Carbine malfunctions, what to blame?
I first stepped into the world of tactical carbines after years of toting around an M16A2 for close to 10yrs. We basically had to clean and maintain our firearms daily when deployed and I often wondered what we might have been able to do during the day if we didn’t have such a high maintenance rifle. Looking back, I realized there wasn’t much else to do and this was something that we did to just occupy time. The M16A2 is not a very clean running firearm, but it can go for hundreds if not thousands of rounds without cleaning if it was lubed correctly from the beginning. In all of my years of service with the M16A2, and the years standing next to operators with AR15 rifles, I’d say 90% of malfunctions were bad magazines or improperly loaded, and bad ammo. The next was improper lubrication. It’s been a few years since I’ve been on the range during hunting season, but It was about 5yrs ago that I ran into an AR15 owner that said the key to running an AR15 reliable is to run it dry. Well, if you own an AR15 and you think this is true, I can’t help you.
I recently watched a DVD about advanced Carbine tactics and although I thought it was of some value to Novice Carbine Operators, they left out something that I found to be crucial to all operators. PUSH, PULL will eliminate 99% of your magazine malfunctions and I couldn’t believe that after close to 10yrs of video, I never saw this tactical being used. Sometimes a magazine will insert into a Carbine and load a round, but by the 2nd round and after the recoil of the first round, gun magazines will drop loose. I actually witnessed this on a Carbine course this week and the operator didn’t even know his gun was unloaded until he moved 10ft forward.