Ok to release a pistol slide without a round?

On a finely tuned 1911 trigger, dropping the slide on an empty chamber is not recommended. It may look cool but it can cause sear bounce and damage your lock work, sometimes to the point of being unsafe. Generally, the heavier the trigger the less likely this is to be a problem. Striker fired guns don't have the same issue but I look at it this way; I don't feel the need to unnecessarily slam the doors on my car. It might be fine most of the time to slam them, but they are not designed for that and long-term abuse will likely result in a pointless repair bill. Self loading pistols are designed to cushion/slow the blow of the slide going into battery with the feeding of the round. When the gun is cycling you are not slamming the slide metal-on-metal, as many people think. It's also not great for barrel links and slide-stops.

I drop-test any triggers I work on, but this is a specific checking procedure and is only done a few times to prove the system.

If it's your gun you can do as you like with it of course. Anyone handling any of my guns who takes such a liberty will get a stern caution.
 
I like the door analogy, you can close it however hard you want. Many guys think hitting the slide release is like 'slamming' a door. In fact its like closing a door normally. You can slow it down and close it quietly if you like, will it last longer, likely, is it absolutely necessary? no. hitting the slide release on an empty chamber is not abuse. If it were warranties would be void. is it bad manners? yes, will it wreck your pistol? depends. It won't wreck a duty pistol. if you are worried about wearing out your gun, don't shoot it.
 
Any of my handguns , yes
other peoples No.
Its like slapping another man's girlfriend in the ass, when you could give it a nice pat and that would be fine ;)
 
+1 on this one!

dizzy said:
I like the door analogy, you can close it however hard you want. Many guys think hitting the slide release is like 'slamming' a door. In fact its like closing a door normally. You can slow it down and close it quietly if you like, will it last longer, likely, is it absolutely necessary? no. hitting the slide release on an empty chamber is not abuse. If it were warranties would be void. is it bad manners? yes, will it wreck your pistol? depends. It won't wreck a duty pistol. if you are worried about wearing out your gun, don't shoot it.
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metcalfe said:
....All I got from this thread was that 1911's are even more delicate than I previously thought.
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Or you could get the idea that 1911's have less crap in the way when the slide closes so there's nothing to slow things down until the last two pieces slam together. Some would call the fact that there's very little drag "good engineering".... :D

All my semis other than the 1911's are fine. But the 1911's, yes, even the Norinco one, make sounds that as a long time metal working hobbyist tells me that harsh things are happening at the final contact point. I'm not willing to continue to drop the slide and repeat that sound because I'm pretty sure that the tenth, hundredth or thousandth time something is going to give. I just don't want to find out the hard way that it's the tenth or so.
 
trebor2880 said:
So, "Don't drop the slide on an empty chamber", wins. Facts over myths.
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Do you realize how many times this occur when loading and unloading a duty pistol? Any decent modern pistol (aside from a 'finely tuned' 1911) can survive the horrors of having a slide repeatedly (daily) dropped on an empty chamber.
 
Maximum said:
One old guy at Wholesale Sports in Calgary told me its the worst thing you can do to a pistol and if he ever sees anyone do it he'll kick them out of the store.
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If that was in the Calgary store, I would take that as a ringing endorsement to rack the shat out of it. Preferably while running around the store holding the pistol above your head, racking as you run, maybe whistling "We will Rock You" by Queen.
 
plinker 777 said:
RCloud; aren't duty pistols carried chambered? Why the need to slam fu<k an empty pistol?
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Duty pistols are loaded at the start of shift and then unloaded at the end of shift. We remove the magazine and then rack them several times. We are encouraged to rack the pistol with the same force you would use to clear a stoppage. This ensures we do not develop training scars and "ride the slide" which could create an even worse stoppage in some instances (get a phase 2 stoppage when trying to clear a phase 1). Train the way you fight.

graydog said:
What possible reason could you have for doing this other then you want to look Cool to other people who really don't know how to act as well. If you look after your equipment it will look after you.

As to the people that have spoken up who cariy guns for a living sorry there words carry no weight with me but on the other hand people who fix them, I do listen to them. Some of them have made a life doing what they do. I think they know more then those of us that just shoot them once in awhile.

