Tactical heads are going to explode all over arfcom, m4c, and youtube tonight.
BTW, guys with short thumbs (like me) use your support hand thumb to smash the slide release on your way to re-establishing the grip.
Regarding the method of releasing the slide, I prefer the method of reaching over the top of the slide, pulling to the rear to the rear and releasing. I do this for several reasons:
A) It works on every gun. There's no slide release lever on a HK P7. I like to keep everything the same and not have different methods for different guns.
B) It's the same motion that I use to clear a malfunction. Tap/Rack. Every time I reload the mag, I perform the identical rack that I do for malfunction clearance so I get additional reps of that critical skill.
C) As a civilian, I am probably not going to have to speed reload. Unless I want to win a FAST coin, I don't see the need for shaving 0.3 seconds off my reload time.
D) As a civilian, I'm far more likely to need to perform a malfunction clearance, keeping the same mag in the gun, than I am to need to reload. As mentioned earlier, the "rack" part of the malfunction clearance is the same motion as my reload the gun motion. Yes, I turn the ejection port down when I am racking the slide for a mag change. Since I change magazines often at the gun range, I get extra reps on one-half of the malfunction clearance that I'm far more likely to need to do under stress than a mag change.
E) As mentioned twice now, I keep the same motion for malfunction clearance. That eliminates one entire handgun manipulation from my skill set (pressing the slide release lever). I primarily shoot striker fired without any decocking lever or safety. By keeping the malfunction clearance rack similar to the mag reload, I never have to press the slide release lever, so that's one less thing for my brain to store data about. Probably not too big of a deal, but the more bullet points I add, the stronger my argument
Overall, not only does mission drive the gear train but mission drives the technique train (for me at least). If I was a competitive shooter or had a profession such as LE/MIL where I would need to reload at the absolute fastest possible speeds, then I'd use the slide lever release and I would put in the additional training effort to make sure I could it properly and I'd separately drill malfunction clearances more often.
As a civilian with relatively limited training time, with virtually no need to ever do a speed reload when time counts, and as a person who generally never carries a spare mag CCW, it makes far more sense for me to skip the slide release button method.
Is the 37 pages before or after the shit mods try to split posts into two separate threads?
Last edited by powell556; 03-11-2019 at 08:49 PM.
Probably, and the commonality with malfunction clearance as mentioned by powell566 is a reasonable argument to make, particularly if training large groups of people in limited time and knowing a large chunk aren't going to practice any on their own. If I had to teach a large group of people, all with different sized hands and potentially all with different guns, had limited time, knew the motivations were varied, I can easily see going with the overhand. I also agree that a small amount of time on a reload is irrelevant outside of drill/gaming concerns so not much heartburn from me for whichever method is taught/used.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
Truth, and also, the author is male and didn’t mention shots to the meat department.
I appreciated the article’s content. For whatever reason I’m having to work harder to remember to use the slide release instead of slingshot on the small px4c as compared to the full-size 92.
The human brain can tell the difference between what needs to be done to reload an empty pistol and what needs to be done to fix one that stopped shooting.
There's no need for technique commonality when you can just as easily learn the most efficient way to do either.
You don't squeeze the grip to send the slide forward?
If you're not interested in being as fast and accurate as you can be this is probably the worst forum for you to patronize.
Be a competitive shooter.
It really doesn't take much work to use the slide release correctly. You need to give yourself more credit.
I volunteered for a year as an RO at city owned range that has a twice a week shooting group that does holster stuff. I saw more people screw up the "power stroke" by either not pulling the slide back far enough before letting it go, or riding it forward. It always seemed to happen on the timer. This method is not as bullet proof as some think.
Last edited by HopetonBrown; 03-11-2019 at 09:53 PM.
I do scan left and right and sometimes behind me periodically when I'm at the range. I do this mainly to make sure no one is flagging me. I do it only when I'm not shooting.