You just did WHAT?

Over the years I have had the opportunity to train (teach?) others, and train with some very

talented and great people. Some are experts and some are novices. I have learned a lot from

experts as well as I have learned a lot from novices.

As we all know, ammo is the fuel that makes a gun go bang. Without the right ammo, the gun will not go bang. With the wrong ammo and the right circumstance the gun may go bang with catastrophic results or even possibly damaging the firearm, injuring or killing the shooter. It is very important for us to know the caliber and the type of ammunition that a firearm can use.

An individual was attending a NJ CCW recertification class. He shot one magazine,

reloaded for the next volley and as he started to shoot he began with a missfire and a jam. His gun finally went off but the slide jammed and the empty casing did not eject. He attempted to manipulate the slide, but it would not move. I safely took the firearm from him and attempted to manipulate the slide. After several attempts with some extreme effort, the spent casing popped out and onto the ground. I reached down and picked up the spent casing to see that the mouth of the casing was cracked and bulged. After some inspection, and some questioning, I found out that this student was shooting a Glock 23 which is a 40 cal. And he was running 9mm in the new magazine.

Another time, a gentleman who attended an AR-15 class was commenting on how he needed to change out a buffer spring because his rifle was not cycling the ammo properly. He asked if I would shoot his firearm and give him my thoughts. He handed me his firearm with a loaded magazine. I fired ten rounds and did not experience any jams. I handed him back the firearm and he put a new magazine in it and started shooting at his target. After three rounds, he had a malfunction. He manually ejected the round onto the ground and fired two more rounds. He experienced a second malfunction, and cleared that to the ground. He then finished the rest of the rounds into his target. I reached down and picked up one of the unfired rounds. It was a 300 Blackout. The rifle he was shooting was a .223 / 5.56.

I spoke to him about this and his response was “how did that get in there?”

Here are two instances where the wrong ammo was loaded into magazines and an attempt was made to fire them through the wrong firearm. Slow down; know your firearm and what caliber it is and the correct ammo that fits it. Carelessness can kill. Speed can kill when we are trying to do too much, too fast and not paying attention to what we are doing and what is around us.

AR’s have been known to blow up with crossfeeding the wrong ammo. Be safe and shoot often.