We all have our pet peeves. One of mine is people who abuse their firearms by trying to do dramatic flourishes with their mechanisms a’la TV and movies.
Gun writer Mitch Eckler does a good job of pointing out the same problems in this article in an Athlon publication, the online edition of Combat Handguns magazine.
It’s a good, solid read, and worth looking at just for the lead photo, “gun porn” of my favorite configuration of Smith & Wesson’s classic .357, the blue steel Model 19 Combat Magnum with four-inch barrel and round butt.
Seriously, though, you’re looking at it for the advice, not the pix.
It’s refreshing, and helpful, to listen to someone who knows what he’s talking about, and can explain it to low-tech people like me. He backed up his statements with facts. That’s the way to communicate.
Overall a good read. But, when you write things, the text is flowing through the mind and sometimes little details get lost in the mix and a few things get overlooked.
One movie cliche overlooked that really can cause major issues is snapping the cylinder out of a revolver with a flick of the wrist. OK, if you desperately need to reload and only have one operational hand, go for it. Otherwise, repeated stress on the yoke/crane is going to put cylinder alignment out of whack. Don’t do it.
About flipping cylinder closed, the locking bolt on the barrel of S&Ws got over looked. And, the yoke takes some of the impact of the cylinder when closing but it’s still not a good idea.
OTOH, that spinning closing of the cylinder puts enormous stress on the cylinder stop and notches. We had several guys who thought that was most manly and did it every time they got issued and loaded a revolver. Repair costs were significant enough that when we went to semi-autos, everyone got their own weapon.
The take down levers of more modern semi-auto designs have a thicker cross section where they engage the frame and spread the impact forces better than the pins, but they’re not immune to breakage. A most memorable event at an instructor school was a Sig launching the slide assembly down range.
Belated thought. The spinning cylinder closing also beats the dickens out of the cylinder stop window in the frame. Which is far more serious than the other damage. Repair is tricky and if bad enough can scrap the frame.
Even if your gun could take it, why would you treat it that way?
^^ THIS ^^
Most of us wouldn’t use a pocketknife blade tip as a screwdriver or pry bar. Even if the blade could take it, why would you treat it that way?
Likewise, most of us don’t pull our cars up to make physical contact with other cars, even gently. Despite the fact it’s called a “bumper,” most of us actively avoid bumping. Even if the cars can take it, why would you treat them that way?
So why is it “okay” to do it with guns?
Like some other “old guy” advice, this definitely has a basis in reality. Same holds for the the Cranky Old Guy warning to never dry-fire your guns. Think about the most commonly owned guns of your grandfathers – a .22 rifle and a side-by-side shotgun. Because of the rimfire design of the former, and the angled firing pins of the latter, these guns really shouldn’t be dry-fired. Most of the COG’s didn’t own centerfire pistols that were completely safe for dry-fire; most of us reading Mas’ work do. But advice like this often gets simplified and generalized from the specific to the universal, and the details and nuance get lost. “Never talk to the cops” falls into the same category.
It’s because of this prevalent type of firearms abuse that I will not allow anyone I do not know and trust get within ten feet of my guns.
Thanks to you and Mr. Eckler for calling out this pet peeve of mine. I’m especially irritated when someone snaps a revolver’s cylinder closed, probably because I grew up with revolvers. I learned how to properly use and care for them, and can say that I never snapped the cylinder closed because I was told I would be ejected from the gun show if I did. True story.
I have a bunch of revolvers and just 4 semi-autos. I always warn new shooters against slamming the cylinders closed before shooting. New shooters usually don’t know how to close simi-autos, so I don’t even mention the slide release and teach them to pull back and release. I think it worth warning new shooters beforehand not to be “fancy” because fancy handling (twirling, flipping, dropping into holster, and etc) is almost always unsafe.
Memories of gun twirling. The movie “Tombstone”, Ringo and Doc, a gun and a tin cup. It was around 2010, Michael (from Bisbee) as Ringo and a local (Tombstone) reenactor, Steven Keith, went through that routine in Big Nose Kate’s Saloon. I delivered the line “The law don’ go round here” and was about six feet away as the two performed. Neither made a mistake.