You don’t see this every day.

This past weekend at a Fortress Defense Level II Pistol course, an interesting stoppage was observed. It happened with a 1911, and appeared to be caused by the exposed hammer of the 1911 catching a student’s garment on the draw stroke.

A student’s 1911 grabbed hold of her cover garment during slide-cycle. The shirt was caught under the hammer when the slide cycled. As the slide cycled to the rear and cocked the hammer, the shirt wedged under the hammer and seized the works up. The hammer couldn’t travel down far enough and it all locked up mid cycle. She drew her back-up and continued with her primary pistol dangling from her shirt. We almost had to beat the slide forward with a hammer to free it – the gun was out of action, completely seized up. You do this stuff long enough and you’ll see everything.

Check out the photos below, click for a larger version.

Kinda reinforces the idea of carrying a backup gun, doesn’t it?