out of battery. The funny part is it ripped the two casings fused together out and ejected it. I found the double casing on the floor. The owner of the place came running over grabbed the gun and started screaming at his employee. It turns out that just they had changed the barrel and the timing was not right. So I got to shoot a HK MP5SD for an extended period of time to make up for the Thompson going down for free.:D
 
I don't know if you can call mine a malfunction. But I had been at the range shooting my Springfield 1911 which has a 2 piece guide rod system. Well the front end of the guide rod which would act as the plug, where the allen wrench fits into fell out.

I never noticed this because it continued to fire flawlessly, I shot 100 rds that day. It wasn't till I got home when I disassemble it to clean it that I saw it was missing the part.

I have since changed to a one piece guide rod with a regular push plug. Good news though I called Springfield Armory and told then about the incident. They sent me a complete recoil system free of charge even though I have had my 1911 for several years.
 
I've seen an AR-15 with a double feed in front of the BCG and one jammed inside the middle of the BCG. I'm not sure if that should be called a triple feed or not. :confused:
 
In my early a teens I borrowed a neighbors 25-35 Winchester lever for a couple days. Well used but still a nice clean rifle w/3 rounds for its use. While sitting in the tree stand waiting for those (old guys) deer drivers to come thru those nasty woods below. I took notice by squeezing its trigger a little bit. I could see some movement of its hammer {while on safety.} So I gave it a good squeeze and the rifle fired. I couldn't believe what I just did so levered another round lowered its hammer to safety position again and did the same squeeze more slowly a second time. It fired a again. This time I noticed its hammer never got even close to its cocking point. But it did go far enough backwards to point just enough to bypass its safety and spring forward and hit its firing pin. Well gents after looking at that rifle carefully. I was amazed at what it had just done. Within a short time span say 3-4-5 minuets at best I looked down to see a few of those hard work'en old woodsy fellows milling around smiling and/or looking up at me and asking where's the deer? I felt so bad when it dawn on me that I may have ruined the toughest drive we only did once during each deer season with my behavior. It was truly an embarrassing moment for me having to tell those fellows along with my father present what I was doing with that rifle while they were walking in wet swamps and thru wild rose bush patches and buck thorn for me and a couple other posters. All of them (except my father i.e. later in the day) calmly took my behavior in stride and walked with me back to their parked cars & trucks smiling and joking in their way of trying to perk my spirits up. Just a moment in time I won't ever forget being around gracious older & much wiser gentlemen.
 
.303 British, Lithgow SMLE, firing near minimum charge handloads in full length resized Sellier & Bellot cases on top of CCI large rifle primers. Load the cartridge (from the magazine IIRC), close the bolt, pull the trigger, the pin goes only partway forward. Pull back the cocking piece, does it again. And again. Took four pulls to get the damn thing to fire. All witnessed by the perplexed Range Safety Officer.

When I pulled the fired case, it was fine. No pressure signs, nothing. Cleaned it, resized it, reloaded it, thought nothing of it.

Bizarrely, it was the 17th of 20 rounds in the box. First sixteen had gone off without a hitch, and so did all the rest. Same with the box of Remington factory loads I shot afterwards.

A few weeks later, the same thing happened again. I can't say it was exactly the same case (though I should have marked it in some way!!), but it was certainly one of the same 20 because they were the only S&B I've ever bought (and probably ever will buy).

Never happened with any other make of case. Or any factory ammo. Ever. And I had hundreds of rounds through that rifle, some of them the same case with multiple reloads. To this day, I cannot explain what the hell happened.
 
It's was February 2011 in Fort Knox, my unit was up there from Knoxville to do a machinegun shoot. I was selected to carry the SAW on our upcoming deployment so they handed me 800 rounds and put me on a gun. Everything went great for the first 750, barrels we swapped out every 100 rounds and every 200 a 5 minute break was taken. Halfway through my eighth belt the weapon ceased firing, I grasped the charging handle and attempted to rack it only to discover there was no resistance on it. My fireteam leader popped the feed tray, looked in side and yelled "ho-lee-(feces)" Williams! You broke the bolt!" Apparently the bolt head had snapped off leaving the rest of the bolt in the carrier.

The armorer was quite irritated with me and told me "this is why we can't have nice things"

In my defense this particular SAW had been with the unit since Desert Storm in '91 and probably had a round count approaching 7 digits.
 
Years ago i was at a local range and a fellow member had a Colt .357 magnum carry.It hadn't hit the market yet,and he was writing a story on it.After my wife and a friend shot it,it was handed to me.First thing i noticed was the front sight was canted to one side,second was it was hard to swing the cylinder out.Six rounds later,no hits on target,and a revolver that refused to open.I found the issue as i unscrewed the barrel the rest of the way off the frame,and handed it back.
 
I was on a goose hunt with a brand new Huglu 501 auto loader i had picked up from the factory store at Incirlik, Turkey. First hunt with the gun and had managed to take a lesser, greater, speck, and snow (what we locally called a grand slam).

It was the end of the hunt and I went to clear the chamber and magazine when I noticed the finger catch on the bolt was gone. A prolonged search of our blind failed to produce it. I had to use a fingernail on a part of the bolt to pull back against the spring. After several painful attempts, I managed to get the round out of the chamber.

Looking back, I should have just fired it clear...
 
I was shooting next to a guy, 1911s, We were doing rapid fire drills. I was shooting Blazer aluminum. He was shooting brass ammo. He stopped firing and I assumed he was reloading. As my gun ran dry and I started my mag change, he was laughing. He had a stovepipe that he had not cleared and found it funny. I did not understand why until he pointed out that the case stuck in the ejection port was Blazer aluminum - my Blazer aluminum. My spent case stovepiped his gun. :D
 
Similar to the above, and not really a malfunction, but funny none-the-less.

