Another example of murphy's law in LE last week. A Police Officer in a Southern California Agency was chasing a murder suspect on foot when the crook reached into his waistband and pulled a .44 Desert Eagle on the officer. The officer, fearing for his life drew his $1600 Para Ordanance custom pistol and fired one round at the miscreant. Unbeknownst to the officer, the pistol's Wilson "Bullet Proof" extractor hook sheered off, failing to extract the spent casing from the barrel. The next round in the magazine was fed into the chamber, causing a catastrophic malfunction.
The officer, thinking he had a double feed, swiped his support hand across the ejection port and removed the live round. He then performed the slap-rack-bang technique, which put him back in the orginal position he was in after the first round was fired. He had no way of knowing there was a casing still in the barrel without performing a visual inspection, which is difficult to do during a foot pursuit at night afeter an armed and dangerous suspect.
Luckily for the officer, the crook dropped his gun and ran away while he took cover and tended to his weapon. It turns out that the only way to clear that malfunction is to eject the magazine, lock the slide back, and jam your ball point pen into the muzzle, hopefully ejecting the brass. Even then, you are stuck with a single shot weapon.
There are a couple of lessons to learn out of this deal.
1. You can never keep Mr. Murphy from your weapon, no matter how much money and how high quality the parts. Sometimes things go terribley wrong at the most critical times.
2. You should practice clearing malfuntions until it is second nature. There might be times, as illustrated above, where there is nothing you can do, you are just out of the fight.
and, most important!
3. A backup weapon is a must, because 1 and 2 can and do happen.
I thank God that the officer is OK and the crook was caught a few days later. There has been a sudden interest in replacing extractors. According to the Department Armorer, he has only seen this malfuntion three times in Para/1911 pistols in 30 years, six times in Sigs, and countless times in S&W autos (All on the range, thankfully!)
The officer, thinking he had a double feed, swiped his support hand across the ejection port and removed the live round. He then performed the slap-rack-bang technique, which put him back in the orginal position he was in after the first round was fired. He had no way of knowing there was a casing still in the barrel without performing a visual inspection, which is difficult to do during a foot pursuit at night afeter an armed and dangerous suspect.
Luckily for the officer, the crook dropped his gun and ran away while he took cover and tended to his weapon. It turns out that the only way to clear that malfunction is to eject the magazine, lock the slide back, and jam your ball point pen into the muzzle, hopefully ejecting the brass. Even then, you are stuck with a single shot weapon.
There are a couple of lessons to learn out of this deal.
1. You can never keep Mr. Murphy from your weapon, no matter how much money and how high quality the parts. Sometimes things go terribley wrong at the most critical times.
2. You should practice clearing malfuntions until it is second nature. There might be times, as illustrated above, where there is nothing you can do, you are just out of the fight.
and, most important!
3. A backup weapon is a must, because 1 and 2 can and do happen.
I thank God that the officer is OK and the crook was caught a few days later. There has been a sudden interest in replacing extractors. According to the Department Armorer, he has only seen this malfuntion three times in Para/1911 pistols in 30 years, six times in Sigs, and countless times in S&W autos (All on the range, thankfully!)
