Pistol slide stuck with round in chamber

[LeJerk]

Is there anyone in my area that has a safe place to troubleshoot my pistol? I couldn't fix it while out today.

M&P 9mm - It double fed and after I dropped the magazine and tried to clear it, the slide closed, and now it won't open again. The slide pulls back only a little bit. Pulling back fairly hard doesn't seem to make it move either.

[BPTactical]

Place the nose of the slide on the edge of a workbench, countertop or similar, pointing downward. Give the back of the grip a sharp rap with the heel of your hand or soft mallet. Keep clear of the trigger.
Usually clears it.

[Great-Kazoo]

Place front of pistol on a solid piece of wood, with barrel clear of the wood. Give the grip a good hard rap / pushing forward. That should move the slide ejecting round in chamber.
DO NOT........... put the front sight against the hard surface. Unless you don't mind it being broken and or torn off.



This is one of many on utube, only this guy does it w'out using something to rest the front of slide against . Try this way 1st then go from there. About the.30 sec mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3rcaiUsTqI

[LeJerk]

It worked! Thanks for the guidance. The stuck object was an empty casing.

Why was the action frozen? Anything I should do differently next time? I'm guessing it was because it needs to be cleaned.

[Bailey Guns]

Hard to say what makes them stick without seeing it. Sometimes it's a casing that's out of spec, could be dirty, or any number of things. Sometimes (like the advice you got) you just gotta give it a good whack. Most people are reluctant to do that for fear of damaging their gun. But, they're pretty durable.

[Wolfshoon]

I had a real similar problem a couple years ago with a G19 and a live round. The slide slammed forward but did not fully close the last .040" or about 1 mm. Trigger pulled properly, but no bang and I could not rack it out by hand at the range, it was TIGHT!

Took it home and removed striker assy from slide, always with barrel in safe direction. Was able to finally free it using BPTactical's method above with a soft mallet and wood table top and one good sharp blow.

Turns out the Lone Wolf threaded barrel would not fully chamber 147grn 9mm rounds, problem was 100% repeatable with 3 different 147grn rounds from 3 different manufacturers. Factory glock barrel had no problems with any 147grn ammo. Contacted Lone Wolf and they took back both my threaded barrels and re-chambered them to properly fit 147 grn rounds and shipped them back, all under warranty. Since that incident I now visually check that the ammo I'm using with any pistol will fully chamber in the barrel before shooting.

[Circuits]

Why was the action frozen? Anything I should do differently next time? I'm guessing it was because it needs to be cleaned.

The action was frozen because a recently-fired then ejected case has expanded from the heat and pressure of firing, and cooled differentially to a larger size. It needs to be resized, cold, afterwards, to be in spec again, for the most part.

[ray1970]

The action was frozen because a recently-fired then ejected case has expanded from the heat and pressure of firing, and cooled differentially to a larger size. It needs to be resized, cold, afterwards, to be in spec again, for the most part.

Not to be a downer but things shrink when they cool down, not expand.

Also, if the case was ejected then why was it still in the chamber?

Glad you managed to clear it.

[Circuits]

Not to be a downer but things shrink when they cool down, not expand.

Yes, I'm aware of basic physics. It's the differential cooling, and stresses induced in the case from firing, that cause it to balloon and lengthen some on extraction. Without the shrinkage on cooling it would be bigger still than it remains. Cramming a just-fired, partially-cooled case back into the chamber will often result in a stuck case, mostly due to length expansion (which is why resized fired cases often need to be trimmed back to proper length).