Closing Slide on an empty chamber

As I look at hammer pistols - watching the slide go forward - the hammer is held back by the slide, then the hammer falls just a little to be held by whatever sear arrangement the gun uses. The difference in the actual speed of the hammer from dropping the slide empty or chambering a cartridge is small.

Now looking at striker pistols - the slide is going very fast forward when the striker is snagged and held back as the slide finishes closing. Normal functioning of a striker fired gun - shooting - is very abusive of the mating surfaces - many times more abusive than any hammer gun.

Dropping the hammer from full-#### and catching it on half-#### would be similar to normal use on a striker gun.

Each style of semi has it's own impacting, mating surfaces that take the smack of the slide hitting home - maybe some can't take much - let's find some old beat-up rental guns and get some pictures of the peening.
 
Every day, thousands of Armed Forces and Canadian Peace Officers empty their pistols and drop the slide. According to your smart friends they're wrecking their pistols. For some reason it doesn't seem to be happening. I wonder who the smart guys really are? I'll trust the guys doing it day in and day out over the guy at the gun store counter.

Heddok said:
People smarter than me say not to do it........ people dumber than me say it's OK

My Daddy always told me to pay attention to what the smart guys do, good advice I've always followed.
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NaOH said:
Every day, thousands of Armed Forces and Canadian Peace Officers empty their pistols and drop the slide. According to your smart friends they're wrecking their pistols. For some reason it doesn't seem to be happening. I wonder who the smart guys really are? I'll trust the guys doing it day in and day out over the guy at the gun store counter.
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Bill Wilson (Wilson Combat), Hilton Yam (10-8 Performance), Chuck Rogers (Rogers Precision), Chuck Warner (Warner Custom Pistols), Joe Chambers (Chambers Custom Pistols,) Jerry Keefer, and a few others whose names I can't recall right now. These guys have built, shot, and won more medals and gone through millions of rounds. So I think they know more than I do.
 
Etiquette says you don't do anything violent with someone else's gun. Period. You don't dry fire it without getting explicit permission to do so.

In a store there is also the added concern of the muzzle direction and noise issue. If i hear a slide close in a store, my ears will perk up.

I have head many times that dropping a slide on an empty 1911 is a no no. The clerk probably has, too. he thought the gun was being abused, and said so.
 
this arguement will never end.......so do what you will with your own guns. but don't do the same with other people's guns unless you ask first. it's just gun etiquette

just because you wear your shoes in your house doesn't mean it's ok do do the same in someone else's home

don't argue with them, just repect that's thier decision
 
The idea of steel hitting steel with unnecessary force doses not still well with me. Kinda like taking a 5 pound hammer to an anvil without what you are working on in between....................
 
This is an interesting thread! I never even considered that there could be something wrong with releasing the slide stop on an empty chamber.

I have done this with my handgun before, but after reading the back and forth on the opinions, I will not be doing it anymore!
 
I have an 27 oz Estwing hammer that I will not be using on any nails after reading this. Horrendous, steel on steel should never happen. I might wear it out.
 
snoopycda said:
I have an 27 oz Estwing hammer that I will not be using on any nails after reading this. Horrendous, steel on steel should never happen. I might wear it out.
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It's always disturbing to me that there are people thinking this uncritically about something.

I mean you'd really not have to know that there is more than one thing called "steel" for example. Also you'd have to not realize that a sear hook and a hammer face are not the same size or shape. And you'd have to think that there's no significance to the engineering behind designing one thing to repeated strike another thing, over and over and over, and designing another thing NOT to be struck.


An anvil is steel, and the hood of your car is steel. Can you think of a reason not to place a red hot horseshoe on your hood and start beating on it with a five pound hammer? If so...why make the above argument?

I get it when people are deliberately obtuse, even though it's annoying. What I really do not get is people being deliberately obtuse in a manner which specifically undermines their position, unless the position is facetious, of course, and they are really just making fun of people so stupid that they would genuinely take a particular position.
 
misanthropist said:
It's always disturbing to me that there are people thinking this uncritically about something.

