What happens when you load a round in a magazine backwards? I try and find out!

[jlbraun]

Remember the HK catalog cover?



Actually just tried this with my Sig and snap caps, I didn't actually fire it of course. If the reversed round is in the middle of a magazine, the slide cycles and kicks out both the reversed round and the spent casing from the present shot (as the slide goes back), and chambers the next round. If the reversed one is on top, inserting the mag and racking the slide kicks out the reversed round (as the slide goes back) and chambers the next one.

I think what happens is when the slide starts to eject the previous casing, there's a tang that comes down from the breechblock that pushes down on the back of the next round. If the round is reversed, it pops out of the feed lips of the magazine (as it rotates past them, then the mag spring pops is out of the ejection port), and the slide just grabs the next round as it returns to battery like nothing happened. The reversed round is never chambered. And even if you did chamber a backwards round manually (as I did - gently - and not let the slide whack it), the slide doesn't return fully to battery so you can't pull the trigger and break a firing pin.

Really hard to explain, but interesting to know.

Do all pistols do this? Or just Sigs?

 

[KaceCoyote]

I just got my P01 to play with. If I hand cycle the slide, the reversed round will seat itself but the slide will not close all the way. The reversed round doesnt like to come back out either, I had to give the slide a few hard whacks to loose it.

As a side note, it didnt even chamber the reversed round when I dropped the slide all by itself. It jammed halfway in and with the magazine pulled free I just tugged the slide a touch and it fell into my awaiting palm.

 

[Jim K]

What happens if the round tries to chamber depends a lot on the gun and the cartridge. A cartridge like the .38 Super won't go in the chamber backwards at all, since it has a rim. A .45 ACP will, but the slide won't close on it because the bullet will be sticking out.

What happens when feeding depends on the magazine and cartridge. Usually, the backward round is pushed forward enough by the slide that the cartridge case passes the feed lips; since the bullet is too narrow to be retained by the feed lips, the round just pops up and is caught by the slide and jammed against the barrel. It may be thrown free or interfere with the empty case being extracted. Sometimes, the recoil will let the backward round move forward so that it tries to pop up on the rearward movement of the slide.

Anyway, hard as it may be to believe, auto pistols don't work too well if cartridges are put in the magazine backward.

Jim

 

[candr44]

Maybe I'm missing the point but why would you even want to do this. It is so easy to load a magazine the right way, even in the dark, that you aren't likely to get it backwards.

 

[Zero_DgZ]

Sheer curiosity, I imagine.

I think it's pretty cool that your Sig is apparently 'smart' enough through design to spit out one backwards round. I don't imagine it would handle that with two, but it's better than chambering the thing backwards hard enough that you need to go get a rod and mallet to get the thing out again.

 

[v35]

What happens when you load a round in a magazine backwards?

You shoot yourself

 

[gopguy]

I hope who ever did that HK Catalog cover, and the fool that approved that being published got sacked for incompetence.....