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Mark F wrote:Shooting a lot of rounds isn't really necessary. But you need to shoot your pistol as though you are caught in a situation. IE: Shoot with one hand, shoot left and right hand. Your pistol should be reliable and repeatable in all circumstances.

I agree that ultimately it is necessary for you to shoot your handgun and ammunition through a variety of simulated scenarios.

However, for the purpose of equipment debug, and specifically when focusing upon the mechanical reliability of the firearm, you will want to optimize everything except the handgun; this entails using a firm two-handed grip and shooting factory ammunition (or trustworthy handloads). Then, if you do sustain a stoppage, you can focus upon the handgun as the most likely cause, and spend less time wondering whether it was an incorrect grip or defective ammunition.

You can proceed with more interesting things after you have developed a measure of confidence in the handgun's basic mechanical reliability.

For semi-automatic pistols, I like to adhere to this protocol as closely as possible.

If you use that protocol, do not feel as though you have to do all of those tests in one range session. You can do part 1 in one range session, part 2 in another, and part 3 in a third one. If part 4 is necessary, that can be a separate range session, after having some time to think about the nature of the malfunction(s). Take your time, do not rush your shooting unnecessarily, and have fun.

Barring extremely unusual situations, you will probably only use whatever ammunition you have in the handgun and/or whatever reloads you carry on your person or otherwise immediately at hand. At minimum, starting from being fully cleaned/lubricated as carried, it should be able to consume this total load without a single malfunction. I have read of a standard of no more than 1 malfunction in one thousand rounds, and this seems much more exacting without becoming ridiculous.

To minimize false positives, I would avoid gun show reloads or other ammunition of questionable origin; use recently-manufactured factory ammunition only. Furthermore, using a single load for part 1 and 2 and a single load for part 3 may help simplify any problem solving that may be required later.