Ar-15, what is the soldier doing?

[38snapcaps]

As an AR owner I naturally pay close attention to the handling of rifles in the combat footage from Iraq you see on the news.

I saw one that has me stumped: The soldier is behind a wall with his rifle, magazine inserted. He pulls twice on the charging handle, gives the bottom of the mag a push, hits the bolt release button (you can see the rifle bump forward), and resumes firing.

The first operation of the handle would have chambered a round, the second pull would have ejected it and inserted another. Perhaps the bolt was closed for some reason and he needed to chamber a round, but why operate the handle twice? If the bolt was open, what was holding it open when there was a full magazine inserted after twice pulling the charging handle back? If the magazine wasn't all the way in at the onset why didn't it fall out while he was operating the rifle's controls?

Any ideas?

 

[taylorce1]

Probably a version of SPORTS to clear a malfunction while firing. The Army teaches this acronym in basic rifle marksmanship.

Slap on bottom of magazine.
Pull charging handle to rear.
Observe the chamber.
Release bolt.
Tap forward assist.
Shoot!

I imagine that is what the soldier was trying to do, why he pulled the charging handle twice is anyones guess.

 

[Pointer]

The first operation of the handle would have chambered a round

He probably didn't pull the bolt all the way back... Thus he failed to chamber the round... so he tried again using SPORTS.

 

[STLRN]

You would be surprised how many failures to fire are caused by magazines not being seated or the shooter forgetting to charge his weapon prior to attempting to fire.

I imagine that is what the soldier was trying to do, why he pulled the charging handle twice is anyones guess.

Could be he never got the handle all the way to rear, the butt stock mag pouches favored by Fobits often interferes with pulling the handle to rear.

 

[Blackwater OPS]

Sounds exactly like sports to me.

 

[3 weelin geezer]

Well, I dont know about the reliability of that AR but as far as a .50 m/g they wanted us to put the belt in not quite ready to fire. You had to rack it to advance the cartridge into position to be stripped then again to strip it and chamber it. Same goes for the M60. Just to be safe from those who get confused when SHTF. One guy just stood there looking at me like what shall I do? Someone else got the chance to send a 40 mm down there.

 

[U.S.SFC_RET]

Soldier probably experienced a double feed before and has it engrained to pull back on the charging handle twice. It's very common to do, especially when you are in a dusty environment like Iraq and you are lugging around 210 rounds of ammo (which is the basic load) and you don't wipe them down every day. This is indicative of bad leadership to a degree.

 

[horseshoe3]

It's a good thing I read that last post a second time. The first time I read it my eyes saw "210 rounds" but my brain said "210 pounds." I asked myself, "What would a person want with over 8000 rounds in his pack?"

 

[STLRN]

Soldier probably experienced a double feed before and has it engrained to pull back on the charging handle twice. It's very common to do, especially when you are in a dusty environment like Iraq and you are lugging around 210 rounds of ammo (which is the basic load) and you don't wipe them down every day. This is indicative of bad leadership to a degree.

Double feeds are caused by either too high a bolt velocity or bad magazines.

I would only clean my carbine follow reset training (every Friday). The only reason was we normally shot a UBL plus of ammo. However we test fired ever day prior to leaving the wire to go on patrol, as either VC, Gunner or Driver on a M1114. Despite this I never got a double feed, failure to go into battery, failure to fire or failure to ejected while firing my carbine numerous times outside of training in some pretty dusty conditions. I ensured, I used only about a Q-tips worth of lube (TWB-25) on the weapon, and used good magazines (both H&Ks and MAGPUL upgraded magazines)