My buddies Nam and Mr. Colion Noir recently had the good fortune to attend a handgun course with Stephen Pineau and 21st Century Gunfighter in northern Texas (sadly I wasn’t able to make it). One of the things they brought back was a malfunction drill that I hadn’t heard of before – Malfunction Mayhem.
Malfunction Mayhem
Malfunction Mayhem is a malfunction drill created by Steve Fisher of Magpul Dynamics that adds a twist to the malfunction drills I’m used to. Normally when doing malfunction drills I load my magazines with a mixture of live and dummy rounds. These dummy rounds will of course not fire, simulating a malfunction that must be cleared.
The Malfunction Mayhem twist is that instead of using dummy rounds, use empty brass. Not only is this cheaper and more convenient, but it also provides more interesting and more difficult failures to clear, including type III malfunctions that cannot be fixed with a simple tap-rack drill. A couple things to note: putting multiple empty casings in a row will lead to possible swearing and teeth gnashing, as will using steel casings. Stick with brass.
All in all, an excellent drill. Next time you’re on the range, give it a try. Mix in empty brass with your live ammunition and you’ll see what I mean.
Just to add, we filled three magazines to throw in two emergency (speed) reloads into the mix. The drill was even more “mayhem”-like since we had the mindset that we had to get the weapon right back into the fight no matter what. It’s a fun/frustrating drill and we did it twice.
Thanks Nam.
We did what the MDFI (Steve’s old School) cadre called the Steve Fisher %#!? Drill. We filled as many magazines as we had (I had 6) and did all 3 types of magazine changes while clearing the malfunctions (5 cases per magazine) until you went dry. Great drill!