Remember for every action there is a typical and oppsite reaction. There is just no possible way it could be good for your gun.

Just my thoughts on this matter.

Graydog
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I shoot my guns more than just a little. My first duty pistol had 20,000 + rounds through it before transitioning to a new pistol that has about 7,000 rounds through it.

I am friends with our department armorer who maintains our old duty pistols as well as our current ones (agency of 1300) and there has been no issues with racking the slides excessively or too hard. Do these facts carry enough weight with you?
 
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homer76 said:
Duty pistols are loaded at the start of shift and then unloaded at the end of shift. We remove the magazine and then rack them several times. We are encouraged to rack the pistol with the same force you would use to clear a stoppage. This ensures we do not develop training scars and "ride the slide" which could create an even worse stoppage in some instances (get a phase 2 stoppage when trying to clear a phase 1).
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Exactly.
 
bscout said:
Are you kidding? I see very few "facts" in the entire thread. Just a lot of unsupported opinions.
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Not really unsupported. Read any decent book on gun smithing the 1911; it's in there. Talk to any top level smith who specializes in 1911's and they'll tell you the same thing. The possibility of sear bounce in the 1911 is inherent in the design and it's well known among those who work on them. I've been shooting these guns for over 28 years and been working on them for almost that long. I've seen lots of sears peened from dropping to the half-#### notch, broken slide stops, etc. There are others on this site who have much more experience than I do and they will also concur. The old "I do it all the time and my gun is fine" adage draws from a sample of one, which is hardly a reasonable framework on which to base a solid theory. Handle, trouble-shoot and repair many hundreds of guns and your opinion will probably evolve.

A standard-fit 1911 with a retail-safe trigger (read heavy) will probably be fine, especially if you only do it once in a while. An old GI .45 with fire control set up for Government work can probably be used as a hammer to drive in dock spikes and it will be fine. But if you have a finely tuned match trigger, if you shoot a lot (like 20-40,000 rounds per year), dry-fire a couple of million times a year and drop the slide empty a lot with all this handling, you are playing the odds. Like chain smokers, you may be the guy who gets away with it. Or you may find yourself cooking off a bunch of rounds full rock-and-roll and paying for costly repairs. Your mileage may vary.

There are those that hear this and immediately default to the position that the 1911 is therefore a crappy design. Whatever floats your boat. All guns have strengths and weaknesses. Understanding them and managing them comes from experience. There's a lot of reasons the 1911 is the most-used platform in the world of action shooting. The best shooters in the world wouldn't choose them if they were a crap design.

Anyway; your gun, your choice. But I don't recommend it, for whatever that's worth.
 
homer76 said:
Duty pistols are loaded at the start of shift and then unloaded at the end of shift. We remove the magazine and then rack them several times. We are encouraged to rack the pistol with the same force you would use to clear a stoppage. This ensures we do not develop training scars and "ride the slide" which could create an even worse stoppage in some instances (get a phase 2 stoppage when trying to clear a phase 1). Train the way you fight.



I shoot my guns more than just a little. My first duty pistol had 20,000 + rounds through it before transitioning to a new pistol that has about 7,000 rounds through it.

I am friends with our department armorer who maintains our old duty pistols as well as our current ones (agency of 1300) and there has been no issues with racking the slides excessively or too hard. Do these facts carry enough weight with you?
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The armourer who looked after our guns was/is one of the best in the business, he actively encourage this as well. It amounts to this, there is no damage caused by actively racking the slide (on a empty chamber or not) but if you do not want to, don't.
 
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The issue as it applies to 1911s has nothing to do with inherent weaknesses in the design. Allowing the action of a P-08 or P-38 to slam forward is just as offensive.

And have some gotten "racking the slide" to clear the chamber confused with hitting the slide stop on 'lock back'?
 
RCloud said:
The armourer who looked after our guns was/is one of the best in the business, he actively encourage this as well. It amounts to this, there is no damage caused by actively racking the slide (on a empty chamber or not) but if you do not want to, don't.
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I think people can't read or they read what they want to. The issue here has nothing to do with racking your gun but rather letting the slide slam shut on an empty chamber. These are two totaly different things.

Graydog
 
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