I mean you'd really not have to know that there is more than one thing called "steel" for example. Also you'd have to not realize that a sear hook and a hammer face are not the same size or shape. And you'd have to think that there's no significance to the engineering behind designing one thing to repeated strike another thing, over and over and over, and designing another thing NOT to be struck.


An anvil is steel, and the hood of your car is steel. Can you think of a reason not to place a red hot horseshoe on your hood and start beating on it with a five pound hammer? If so...why make the above argument?

I get it when people are deliberately obtuse, even though it's annoying. What I really do not get is people being deliberately obtuse in a manner which specifically undermines their position, unless the position is facetious, of course, and they are really just making fun of people so stupid that they would genuinely take a particular position.
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I cant believe how long and repetitive these threads are. Or how insulted people get because my opinion differs from theirs.
 
I don't know that anyone's insulted...but just like how there's a difference between types of steel, there a difference between informed opinion and uninformed opinion.

Speaking only to the 1911, we have about a dozen of the world's top experts referenced in this thread alone along with explanations from some of them about the specific type of damage this causes.

Obviously anyone is welcome to believe that all the experts who build and repair these machines for a living can't figure out the simple principle of "but it's steel" and I won't be insulted if that's the position they take. But it's roughly analogous to making the claim that cigarettes don't cause lung cancer. Sure, you have a set of lungs and in some sense you have a right to an opinion on the subject.

But if you think your opinion should be valued the way an oncologist's should, then you are really being foolish.
 
misanthropist said:
I don't know that anyone's insulted...but just like how there's a difference between types of steel, there a difference between informed opinion and uninformed opinion.

Speaking only to the 1911, we have about a dozen of the world's top experts referenced in this thread alone along with explanations from some of them about the specific type of damage this causes.

Obviously anyone is welcome to believe that all the experts who build and repair these machines for a living can't figure out the simple principle of "but it's steel" and I won't be insulted if that's the position they take. But it's roughly analogous to making the claim that cigarettes don't cause lung cancer. Sure, you have a set of lungs and in some sense you have a right to an opinion on the subject.

But if you think your opinion should be valued the way an oncologist's should, then you are really being foolish.
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No no no....that was a far too cogent argument for this forum. Are you sure you wouldn't like to trash-talk the 1911 a little? Or maybe do a 180 and go after Glocks. Throw in a few clever personal insults and you will have a truly mighty argument, suitable for copy/pasting every time this subject comes up in the future!
 
Ganderite said:
Etiquette says you don't do anything violent with someone else's gun. Period. You don't dry fire it without getting explicit permission to do so.
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For sure. It's just common sense. If I actually let you hold my $3k competition 2011 you'd better not treat it like a norinco. It's a respect thing. I wouldn't do it to you and I expect the same.

Whether it's wrong or right, damaging or not damaging... if it's not your gun ...treat it that way.

Re my STI... I don't purposefully slam the slide home on an empty chamber. I see no reason to do so. I think the stripping a round from the mag and pushing it into the chamber argument is negligible. My mags are tuned and my rounds are all chamber checked. I'm betting there is very little added resistance difference between slide going forward on an empty chamber vs a full mag.

That being said... I still don't do it. And I wont do it to yours unless you are cool with it. Respect.
 
Someone should hold a voting thread on this subject, just to see.
In my mind this thinking that you cannot close a slide on an empty chamber can be extrapolated to say that you should never rack your lever/pump/bolt/semi-auto without a round in the magazine.
Those that believe this will shorten the life of the pistol may be correct. But by how much, they cant say. They usually give some ambiguous explanation.
On a 1911 it is the sear, slide or the barrel lugs that will get peened, I get it. When they do i will fix or replace them.
I live in Canada and I bought my pistols for their entertainment value alone, the law doesn't allow any other reason for owning them. They are not showpieces, they are not even expensive models, but I use them. Like my car, I expect them to break down once in a while.
 
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