re: Officer Wilson's duty firearm, a Sig Sauer P229 .40 caliber, would not fire.

Kind of sounds like suicide by cop to me.

his is just FYI for those that are interested, but do not have time to review the grand jury information.

Officer Wilson fired 12 times.

Brown was hit 6 times.

From officer Wilson's first encounter with Brown to Browns death 90 seconds elapsed.

Heyyy oooooo

May have been something between the hammer and firing pin as well.

reading a portion of the transcript, he says Brown grabbed the top. it then went click -click - bang - click rack- bang

I assumed the first two clicks were because Brown had the slide pulled back slightly (not sure there would be an audible click. never tried that). or maybe got his thumb webbing under the hammer.

The click after the first bang, I figured in such close quarters, it somehow jammed - maybe slide didn't cycle fully or the spent casing was prevented from ejecting by a hand, clothes etc. He then racked and cleared it.

Wilson is lucky. Why they don't release all the details, I'll never understand. What did the other witnesses say? did Brown have powder residue on his hands and clothes? What do Brown supporters think he should have done instead?

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I'd like to think the slide was slightly back when they struggled in the car.

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That's my thinking - with 20+ years of experience with Sigs - I've had zero FTF due to ammo or magazine issues. I had a very short-term mainspring issue with an otherwise flawless P220 - due to a poorly finished aftermarket Hogue grip, which caused light primer strikes and roughly 2 out of 3 rounds would not fire.

I have almost this exact weapon - short external extractor and the half-height cocking serrations on the back of the slide - my P229 has no rail.

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But then again, if the slide is slightly retracted on a striker-fired pistol it wouldn't discharge either.

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Out of battery is out of battery, and that's what I think happened in this case.

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restrike capability of the Sig

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While there are more things that can go wrong with the conventional Sig FCS, this is an advantage - I'm not sure a Glock trigger will cycle if it is out of battery - but if it will, that would likely have been fatal in this case.

It is also - ever so slightly possible that it was a light primer strike that caused the initial misfire - and that could have been weapon or ammo related.

Where are the Glock boys. Figured you'd be drooling at the mouth.

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I'm thinking it was out of battery and the firing pin was not struck for the first two attempted shots. Then maybe the third hit him. But if his hand was still on the gun, it may have short stroked it and caused another malfunction, hence the tap and rack the officer did.

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It is possible it had a mainspring problem - no question, but it would have been unlikely to function any more consistently after the rack, than before.

Could be a combination issue, too. The handling of the weapon, press against the slide and/or out of battery could result in the FTF for the first couple of "clicks" - then and a teaching point for us here:

What about that top round of your carry mag? Are you a cheapskate like Ace Midnight and shoot a bunch of ball at the range, but only shoot your carry ammo once in a blue moon (like it stays in there for years)? How many times has that top round been ejected when you clear the weapon to clean, take to the range, or just show off to jelly folks who can only afford Rugers or Glocks? 10? 30?

How much extractor wear on the rim? Will it cycle? Probably. Is there a chance the wear will result in a FTE? Yes. Do you want to bet your life on it?

That may have been an issue here, although I'm not sure if the agency reguires them to shoot and supplies their carry ammo, versus ball. I mean, they shoot a lot more than I do, so maybe this wasn't the case.

But it was/is something I think about.

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Shoulda had a Glock.

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This! My Glock 23 is an ammo eating machine.