The Ayoob files: when your gun jams in a firefight - Massad Ayoob

American Handgunner, Jan-Feb, 2004

Murphy tells of another firefight: "Gennaro slipped another magazine into his weapon and pulled the trigger. He got off two or three rounds, then the rifle jammed. He fought off rising panic as he worked frantically to free the stuck cartridge. As be pried on the brass, two men behind him went down, hit by enemy rounds ... Some distance behind Gennar, LCpl. William Vail Devander's M16 jammed too. Try as he might, Van Devander, a 20-year-old West Virginian who was still recovering from wounds he had received in September 1966, could not clear it. He picked up a discarded M60 and fired it at the enemy." (4)

Since they were invented, handguns have proven themselves to be natural and often necessary backup for rifles, and Murphy found cases of this too. He writes, "A few minutes later, (a lieutenant named Chritton) found Pfc. T.J. Brown frantically trying to clear his M16. The weapon had jammed as Brown snuck up on a spider hole. 'Here," Chritton said, thrusting his pistol toward Brown. The young Marine took the weapon, crawled forward while he squeezed off several rounds, dropped a grenade in on the unsuspecting NVA, and crawled back, grinning broadly." (5)

Sometimes, if you're stuck with one type of gun that does not satisfy your needs, you have to keep trying different specimens until you get one that is functional. I know one police officer who has gone through three identical .40 caliber pistols of the same brand which failed him. He kept turning them in and getting new ones until he got his current pistol, which works. The same has happened in the military. Murphy quotes Pfc. Ernest Murray, "I found the guy who had taken my rifle, but he seemed in a daze and didn't remember what he'd done with it. I finally found a pile of discarded M16s. The first one I picked was jammed. So were the next three I looked at. Finally I found one that worked." (6)

Bottom Line

Anything brought forth by man can fail, including our parents' children. We rely on the gun to take care of us, but must remember the gun relies on us to take care of it. Remember the military "rifleman's creed": "Without me, my rifle is nothing; without my rifle, I am nothing." That is not entirely true; the man without the rifle can get another weapon. However, without you to take care of it properly and operate it properly, it may well come to pass the firearm is worth less-than-nothing at the moment of truth.

The incidents recorded in Edward Murphy's excellent book The Hill Fights, which I strongly recommend reading in its entirety, inspire us to carefully select and scrupulously maintain our defensive firearms, their ammunition, and all their accoutrements. The individual armed citizen has a happy option that most police and almost all soldiers do not: to research and choose for himself a trustworthy "weapon system." The defensive firearm is nothing less than emergency rescue equipment. Reliability is a non-negotiable baseline for its selection.

Don't be the guinea pig to test the new wonder gun or magic bullet in the field for the first time to see if it works or not. Don't carry defensive ammunition unless you've run a couple of hundred rounds through the carry gun and carry magazines and proven it to work 100%. If you switch to a new type of gun or hoister, drill with it religiously until operating it properly is second nature. Practice malfunction clearance drills, and make it a habit to carry a small, reliable backup handgun as regularly as you carry a spare tire in the trunk of your car. Clean and lubricate your auto pistol monthly, even if you haven't fired it; gun oil is liquid, and it can drain out of the gun or evaporate.