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MDS
05-21-2011, 09:13 PM
So SN's testing of the Gadget made me think of something I was taught a while back. I'm not sure how valuable that technique is, so I thought I'd ask here.

The idea is that, at contact range, you may press your muzzle into a belly. That will sometimes take your gun out of battery, making it inoperable. The technique I was taught is to put your strong thumb firmly on the rear of the slide, pushing it back in battery, and holding the thumb firmly while you press the trigger.

The gun goes off, but doesn't cycle. The theory is, at least you got that one shot off. Now you can disengage, rack the slide, and proceed.

Thoughts? Personally, it smells like a fun little parlor trick to me, but what do I know? It may save my life one day. :cool:

ToddG
05-21-2011, 09:23 PM
The gun goes off, but doesn't cycle. The theory is, at least you got that one shot off. Now you can disengage, rack the slide, and proceed.

I'm not Snarc and I'm definitely not an expert when it comes to contact-distance shooting skills. Having said that, my general feeling is that anything that limits my pistol to firing a single shot is probably not a good technique. In fantasy blue gun/airsoft/Sim gun land that one shot might be great but real BGs tend to soak up a lot more bullets without going down. Having to clear a self-induced stoppage while someone else punches/stabs/shoots you seems like a poor Plan A.

I'd rather do what's necessary to get myself into a position where I can fire multiple fast effective rounds.

And I'm signed up for ECQC this Fall specifically so I can tune this obvious weak spot in my skill set. :cool:

vecdran
05-21-2011, 11:53 PM
Problem, meet solution!

http://www.omegaoptions.com/products.html

:rolleyes:

Frank B
05-22-2011, 02:17 AM
You will maybe need a new holster to sport this item.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

fuse
05-22-2011, 10:15 AM
Problem, meet solution!

http://www.omegaoptions.com/products.html

:rolleyes:

http://s1.static.gotsmile.net/images/2010/10/07/cat_its_beautiful.jpg_1286407337.jpg

WDW
05-22-2011, 10:08 PM
I am not a supporter of the XD line of pistols at all, but this is one situation that gun has adressed with a portruding guide rod that keeps the gun in battery when pressed against an object.

Dropkick
05-25-2011, 07:14 AM
Shooting from retention from the man himself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ_pi0WIrho

Disclaimer: Most ranges will not allow you to do this.

Moving forward, I got a chance to try this technique for the first time last weekend. I didn't have any problems with the slide getting hung up, or any other malfunction. With the pistol in the retention position, don't be surprised when you feel the muzzle blast / wash when shooting. And on a plus note, my rounds landed exactly where I was expecting them to.

vmi-mo
05-25-2011, 10:37 AM
I have actually spoken with Todd about this very thing.

I would think that any bullet into the bad guy is better than no bullets into the bad guy. The shot, while highly unlikely will cause a "one shot drop" could open up the field to more moves.

Is it ideal? Do I want to do it? No.
Is it what I have to do? Is it necessary? Maybe

Note: I am speaking from a position of inexperience so take the above for whats its worth.


PJ

TGS
05-25-2011, 11:07 AM
Thoughts? Personally, it smells like a fun little parlor trick to me, but what do I know? It may save my life one day. :cool:

I would think that if you have enough room to maneuver your thumb on the back of the slide that you would then have enough room to not be making a contact shot to the point the gun would be forced out of battery. Not to mention that if something heavy such as a body is keeping the gun from full battery, I can hardly imagine your thumb being strong enough to counter that.

In addition, if your at contact distance I'm going to danger that the gun is the primary focus of the struggle and you'll be wrestling for it. Moving your thumb to the back of the slide would destroy any chance of you maintaining that weapon as your grip would be broken.

Those are my observations, at least.

Dropkick
05-25-2011, 12:41 PM
Oh wait... now I see what we're talking about.

My earlier post, while related, doesn't address the issue of a slide being pushed out of battery by an attacker.

I've got my thoughts on the solution to the problem, but I'm going to shut up for now.

