(pulling the pump back on a shotgun, pulling the slide or bolt, whatever your gun does.

In the case of the most simple problems - the case or round isn't properly moved during the cycle - you can try manually cycling again to move it all along and hopefully do it cleanly. If you want a literal jam you could be talking about a case being improperly ejected and getting stuck like this, when a new round gets stuck rather than properly loaded into the chamber, or when a faulty round isn't fired correctly and becomes stuck in the barrel rather than coming out it. There are a few things that can cause a firearm to not discharge as expected. Fixing this kind of jam requires actual repair work, and rounds will have to be manually loaded until it is fixed. If the tube that brings the gases back is somehow clogged, or the piston somehow breaks, then the firearm will no longer cycle.

The force from that gas cycles the firearm, either by pushing a piston, or by directly feeding into the chamber (direct impingement). The round sticks out of the chamber, appearing like a 'stovepipe,' and prevents it from closing.Īutoloading firearms (semi-auto/full-auto) cycle by looping a small amount of gas from the barrel (the same gases that propel the bullet) back into the chamber via a separate tube. Stovepiping is a failure-to-eject malfunction where the empty cartridge fails to completely leave the chamber before it closes again, (perhaps due to a timing problem or a broken ejector). You will need to manually rack the chamber, and possibly load the round by hand. If your firearm loads from some sort of magazine, and somehow fails to properly feed the cartridge into the chamber (weak/broken spring, improper feeding ramps, physical blockage, etc.) then the chamber likely will not close.

Why do guns jam