1) because in competition (USPSA), taking the 'long route' burns more time, which can be significant scorewise, especially on a fast low round count stageCrash wrote:For many years I've heard that the proper procedure for a malfunction in a semi-auto is tap the magazine to make sure it is firmly seated, rack the slide to eject the round that is causing the problem, then pull the trigger. However, there are some cases where tapping the magazine, etc., won't help. So, rather than having to learn two different procedures, i.e., tap, rack, bang or drop, replace, rack, bang, how about just always doing the latter since that will take care of almost any failure. And, yes, I know that you're getting rid of a magazine that may still have perfectly good rounds in it, but that may be worth the risk of not clearing the failure with tap, rack, bang.
What say ye?
Crash
2) because in competition (IDPA) the long route burns more time, and you can't drop (on the ground) a mag that has rounds in it, and pocketing/re-mag-holder-ing it adds even more time.
In both the above cases, the short route cures your malfunction much of the time, and the 'trigger pull test' only takes a fraction of a second. In addition, you can often tell visually ahead of time when the situation requires removing the magazine (for instance, you have a double-feed).
3) in 'social' situations, I'll just say that time is of the essence and leave it at that.....