Yes
Does the slide-lock feature on semi-automatic handguns offer a tactical advantage or is it nothing more than an administrative function?
Both. It let’s me know I’m empty and it makes cleaning at the range easy. And showing clear.
7 Responses to “Yes”
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June 19th, 2009 at 10:33 am
If you have a type 2 malfunction, (stove pipe or double feed) you need to lock the slide back in some cases to remove the obstruction.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:37 am
“Maybe I’m just leery of a lever on the side of a handgun that is capable of taking it out of the fight”
This is just self rationalizing. He’s talking about a 1911 with a thumb AND grip safety for gods sakes. If those two lever’s are not designed to take the gun out of the fight, I don’t know what they are supposed to do at all.
I can tell any of my handguns are empty due to slide locking back/open because the slide doesn’t slam forward into battery, so the last shot feels much different than the rest. The sight picture changes a bit, but I only ever notice that as a secondary effect.
On Glocks, the trigger also doesn’t reset if the slide locks back/open. I don’t know how you’d pull the trigger after it isn’t reset, but I believe this is a very big tactile indicator of an empty Glock.
June 19th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Yes.
It depends on how you use it; you don’t really even need to use it at all.
It is though a slight advantage to have the slide lock on empty, because that speeds (slightly) reloads if you haven’t been counting rounds.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Well if your left or right arm got damaged, it would be much easier to flick a lever with your finger rather than find something to rack the slide on.
June 20th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Gunstar1 makes a good point too. I remember (vaguely) reading somewhere about how you should learn to rack the slide on a pistol with things other than just your hand. The first example given was with your shoe.
Tactically it makes sense, but if you do this at the range people are bound to think you’re bat-shit crazy.
June 20th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I’m wondering whether or not his pistols work under different rules of physics than the rest of ours:
Also, because releasing the slide-lock lever requires fine motor skills and because a slide released from slide-lock does not move forward with the same force as one manually cycled, failures to feed can occur.
Uh, I don’t know how he’s doing it, but I take my thumb, put it near the top of the slide, and drag it down the side until the slide releases. That sure as hell ain’t fine motor skills. The only way it could get less fine is if I were to release the slide by dragging the pistol across my ass (which I have drilled just to make sure it is possible. Hint: Sometimes it catches if you do it wrong. Wear pants, because getting your pants caught in it is much less painful than getting your ass caught in it.)
As to his second point, what the hell is he doing? Pulling the slide back and then pushing it forward? There’s maybe another 1/4″ of travel on my pistols past the slide lock. Either he thinks that there is something magic about that 1/4″, or he’s Doin It Wrong.
June 21st, 2009 at 10:50 pm
First, the disclaimers:
1. I have never been in a gun-fight.
2. I shoot IPSC, with either a custom Open gun, or an STI Edge, both limited to 10 rounds by local law.
Both my competition guns have functioning slide-locks, but I try never to use them – I find that a speed reload (round chambered, slide forward, dump the empty mag, insert full mag) is MUCH faster than re-loading from slide-lock, and there is no chance of stuffing the new mag past the magazine catch and locking up the gun.
Of course, whether I could count rounds in a gunfight like I do in competition is a different issue, but I very rarely find myself in the middle of an IPSC stage with the slide locked back , and the magazine empty.
As to whether chambering a round from slide lock is different to manually fully retracting the slide: I find that the last quarter inch IS important. My Open gun will often not fully chamber a round if I lock the slide open, insert a mag, then use the slide lock lever to release the slide. It never (touch wood) fails to chamber when the slide is manually, fully retracted and released.
When the recoil spring is almost at full compression, each additional millimetre is definitely in the non-linear portion of the spring rate.