Mag flipping

[HopetonBrown]

That's more or less what happened, yes. I relayed my little FAST drill anecdote because I thought it was somewhat interesting, though it wasn't pertinent to my question and I should've omitted it.

I'm still wondering if there's any reason why I shouldn't "power stroke" instead, which was my original question.

I watched the guy that came in 1st in CDP in my last local IDPA match "powerstroke" the slide and miss.

Last weekend I watched 3 out of 5 "powerstrokers" do the same thing. When they come up and over the gun to pull the slide back, but are in such a hurry they don't get a firm grasp and have to do it again.

Mike Pannone was not a fan of this technique, as I was using it circa January 2014 in his class, and he told me so. He said you come too far off your master firing grip, and it's slower than using the slide stop/release. Pat McNamera on M4Carbine.net said he's seen 2 people shoot themselves in the hand doing the "powerstroke".

[Lomshek]

I'm still wondering if there's any reason why I shouldn't "power stroke" instead

Because it's slower and at least as likely to induce a malfunction as flubbing the slide release.

As far as mag flipping I guess if one wants to be dynamic one must do it. Personally I just figured out a method of dropping mags cleanly that leaves the gun oriented so it's ready to accept the new mag.

[Peally]

I've twisted the gun early enough to prevent gravity from helping the mag fall out, wasting time. If people want to look like twits throwing mags all over more power to them though.

Best counter would be out-shooting the boobs using better methods

[Chuck Haggard]

I'll have to think again about the slide release vs running the slide school of thought, Mike and Pat are some really serious dudes, and I tend to listen to guys like that and take what they say seriously. However, comma,..........

One reason why I have always taught running the slide on the reload, especially with Glocks, is that most most of the shooters I have worked with it's been faster. I've seen guy after guy stabbing at that little bitty Glock slide release and miss, sometimes multiple times, then they have to stare at the gun in order to find it. Add the extended release and they either hit it early and the gun locks open with ammo on board, or they pin it and it doesn't lock the slide on empty.

I have also noted that people trained in "Tap-Roll/Rack-Bang (or Assess, Whatever...) and in running the side appear to be much faster at clearing malfs than guys that don't. I am talking grunts level stuff here, not 12th degree black belt gun ninjas (although I have seen a few of those do a poor job of clearing malfs as well...) .

My theory is that when the weak hand palm seats the mag, be that magazine a reload or the "Tap" part of TRB, and this is then immediately followed by running the slide, and this action is what you do to handle both situations, then moderately trained people are going to have less Hick's Law shit to deal with under stress.

I also note, and I am still into trying to find numbers on this, my impression that one is about as likely to have to deal with a malf as they are to have to reload a semi-auto pistol. Lots of people work the shit out of getting their reloads down to Fast!!!!!!!!!!, but rarely work malfunction drills. This is where I have seen the wheels fall off for a number of guys in matches, even at the Master and GM level.

(Side note, I once won a local USPSA match with a S&W 5906 run from my duty gear, and while I did some good shooting I'm in no way Leatham or Miculek, I even beat the GM running the full C-More dotted triple port comp .38Super Major race gun, because I was the only dude in the match that didn't have a malf that day, there was much wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments afterwards while I giggled...)

[TGS]

Slingshotting is my default reload technique outside of HKs and Berettas. Maybe if I worked with SIGs regularly I would use their slide release, but pretty much everything else....especially Glocks as Chuck mentioned...I find extremely hard to use the slide lock as opposed to sling shotting.

[Chuck Haggard]

BTW, the only way that mag flipping makes sense is with an AR doing a "look at the ejection port and see what's up with the gun" type reload/stoppage clearance TTP that Costa and Hailey famously taught in those MagPul videos. The flip is then a by-product of the gun being turned into position to take the reload, not something you actually do, if that makes sense.

[LSP972]

Sigs were the first pistols (as opposed to revolvers) I learned to "run" seriously; prior to that, it was playing around with 1911s. We taught the overhand grasp- which is what I suspect you guys are referring to with this "power stroke" business- exclusively, because most times one ended up hitting the decock lever, due to the slide lock lever's rearward placement, when trying to thumb down the slide lock lever. When I started shooting Glocks seriously some years later, I continued the overhand grasp technique to get the slide forward.

