Occasionally in my spare time I will watch FB videos. Mostly funny dogs, great archery shots on hogs, Pigman...stuff like that to pass the time. But at some point FB offered me a video of an offer-involved shooting and I watched it. Then I watched another. Naturally, now FB throws them at me all day.

One thing I've noticed watching these videos is a absolutely disturbing number of handgun jams when SHTF. Not just 1-2...like, a lot. Most of the officers are clearly well-trained and pretty quick at clearing the jam, but a couple have been rendered useless in a gunfight by their gun jamming up entirely. So, I'm quite curious if someone in the know can help me understand why it happens that much. Is live-combat mis-handling of the guns causing those jams or is jamming just that frequent a problem?

#1 reason...people do NOT know how to handle and shoot their guns. Weak grips and limp wrists are the primary cause. Control the firearm, don't let the firearm control you.

Crazy [censored] happens to the human body when fight or flight kicks in. Most officers will take the fight, but you also have to get off the X or it will be a short fight. You train in a perfect world so that when SHTF and the adrenaline dumps and your fine motor skills exit the game and become gross motor skills, you can still function enough to win.

I had an incident a few years ago where I was taken down by a handcuffed prisoner as his partner was pulling out a revolver. I had my gun drawn and was basically using the partner as a human shield. When I went down I caught my sights on the fender and tire, racking the slide just enough to cause a stove pipe. I knew I was about to pop up into a gun battle and I came up from behind that fender already slacking out the trigger. I was right, gun fight was on! I pulled my trigger probably 50 times while I watched the cylinder of his pistol turn. It wasn’t until he stopped to look at his gun did I notice the stove pipe on mine. I dropped to cover, clear the jam, rip the mag and put in a fresh one, roll to back of car to get off the X, rise up and he hauling [censored] away.

Sometimes [censored] just happens for an unknown reason. I truly believe that God didn’t want either of us to die that day. All 6 rounds in his revolver had hard primer strikes, not 1 round went off.

Crazy [censored] happens to the human body when fight or flight kicks in. Most officers will take the fight, but you also have to get off the X or it will be a short fight. You train in a perfect world so that when SHTF and the adrenaline dumps and your fine motor skills exit the game and become gross motor skills, you can still function enough to win.

I had an incident a few years ago where I was taken down by a handcuffed prisoner as his partner was pulling out a revolver. I had my gun drawn and was basically using the partner as a human shield. When I went down I caught my sights on the fender and tire, racking the slide just enough to cause a stove pipe. I knew I was about to pop up into a gun battle and I came up from behind that fender already slacking out the trigger. I was right, gun fight was on! I pulled my trigger probably 50 times while I watched the cylinder of his pistol turn. It wasn’t until he stopped to look at his gun did I notice the stove pipe on mine. I dropped to cover, clear the jam, rip the mag and put in a fresh one, roll to back of car to get off the X, rise up and he hauling [censored] away.

Sometimes [censored] just happens for an unknown reason. I truly believe that God didn’t want either of us to die that day. All 6 rounds in his revolver had hard primer strikes, not 1 round went off.

THAT sounds hairy as Hell!

The age old debate. Auto-loader with higher capacity vs revolver with a higher degree of reliability….

In my experience bad/cheap ammo will do this . A bunch .

Please share a video as an example.

In the failure you just showed in the video of did a cartridge fail to feed or did it fail to eject all the way?

My 1911 jammed a bunch in competition but this is the only time my Glock jammed. 2 minute mark. Factory Federal 124gr 9mm.

Great job for being your first shooting event. You did exactly what you should have done, cleared the stoppage and kept going.