Whenever your gun stops shooting, or it malfunctions in anyway, the first thing you should do is tap, rack, bang. Why?
Well, the tap, rack, bang will clear 90% of gun jams. In other words, all the most common malfunctions will be cleared by tap, rack, bang, so without even looking at the gun you should try and clear it that way.
Tap, Rack, Bang is also called “immediate action” because that’s what it should be — your immediate reaction to a gun jam without diagnosing anything.
But if you find that the gun is still jammed, it’s most likely a double feed. Here’s how to clear that.
Step 1: Lock
First thing’s first. It may LOOK like the slide is already locked back because it’s not forward in the position it’s supposed to be. But you need to lock it back completely.
That means pushing the slide back and engaging the slide stop lever.
Step 2: Strip
Next, you want to strip the magazine from the gun. This could be as easy as hitting the mag release button on the gun (like you would normally do to reload) or if you have a nasty jam you may have to “rip” it out.
IMPORTANT: if you do not have a fresh magazine to replace this one with, then you need to hold on to this magazine.
Step 3: Rack
Then with the gun empty of a magazine rack the slide at least 3 times, and the gun will likely be cleared of any rounds or empty casings that had jammed it up.
Step 4: Magazine
Then you need to either A.) stick a fresh magazine back in the gun or B.) put the same magazine back in the gun if you don’t have a backup.
Step 5: Rack
Then rack the slide again after inserting the magazine. This chambers a new, live round.
Step 6: Bang?
Now is the time to assess and decide if you need to get back to shooting again.
It’s that simple guys. Five words:
Lock
Strip
Rack
Magazine
Rack
Then of course, “Bang” or start shooting again is optional, you’ll have to assess the situation and see if you need to keep sending lead down range.
Obviously this takes a little more time than the “tap, rack, bang” method, but if you get a double feed this is how you clear it.
It might one day save your life, so be sure to practice it from time to time. You can use “dummy rounds” during your dryfire practice to set it up, like you see in the picture below.