MDS
05-25-2011, 02:49 PM
I would think that if you have enough room to maneuver your thumb on the back of the slide that you would then have enough room to not be making a contact shot to the point the gun would be forced out of battery. Not to mention that if something heavy such as a body is keeping the gun from full battery, I can hardly imagine your thumb being strong enough to counter that.

In addition, if your at contact distance I'm going to danger that the gun is the primary focus of the struggle and you'll be wrestling for it. Moving your thumb to the back of the slide would destroy any chance of you maintaining that weapon as your grip would be broken.

Those are my observations, at least.

Awesome, this is a good distillation of what I thought, intuitively. It just doesn't seem like a practical technique. I'm going to try some experiments tonight to see if my thumb can really push the slide back into battery when I've got the weight of a man on it. I'll also see if I can use my thumb to fix it if a bad guy's grip on the gun is causing the out of battery.

In any case, I can tell you, it's pretty intense to see that your thumb can easily stop the gun from cycling. First time I tried it at that class, I half expected my thumb to go flying off, even though the instructor demo'd it a few times...

Corey
07-28-2011, 05:32 PM
Late coming to this party, but back in the early/mid 90's the "Altenative Force Block" was a big deal to have on a pistol for the high speed types. I made several for people when I was working as a gunsmith back then. Back at that time some organizations were teaching the use of the pistol as an impact and striking weapon and were concerned about the gun ending up out of battery and unable to fire. That idea faded out, and G,G&G was the last place I knew of that was making them but I think they discontinued them about 10 years ago.

jslaker
07-28-2011, 06:30 PM
My main thought on this is getting your thumb on the back of the slide is going to result in less positive retention of the gun's grip, which is the opposite of what I'd think you'd want in a direct contact situation.

Dagga Boy
07-28-2011, 06:56 PM
Just saw this as well. While it is a very limited situation, we have had incidents where a pistol would not fire because it was being shoved into a suspects body. In one case in particular, the officer was being dragged in a vehicle and only had one hand available because the other was holding him in the door of the car. In this case using the thumb to push the slide closed would have worked, but the best solution was exactly what happend, the officer realized the issue, and released tension, firing the pistol and killing the suspect.

I teach the two hand method where the support hand is over the back of the slide in the same position I use to clear malfunctions. You are going to have one, so you might as well be ready to clear it. In this case with two hands it is used in extreme cases where you are actually driving the pistol into an attacker (this is going to be during a very brutal interaction, and probably on the ground or confined space). It works well, but again, its limited.

As far as retention shooting, I teach it three different ways (attacking, general purpose, and retreating). In a rare situation, I differ from Southnarc in how I index. I use the curved area where my hand joins my wrist on the bottom as the index point, because I want my thumb down and helping to maintain control of the pistol in this range. I also don't really use a specific index like the pectoral muscle, because you can't always feel your pectoral muscle with armor on. That is the point I like, but you need to work with what you have available to index. My pistol is locked in a perpendicular manner to my body. If I am driving up, round goes up, driving down, round goes down. I am trying to get the round into my opponents chest as the results will be FAR better than any abdominal shot. When I had to do this for real, having the suspect drop like a rock to a single chest hit was far better than having to use multiple rounds and being further engaged with the suspect. It is simply different approaches to solving a particular problem. I think both Southnarc and I would agree on the Pat Rogers mantra of "not the way, but a way" aspect of what we teach. The key is making sure what you are getting is from people who actually know that what they are teaching works and is not "theory", or works on the square range. This is NOT square range stuff, and is very difficult to duplicate in training. The key is having the tools and being able to access a viable technique from the memory banks rapidly, and under extreme stress. One of my guys actually decided the hot ticket at this range was to turn the suspect pistol, and shoot him with his own gun to clear some room for his gun........great move under stress to pull a typical defensive tactics technique into a shooting sceanrio. Extreme close quarters is where all the crazy stuff happens.

shep854
07-28-2011, 08:45 PM
Bear in mind, that if a gun is fired while pressed against someone's body, the muzzle blast (which includes still-burning powder at muzzle velocity) will also go into the person's body right behind the bullet.