[zombietactics]

Glock magazines have a plastic baseplate. Drop one that's 1/2 to 3/4 full onto a hard surface from shoulder height and the baseplate has been known to crack at the edge. When this crack happens the magazine spring will burst the floorplate off the magazine. That's not a good thing if I want to keep that magazine and ammo.

So - once again - you're at the mall (your scenario) and have "exchanged shots" with some bad guys, who (oddly weird tactics) simply decide to move on and engage other targets. Somehow you've been "awesome" enough they fear your opposition, but not enough that you require a positive "neutralization".

Your concern at that time is making sure you don't want to break a magazine by dropping it on the floor? THAT is the thing you are worried about?

Please take the following in good humor. We're all friends having a discussion, AFAIK.

I'm a Glock-certified armorer. I've owned Glocks since about the month they came on the market. I still have a couple of no-drop magazines from my first Gen1 Glock 17. I am abusive as hell to my magazines during training and practice, and I train and practice a LOT more than the average person. I've seen a few cracked base plates over the past 25 years. Some were with cheap Korean knockoffs, not Glock OEM, so I don't think that really counts. I've never once seen a Glock magazine fly apart and spill its guts from being dropped to the ground, pavement or floor. Not once. Not ever. I've never even heard of it actually happening "in the wild".

If you are really that worried about it, there are several third-party base plates made of various impact-resistant polymers, hard rubber, aluminum, etc. ... problem solved without having to get weird about it.

I suppose in some broad, theoretical sense, it could happen. Maybe it has happened, but it's very rare. Maybe Bigfoot exists, but I am sure as hell not basing my skill set or training on the notion that he will show up at the mall, lol.

If you have forever to exchange and retain mags, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't do so. I have no idea why it makes sense to practice doing something speedily, for an instance in which you have all the time you need.

How many actual unexpected stoppages (failure to feed, stovepipe, in-line stovepipe, doublefeed) have you experienced during training which interferes with the slide going into battery? I suspect it's probably very few. So how do you KNOW when you "feel" (diagnose) a difference? YOU DON'T KNOW because YOU DON'T HAVE EXPERIENCE in "feeling" and diagnosing the difference between a slide that's out of battery because of an empty magazine or because it's out of battery because of a failure.

You're making a helluva lot of assumptions here, which is not a wise things to do.

Firstly, you are describing a process called "difference sorting" by which someone determines what something IS by its differences from what it ISN'T. That's not a normal, intuitive mode of recognition, and that's not what is suggested. One learns to recognize "Orange" by being exposed continually to that color, not by being exposed to all the other colors and then concluding that Orange is "the one that's not all the other ones".

Slide lock is encountered regularly, and it's easy to learn to recognize it intuitively. I am familiar with almost every proponent of non-diagnostic methods: Rob Pincus, Gabe Suarez, James Yeager, Clint Smith, Paul Howe, etc. It's a long list and I have trained with many of them. None of them teach a reflexive Tap/Rack in response to slide lock. They teach recognizing slide-lock, and it's a featured part of the course syllabus. It's easily learned by simply doing it.

So, I don't know where this idea of adopting tap/rack on slide-lock as a preferred technique comes from. I would really like to know who teaches it.

Regarding the other point about what stoppages or malfunctions I've personally experienced, that's another case where assumptions are dangerous.

I think I understand where you are coming from. With any modern gun in reasonably well-maintained condition, the standard malfunctions are pretty rare ... far less common than shooting the gun to slide-lock, BTW. There's a point there if you can see it. Should you base your training and skill set around things which almost never happen, or things which happen regularly? Hmmmm.

But keep in mind that I have been at this firearms thing for about 35 years (Glocks 25), and I may have some things at my disposal which aren't common to most.

Among those are things like the aforementioned "no-drop" magazines. I also have mags which won't seat easily, or which have worn followers or springs (which means the slide won't lock back). I have magazines with damaged or worn feed lips, which introduce all sorts of craziness into the mix.

Those magazines are in the "training box" for the purpose of training for worst-case screw ups. Using them (along with dummy rounds), I regularly experience all of the standard malfunctions, and many which are hard to define.

When your gun fails to fire what do you do? Do you presume your magazine is empty and stand there like a static cardboard target while you attempt to perform a Combat Reload?

I have no idea where the "stand there like a static cardboard target" comment comes from. I have to conclude that you have a very vivid imagination concerning those with whom you disagree.

But let's take the example you give at face value, and let's pretend that one cannot recognize slide-lock intuitively. You've admitted already that malfunctions are rare, i.e "... How many actual unexpected stoppages ... I suspect it's probably very few", and it's obvious that slide-locks are a normal and expected condition of having shot the gun dry.

So, you are firing away and the gun stops going bang. You've never bothered with learning to recognize slide-lock, and you've made it abundantly clear that you have no intention of diagnosing the problem by looking at it. You are proceeding from a condition of almost zero knowledge about the actual condition of the gun. Does it make more sense to reflexively perform a technique designed to correct (what is by your own admission) the least-likely occurance in such a case, or a condition which is normal, common and expected? That's a rhetorical question of course, the answer is obvious, or should be.

That simple logic dictates that even in the case that you cannot recognize slide-lock, you are far more likely to gain an advantage by training to simply reload than to proceed as if there is a malfunction.

But the simple fact is that people can and do learn to recognize slide-lock, as a part of basic instruction, and it's taught by every proponent of non-diagnostic malfunction clearances I can identify.

I do as I have trained to do, and have practiced regularly. I can recognize slide-lock intuitively without fail. I don't waste time on tapping/racking a gun which is clearly empty.