Single-shot SOP?

[Stonebridge]

Hey guys,

I know this is pretty out there but this forum has enough .mil/.gov/.we-can't-talk-about-it experience that I thought I'd ask for snorts and giggles:

Is there any procedure, is anyone teaching a drill, has it ever come up what to do if your only/remaining weapon is reduced to a single shot?

I'm confessedly (and there are witnesses on here) pretty low-speed/high-drag but every once in a while I practice running my handguns through an IDPA-style setup without a magazine, just loose ammo. I've actually found it to be -if nothing else- a good familiarization drill and something, y'know, different.

Since reloads with retention are taught by pretty much everyone it may be considered moot but I still wonder.

For me in the real world the chances are infinitely minute that I'd lose a magazine, not have a backup gun, and have loose ammo available but wondered if you guys had ever run into any training on it. I haven't. Revolvers, yes. Mag-fed rifles and pistols, no.

Regards,

-'bridge

[GermanSynergy]

Get loaded mags back into your weapons as quickly as the situation permits.

If you lose a mag, hopefully you have another to replace it with, and drive on.

[Failure2Stop]

If you know how to deal with a failure to feed/failure to fire and know how to drop a single round into the chamber and release the bolt, what else is there to worry about?

[Redhat]

I got plenty of practice on the "single-shot SOP" in 3 years working the basic training firing line.

[Rosco Benson]

Seems a pretty far-fetched scenario to be practicing. Also, if you're using a 1911, you're abusing the extractor every time it has to snap over the rim of the chambered cartridge.

Rosco

[JodyH]

I'm confessedly (and there are witnesses on here) pretty low-speed/high-drag
Your training time and effort would be better spent elsewhere.

Put more effort into the "Big 3" basics:

Draw to first shot, time and accuracy.
First magazine on target, time and accuracy.
First reload, time.

Investing your time and effort on those three items will have FAR more benefit than practicing for a infinitesimally low probability occurrence like single round loading.
Until you can do a sub-8 second "El Presidente", from concealed, cold and on demand (or an equivalent comprehensive "standards" drill)... you have better things to work on than breech loading single rounds.

[Stonebridge]

Just to be clear, when I dick around with loose ammo it's not what I consider my training time; it's just something different for the sake of variety on alternating blue-moons. And no, I run a Beretta and an HK, not "the world's finest CQB weapon and king of feedway stoppages."

My question revolved around my understanding that, back in the day, standard procedure was to let empty mags hit the deck (we're talking combat here) which sooner or later without resupply would result in mag-less weaponry. I just wondered if anyone had ever addressed what to do if you were that far up shit creek. Curiosity never killed anything except a couple of hours.

Regards,

-'b

[Weaver]

1) All your time at the range is training time - good training, bad training, it's all training.

2) At some point you may well run out of magazines - if you haven't retained them for some reason, you are presumed to have had a valid reason for abandoning them (like needing a loaded gun quickly). You may well get down to only one mag left, and conceivably have some loose ammo left over somewhere - so load the mag and get back into the fight. Hopefully the zombies haven't eaten your face by this point in time.

3) The more massively unlikely the training scenario, the more likely it's "bad training".

[Magic_Salad0892]

What if you're caught in the middle of a reload and still have one in the chamber?

Not likely, but neither is a confrontation involving firearms.

[Rhutch]

Well I doubt you'd drop your last mag, then walk away and discover to your horror that you didn't have another mag. In most situations your relatively roughly aware how much ammo you got left (especially around the last couple mags).


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[Failure2Stop]

I cannot believe that this thread has lasted this long.