Stovepipe, Doublefeed - What do these terms mean?

J

Judge Vandelay

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Sorry about this, guys; another "ultimate" newbie question. I have only put about 700 rounds through my one and only pistol.

The only major problem that I have ever had was the gun not going bang when I pulled the trigger and the gun jamming at the same time. Had to pull the slide back as hard as I could to unjam it. Was this a stovepipe? This happened twice with a certain kind of ammo. I put it down to the ammo and have vowed never to buy that stuff again.
 
A stove pipe is when the spent casing gets jammed in the ejection port ( between the outer portion of the chamber and the slide)...when the slide closes.

Not sure what's happening to you without a bot more detail...

Is the hammer dropping when the gun fails to fire or is it failing to cycle properly?
 
Well, going by memory here, I think what happened (if this makes any sense) is that the round was chambered properly and the hammer went forward properly. But the gun failed to go bang. I could manually recock the hammer and it would go forward again, but still no bang. I could eject the cartridge from the chamber by yanking back on the slide as hard as I could.

When this happened, I put two rounds in the mag, a new round (same ammo) and the round that failed to fire. The new round went bang and the round that failed to fire the first time went click. Again, I had to pull the slide back as hard as I could to eject the round from the chamber.

Just a faulty round? Happened twice with this ammo which is why I have no plans to use this ammo again.
 
Check to see if the firing pin is actually striking the primer...

If you have a good hit...it's the ammo...

If you have a light hit...it could be high primers or a weak main spring

If you have no hits...the hammer is falling on half ####...

From what you described...it sounds like ammo

Cheers
Craig
 
It could also be that your pistol wasn't fully going into battery (all the way forward, with the barrel locked into the slide; firearms are designed to avoid this, because if it WAS to fire in this condition, it would be like holding a grenade at arm's length and pulling the pin). Bad reloads/oversized ammo can be one cause of this.

As Quigley says, a stovepipe is where an ejected case gets caught in the ejection port, often sticking up into your sight plane just like a stove-pipe. A "double-feed" is where either a live round or a fired case gets left in the chamber, and the slide goes back to eject it, but then tries to shove a fresh round in on top of the current inhabitant of the chamber. The only thing you can do in this case is drop the mag, rack the slide a couple of times, and if your extractor is pooched, accept a zero on the stage :)
 
+1 for the "bad ammo", especially if it's a reloaded round. For future reference, if it happens again, and you can't get it unstuck...

Hold the slide with your weak hand as though you are racking the slide. Take your strong hand and (with your hand open) strike the back of the grip with your palm. Just don't hit it hard enough that you knock the gun out of your weak hand. :D
 
that would be failure to fire, not a stovepipe...

check if the primer has a dent on it, if there is the primer is a dead

Ps: when that happends you shopuld wait about 30-60 seconds before you rack the slide; it coul dbe a hang fire (it can still go off)
 
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