I’ve been watching a crap load of war movies lately, and the question popped into my mind. Why do soldiers, generally using M-16 or one of it’s counterpart rifles, tap the magazine against their helmet before loading it. Never thought about it in depth.
Not having used an automatic rifle, I can only post conjecture, but one possibility is that the spring-load apparatus inside the magazine could have a tendency to stick, and the tapping is a way to jar it just to ensure that all rounds are pushed to the top of the clip before insertion into the rifle.
It seats the rounds directly in lines. So the pins are lined up. It prevents jamming.
ah makes sense. thanks for the response. is this common practice with all automatic rifles?