But when I began shooting an HK USP Compact .45, its huge slide lock lever was a natural for hitting with the left thumb while re-establishing my grip after a reload/malf clearance. And I have stayed with that. In the past couple of years, I have been bouncing back and forth between HK and Glock (not the smartest thing to do, but I've never claimed to be too smart), and I haven't had any issues with missing the lever, inadvertent slide lock-opens, etc., on either brand. Granted, all of my Glocks have the OEM "extended" lever, such as it is.

FWIW, I smile when I see Beretta fanbois dismiss the "put the safety on accidentally while racking the slide" syndrome. Seen it plenty of times, and ditto on 59-series S&Ws.

Anyway, there are plusses and minuses for both methods... just like everything else. But for me (and I a lot of other folks I know), using the slide lock lever is considerably faster.

.

[Surf]

There are valid reasons for running a slide and teaching it that way and I still do it with guys who consistently wear gloves as an example. Another example would be if the pistol's slide stop is not conducive to that function, or if the shooter cannot reach the stop consistently. With a Glock as an example I do have a bit of a hard time with a stock slide stop and if I am wearing Gloves it gets more problematic. I do however run a Vickers slide stop in my Glocks as my preference. When I was running a P226 full time with gloves I would cut off the trigger finger and thumbs of the gloves.

Another thing I experienced last year, where we transitioned 2200 officers to the Gen4 G17 is that the agency ordered the pistols with extended slide stops. Standard stops were options for those who fouled the extended stop. The prior pistol was a 5906 and the default method to return the slide into battery was a slingshot (pinching the slide with thumb and index finger) to lessen the chance of fouling the decocker/safety. Malfunctions handled the same. With the Glock we started seeing guys attempting to run the slide in the same manner. In particular the malfunctions had some horrible results where right handers would use this pinch slingshot and go ejection port up. Some would not get a good grip on the slide, or some with lesser strength might short stroke the pistol and with about a 10% rate in class we would see the bad round not clear the weapon and create more of an issue. Sometimes flipping around 180* and the casing end of the round would jam into the chamber backwards.

So we had to deal with teaching an overhand method with ejection port down for right handers and we also allowed Officers to utilize the slide stop as a release if they chose that method. For those who opted to run the slide stop, maybe for the first time ever, we did note that in 2 days of training it became ingrained to at least conscious competence in pretty much everyone who adopted it and many got it into the subconscious or unconscious competence in that 2 day time frame.

I know that malfunctions might be rare, more so perhaps then reloading in a critical incident, however certain units with time and resources should train malfunctions to a high degree. I know however this may not be the case as an example with LE or military as a whole across the board, but if the unit has the capability to train more techniques or topics, they will have more tools to utilize and negating Hicks issues and turning options into advantages. But again this is not the norm across the board and I fully understand that.

I do agree that it may take more to think about and we do instill the fact that if you don't train (any topic) but specifically the slide stop method, it won't happen consistently, but from my experience with a cross section of average LEO's it can be done with great success. I will note that those who have ingrained another method to a high degree of proficiency (unconscious competence) those types are the ones who are tougher to get transitioned to any new technique. The bottom line is the more time and resources, plus shooter ability, allows for more options. I do agree that if time and resources are limited, keeping things simple with commonality is often the best option and I do stick with that in early phases of training others. How far I progress them depends on time, resources and proficiency.

[TAZ]

Ok. I'm officially lost. What in the hell is mag flipping with a handgun. I can sort of see it on an AR during a malf clearance as described above. Look into ejection port to see what heck is up and as a BYPRODUCT you then rotate the gun to get it ready to accept a new mag. I'm having a hard time envisioning how to flip a mag out of a handgun without a lot of unnecessary movement. Unless Im shooting all gangster I need to rotate gun 90 CCW then back 180 CW to generate any serious rotational speed. Maybe all my torn muscles have limited my range of motion, but from a regular grip I can't generate enough rotational speed to make a difference unless I rotate CCW to flip the mag out then rotate the gun back 180 to expose the mag well for the next mag. What a bunch of wasted movement.

[Mr_White]

What a bunch of wasted movement.

This is pretty much it. That's what it amounts to and that's why it doesn't make a lot of sense.