Gun Digest's Revolver Malfunction Clearing Concealed Carry eShort. Grant Cunningham
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Revolver Malfunction Clearing Concealed Carry
If the gun doesn’t fire, stroke the trigger again. If it still doesn’t fire, you’re most likely out of ammunition.
Smug revolver owners (of which I am one) often proclaim that the revolver malfunction procedure is “pull the trigger again!” While I admire the devotion these people have, I also have to admit that it’s not the only solution.
Let’s get an ugly truth out of the way: revolvers do jam. Thankfully it doesn’t happen terribly often, but there are a few things that can keep a revolver from being fired. Unlike autoloader problems, revolver malfunctions are quite rare, which ironically makes them harder to deal with. First because when they do happen they’re usually more severe and take the gun out of commission, and second because we don’t get a lot of practice in how to handle them.
What kinds of things can happen to a revolver? The most common malfunction is that a round doesn’t ignite. It’s the easiest thing to deal with, and one for which the revolver is uniquely suited: simply stroke the trigger to bring a fresh round under the hammer!
While that’s the event with which you’ll have the most experience, there are a number of other things that have been known to occur: an unlatched cylinder, a high primer that keeps the cylinder from rotating, a broken firing pin, dirt under the extractor, debris in the lockwork, a bent yoke, a self-engaged safety lock, a broken mainspring…the list goes on.
Most of these are preventable. Ammunition problems are easily dealt with by buying only quality ammo or tightening up your reloading procedures. Keeping the gun clean, lubricated, and in good repair (including making sure that any screws are properly tightened) will forestall most of the others. Of course, ‘stuff happens’ and that’s where malfunction clearing comes in.
As I said, serious revolver malfunctions are rare, but you should know how to deal with them in the most extreme circumstances. What follows is a last-ditch malfunction procedure designed to get the gun up and running at any cost. If you’re practicing on the range and your revolver malfunctions, your best bet is to take it to a qualified gunsmith to be sorted out. You can do damage with a malfunction drill, damage that would be an acceptable casualty in a gunfight but would lead to a big repair bill otherwise. If the situation is serious, one in which the malfunction may cost you or someone else dearly, then this malfunction drill is the order of the moment.
As we get further and further into this procedure, note that the problems get more esoteric and uncommon. That’s the beauty of this approach: the common stuff is dealt with at the atart, and it’s the uncommon malfunctions that take the time.
Reloading solves the majority of revolver misfiring issues.
First symptom: Gun doesn’t fire
As I noted earlier, the most common malfunction is also the simplest to fix: a round that fails to ignite. This is the one time that the revolver apologists are right – stroke the trigger again to bring a fresh round under the hammer. If that round ignites, the previous one was probably a dud (though you could have a reliability issue with your gun. If this happens frequently, a trip to the gunsmith may be in order.)
If the worst happens and the next round doesn’t go off, it’s most likely because you’re out of ammunition. This brings up what I call the Universal Malfunction Prescription: RELOAD!
The process of reloading the revolver gives us a non-diagnostic method to get the gun running again. By ‘non-diagnostic’ I mean that you don’t need to expend time and mental energy trying to figure out what’s going on with the gun, then figure out the best course of action for that specific situation. Instead, we let the process itself lead to the correct solution.
If the gun starts shooting again after the reload is completed, your problem was either a) you were out of ammunition, or b) the one round was most likely just a bad example of the breed. If that’s the case you simply go on shooting.
If, however, the gun still won’t fire, you might have a broken firing pin, you might have a malfunctioning transfer bar safety, or you might have another serious problem. In any of these cases it’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to solve the problem in the middle of a fight. If that’s the case, you need to do something else. Your training, hopefully, has included preparation for this kind of problem, whether it be drawing a backup gun or relying on a different weapon.
If the trigger won’t move or won’t reset, the first step is the tap-stroke.
Second symptom: Trigger not functioning
There are a lot of things that can go wrong with a revolver, even though they usually don’t. Revolvers are mechanical devices, and any mechanical device can fail. It’s therefore possible that any moving part in the revolver could develop an issue that keeps it from working. Thankfully such things don’t happen very often, but when they do the gun can be rendered inoperative. At the range this isn’t a big issue, but if it happens during a fight it’s imperative that you get the gun up and running (if it can be done) as soon as possible.
Serious malfunctions usually announce their presence through the trigger; either the trigger is locked in the forward position and won’t go back, or it’s locked in the back position and won’t return. Remember what I said about ‘non-diagnostic’? We don’t need to waste time trying to diagnose the problem based on where the trigger is stuck, because the solutions for both of the symptoms are pretty much the same.
Regardless of the actual position, if the trigger is locked and won’t move, your first step is called ‘tap-stroke.’ This is not too different than the ‘tap-rack’ that’s taught to auto shooters, and it’s done for much the same reason. With the heel of your hand, sharply strike the left side of the cylinder and frame, then stroke the trigger.
If the problem is an unlatched cylinder (perhaps because of a bent cylinder yoke or debris between the yoke and crane), the tap-stroke will latch it solidly and the gun should be running again. If the cause was a self-engaged safety lock on a modern Smith & Wesson, the tap-stroke may clear it. It’s been my experience that it clears shop-induced test failures about 15 percent of the time. It’s not a great percentage, I’ll give you that, but there isn’t anything else other than digging the gun’s key out of your pocket and trying to disengage the lock, which sometimes doesn’t work either!
If the trigger is locked in the rearward position, the tap-stroke will usually knock it loose and start it working again. One of the most common causes of a trigger locked to the rear is dirt or ignition debris caught in the channel where the hand rides. The hand has a surprising amount of leverage over the rest of the action, and even a small amount of drag can lock everything else up. The tap-stroke usually jostles the debris loose and returns the gun to proper operation.
If the tap-stroke doesn’t clear the trigger jam, start a RELOAD. A cylinder can be stopped from turning, and thus lock the trigger, by dirt or unburned powder under the ejector star. It can also be stopped by a high primer that wedges between the case head and the breechface of the frame. It’s easy to jam the cylinder enough that it won’t turn, and might even be difficult to open.
