Chose three malfunctions and list colloquial, lay-person, or “slang” terms used to communicate them.

I feel it is important to talk to the customer and get as much information as possible before handling the firearm in question. This sounds easy but most of the time the customer has no idea what type of malfunction they are experiencing or even the name of the gun or part they think is broken. For example, if a firearm has a failure to feed the customer may come to you and say something like “I can’t get the ammo in the gun” or “I racked it, and nothing happened”. In my experience this is usually operator error because the magazine was not seated correctly, or the slide was closed when they inserted the magazine, and they never pulled the slide back to chamber a round. Occasionally the magazine spring is under powered and actually is the cause of the malfunction. I would ask the customer if the magazine was left loaded for an extended period of time because this can damage the magazine spring and not feed ammunition correctly.

Want to read more?

Subscribe to gunsmithmd.wixsite.com to keep reading this exclusive post.

Subscribe Now