Years ago we did OPFOR for a few of the area NG units.
I was in an engagement and took cover next to a big tree, firing around the left side of the tree. In my haste, I leaned the receiver against the tree and had the pent casing bounce off the tree and back into the ejection port. When I cleared the offending casing, there was bark stuffed into the neck.
 
I was shooting next to a guy, 1911s, We were doing rapid fire drills. I was shooting Blazer aluminum. He was shooting brass ammo. He stopped firing and I assumed he was reloading. As my gun ran dry and I started my mag change, he was laughing. He had a stovepipe that he had not cleared and found it funny. I did not understand why until he pointed out that the case stuck in the ejection port was Blazer aluminum - my Blazer aluminum. My spent case stovepiped his gun. :D
Click to expand...
For the win.

Really, what on Earth would be the mathematical odds?

I think you'd have a better chance of pointing two handguns at each other and hitting both bullets with each other than you would of pulling off that kind of stove-pipe if you planned it. That's crazy.
 
I have never seen THAT before, a "shared" malfunction? :p

Three for ya - one a reloading issue. Firing reloads through my always reliable SA vz-58 when the bolt refused to go completely into battery. Pulled it, and discovered a small brass disc folded over and sitting in just the right spot to stop bolt travel. Looked around, and discovered this little brass disc was the bottom of a primer! It had somehow separated from the base of the Winchester Large Rifle primer in a perfect circle. Asked Winchester about it, and they asked to see the case. Sent it in, and to this day I get blank looks and "Don't know what you're talking about. I also don't buy Winchester components anymore...

More malfs, these two from working at an indoor range. We were doing 2 gun matches, (we couldn't shoot centerfire rifle inside, backstop wasn't rated for it.), so shotgun and pistol. Customer had a new Chinese made pump gun, and he cranked off all five rounds. As I watched, the barrel started teetering, and FELL OFF. Followup - he had it rewelded, and tried again. That night with shot number two the magazine cap failed and shot the cap and spring downrange. We did give him a pretty good deal on what was left.

There was a junk remake of a semi-auto HK MP-5 many years ago, don't remember the name. We had two of them as rentals, one in 45 and one in 9mm. The 9mm one had the weirdest talent - fire a full magazine, and at least one if not three live rounds would somehow be in the trigger group. Gun smith couldn't figure out how that was happening.
 
Back in 2010, I was going through Basic Training (Army). It was the "pre-qual" for the M16. Basically it was the day before the actual rifle qualification, but if you happened to shoot Expert then you didn't have to do it the following day.

So I'm up on the line with my M16A2 (she had definitely seen better days). First target pops up, I take the shot, and it goes down. Second target pops, click, no bang. I go to look at the ejection port, and realized I had an actual TRIPLE FEED.

Three rounds, all three had the bullet partially in the star chamber while the cases kept the bolt about 90% open.

I missed 20 targets in the time it took to drop the magazine at get those rounds out...the third round was REALLY jammed in there. I have never seen a malfunction like that since...
 
This isn't really a malfunction but a weird miss. I was shooting in an indoor range that used a large heavy metal wedge to hold the paper targets. I decided to shoot one handed with my non dominant hand and try a head shot. The wedge thingee grabbed the B-27 pretty close to the top of the noggin of the target. I must have hit the lower edge and the round or fragment zipped down and cut the target in half on the diagonal and set it on fire.

That was impressive. The guy next to me wanted know what kind of ammo was that. He wanted some. It would certainly end the stopping power arguments if a 9mm would do that to you.
 
Boy, great thread, and great stories. I belly-laughed at Glenn Meyer's flaming target.

I think the oddest one I witnessed was two guys next to me, happily firing the one man's brand new Para-Ordnance. So, as we're alternating pow-pow-powing, we hear the sound of metal clinking at our feet - and I don't mean brass. Something substantial.

The bewildered owner is now holding a 1911 Government model with a 4-inch slide, with the naked barrel protruding. An inch had simply sheared off. We grabbed up the front end of the slide and examined the shear - we were assuming, none of us being metallurgists, that there were some serious issues with the stainless in that slide.
 
Sadly, that is -NOT- the first Para slide I have heard of doing that. They are cast and not forged, and same exact thing happened to a guy on my local forum. :(
 
When I was taking the NRA Personal Protection course in Oregon for my concealed permit there - there was a guy shooting a 3 Gen SW semi. He told us how he was a great handloading expert.

When we went to fire the guns in an indoor range, the targets came back and forth on a pulley system. The Handy-man pulls the trigger and twang - the cable of his lane's target system parts and the cables unravel. The range master a touch upset.

Handy-man says that the barrel of his gun must have curve in it (oh, the guns were supplied for the course). That caused the bullet to curve upward in flight and shoot down the cable. So that's a malfunction - a barrel which causes curved trajectories. ;)
 
A guy did that on our club's very expensive moving target cable.
Missed the actual target by at least two feet.
More like three feet if he was aiming at the center, where he should.
Everything came tumbling down into the dirt.
Quite a fantastic shot if he had been aiming at the cable.
He was not a popular guy after that shot.
 
Don't get me started on that - I worked an indoor range with string pulleys...you have no IDEA how often I had to restring the dang things...
 
If half the stories in this thread are true, then I have seen nothing yet.

Keep them coming, this thread makes me smile.
 
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