In 1975 I picked up the first pistol that someone had the audacity to hand me. It was a Remington Rand 1911A1, and it was handed to me by an armorer at the Armor School at Fort Knox. One day of training in a classroom, and one day of shooting on a range, and I was smitten. It became a life-long love affair with handguns of all types. 1911s would come and go, based on the whims and needs of the Army, but I retained the training that they gave me back in those heady days.
It seems that there was this little doo-hickey on the left side of the slide. It conveniently locked the slide back when the pistol was out of ammo. The Army called it a slide stop, and the instructors were quite adamant that it was never to be used to release the slide. To use it to release the slide would cause untold damage to the firearm, resulting in unauthorized damage to the weapon, rendering it un-usable and requiring costly maintenance. They were quite explicit on that score.
Once the slide stop engaged, the proper method of reloading the pistol was to eject the magazine, then slingshot the slide home. That's the way I was trained, and it was ingrained into my handgun DNA.
Fast forward to last week. My grandson and I were out shooting, and when he changed magazines, he reached for that little doo-hickey, thumbed it down, and the slide went home.
"Who taught you that?" I asked.
"The Army." Grandson is a school-trained small-arms repairman, MOS 91F, recently returned from that school at Fort Lee, VA. Evidently, there has been a change in the curriculum.
Being the inquisitive type that I am, I did some Googling, and evidently there is a huge debate on how to use that little doo-hickey on the side of the slide. It's a huge debate that seems to me to be a tempest in a tea pot. Oh, the spittle is flying on both sides of the issue. And, the ignorance is entertaining.
For myself, I'll continue to slingshot the slide. It's the way I was trained. I suspect that grandson will continue to thumb the doo-hickey. It's the way he was trained.
9 comments:
I was trained to use left thumb to hold hammer back and use left forefinger on the doo-hickey to release the slide. This is from both Army and Navy bullseye competition training. Many thousands of rounds later and I can't do it any other way, at least on the bench. In a tactical situation I don't know.
I just converted my Remington Rand bullseye gun back to a carry piece by removing the Bomar rib and adding back the standard sights plus a stronger spring. Haven't had a chance to shoot it yet since the change.
Training is a wonderful, under-rated thing.
Training is what allows your two, functioning brain cells to focus on the new-and-novel while under stress.
I do the same as you do, EXCEPT when shooting bullseye, then I do it the same way Flugelman did. That was beat into our heads by the Gunny that ran our team (and the triggers were light enough that if you DIDN'T hold the hammer back, it could bounce and fire a round.
I went through INS Inspector school at FLETC in '98 and we were trained to slingshot the 96D Beretta Brigadier. I still slingshot.
I only shot the Navy's 1911s a couple of times from '73 onward, and I don't recall the Gunner's Mate teachers having a preference.
Some guns have a slide lock that is really hard to push down and so the overhand method - if a right handed shooter, using left hand to grab slide between base of palm and all fingers - is a more universal technique than using the slide stop to release the slide. The slingshot method is also pretty universal but it is not as efficient as the overhand method. But if it's feasible, using the slide stop to drop the slide is the most efficient way to chamber a round from a new mag after an empty gun reload.
Also, don't drop the slide on an empty chamber on a 1911 - according to Bill Wilson and Ken Hackathorn -
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1AuVd0qycrc
My first centerfire pistol was a Polish Radom P 64. Basically, a PPK copy, in 9mm Makarov. It doesn't have a slide release. So I had to pull the slide back to reload a new round from a reload. The habit carried over to any other pistol that I have now. It is second nature, and it seems just as fast as when I have tried to use a slide release. So I have not tried to switch.
pigpen51
Bet you a G these 2 cells when higher than a giraffe's pussy still scores abundantly better than you on ACT SAT or any profenciency that doesnt list being a bawld midget as one of the criteria to proficiently score
Even a retarded chimp could follow a bread crumb trail... captain gretel
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