Re: Re: the gun you have on you
"And which of your myriad examples have you personally experienced?....." Personally, not all of them.
".....That must have been the time when that very hot slug plopped out of the barrel..." Nope, the bullet went zipping off just fine, even roughly where I wanted it to go, but there was a manufacturing problem with the loading in the cartridge which meant that only half the powder actually burned. The resulting recoil was not strong enough to push the slide all the way back to extract the round and chamber a new one. At the time it was a bit confusing - there's an extra hole in the target, I'm sure the slide cycled (it had actually gone back about two-thirds of normal travel), but that one didn't feel that pokey and why didn't I see a case get extracted? It was only an ickle .22 so not much recoil in the first place. The faulty case was still in the chamber and so I had to manually work the mechanism to chamber the next round. That box of ammo went straight back to the manufacturer. Some people wouldn't class that as a "jam", they might call it a "failure to operate" or "feed failure". Personally, if it doesn't fire when I want it to, it's a jam.
".....I think guns jam because gun owners are less than stupid...." Well, I did try and use my ESP to scan through the brass walls of every cartridge to mentally check that the chemical composition of every cartrdige was identical before I loaded them, but I just guess my ESP was off that day. The problem was inside the sealed cartridge, even Einstein wouldn't have been able to spot it without loading and firing it.
"....How can anyone load a magazine and bend the rim of a cartridge...." You'd be surprised, I've even watched someone load a whole clip backwards because they were distracted! It's also not usually the rim but the nose that gets slightly bent. With steeply-angled mags you can also get tipping where the following round pushes the preceding round up at an angle. If you look at the old Sten gun it had a straight, single column mag as it fired the 9mmP ammo, which had parallel walls and a rebated rim. You'd think that would feed fine. But the next generation of SMG, the Sterling, firing the same 9mmP, had a curved and staggered column mag becasue feed problems were a big issue on the Sten. The forward-curved magazine was found to be the best shape for reducing feeding issues with 9mmP. Now, think - how many 9mmP pistols have a magazine that curves forward inside the pistolgrip? None. They usually are raked backwards, meaning the rebated rims overlap, the catridges overlap, and feed problems are definately a possiblity. As regards the PPK, Princess Anne's bodyguard, Beaton, got off one shot with his PPK and then it jammed - with a failure to feed.
".....Or how can anyone clean a gun so poorly that grit, mud and pocket lint stick around the few moving parts in an handgun like the conspiring grime in an animated toilet cleaner commercial?...." OK, in the event you mentioned, where was your pistol before you took it out? Was it in a sealed case? Probably not. Many people used to (and still do in some parts of the World) keep their unholstered gun in the nightstand. You say you wore a jacket over the top, had the jacket been cleaned recently or was it full of lint and dust? Did you clean either the gun or the holster before taking it out? Not many people do, they clean a gun after they use it and put it away. Quite often they'll leave it away for weeks before they take it out again, but they will not stop to check it but assume it is just as pristine as when they put it away. Now, think of how quickly house dust builds up on everything else in your house - would you leave your PC monitor uncleaned for weeks? Especially in a dusty environment like Southern California. I was taught to check and clean a gun both before and after use. It might seem excessive to you, maybe your PPK can handle dust and lint just fine, but I used to shoot target pistols with very fine tolerances and they did not like dust at all.
"....I have trouble believing that ammo too weak is a greater cause of jamming...." I'm not sure if it's a greater cause, but a problem we used to see in the '90s with a lot of was new 9mmP pistols and old ammo, especially cheap European surplus ammo. What we saw was pistols with the main spring changed to work better with the P+ ammo, I think you called it 9mm Major in the States. P+ not only was more powerful but had a faster burn, making a sharper blow on the action. Some pistols, like your friend's Glock, could have a replacement spring to go with the more powerful loaded 9mmP ammo. In the UK we already had special 9mmP ammo for the Sterling which could not be fired in many older pistols, such as the Luger, without breaking it. Conversely, Browning Hi-Powers resprung for the Sterling ammo would often choke on old surplus rounds. The most dangerous case was old Sten guns - the mechanism needs the bolt to return to the open position for the sear to engage, and when loaded with the low-powered 9mmP it would not recoil far enough to reach the sear, resulting in the SMG continuing to fire on auto after you released the trigger until the mag had emptied!
If you want firsthand experience of a failure to cycle, try loading old 9mm Largo into a pistol designed for 9x23 Winchester. DO NOT try it the other way round, especially with any of the older Spanish Astra pistols, or your firsthand may lose several fingers!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
