The semiautomatic pistol is the most popular handgun today, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation tells us that some 26 million new gun owners have joined our ranks since 2020.  Many of them are a bit short on hand/upper body strength and have trouble racking the slides on autoloading pistols.

Fortunately, we have a new generation of them expressly designed for the slides to be easier to retract…and just as fortunately, they have us old farts who can show them how to outsmart the older designs, too. Here’s a video on that topic, courtesy of our friends at The Polite Society Podcast:

or watch video here.

14 COMMENTS

  1. I remember you teaching that FOREVER ago! You also pointed it down for barricade use, and using gravity to throw an empty/dead round out. Not to mention pointing to the ground.

  2. All very nice of you to point out solutions to make semi-auto handguns more user-friendly. I’ve always appreciated your training and advice. Even so, I’d like to see you advocate for the obvious alternative: the tried-and-true revolver.

    1. Manual-of-arms: The vast majority of those of us who want to carry are not cops, guards or soldiers. Nor are we mechanically adept. (By good fortune, I’m pretty adept.) Most people who need to learn, train, and then actually use a handgun in the face of imminent threat would be better off with a revolver whose manual of arms is trivial compared to that which is adequate for semi-auto use.
    2. Capacity: Most revolvers accommodate 5 rounds. My model LCR in .32 Magnum accommodates 6. That is adequate for most self-defense scenarios. The majority of such cases don’t involve driving off a pack of wolves. I acknowledge that you have left in the wake of your career numerous “dissatisfied customers” and that justifies arming-up to defend against a heightened level of threat. That’s not my case; nor the case of the vast majority of armed citizens. We don’t need a 7th round, a double stack, or even a speed loader to respond to a low-probability event that can likely be dispensed with in 5 or 6 rounds.
    3. “Safety”: Revolvers (virtually) never have a safety to inhibit an accidental or negligent discharge. Various models of semi-autos have this feature. But these “safties” are more/less effective and complicate the manual-of-arms. A single-action revolver (i.e., with an exposed hammer with no double-action capability) HAS the EQUIVALENT of a “safety”. It’s very intuitive. Very conspicuous. A manual-of-arms training that any novice can easily learn from the outset of his/her training. (And remember, many of our lady friends are less interested in investing their time in training-to-arms.) I acknowledge that it may take as much as an additional second to cock the hammer if ever I need to use my revolver in self-defense. I accept that trade-off because I’d rather have the lifetime peace of mind against an accidental/negligent discharge vs. the remote possibility that the extra second would make a difference in my self-defense effectiveness when needed. For me, and most of us, the probability of an AD/ND is vastly higher than that of being mugged. Which hardware choice provides each carrier the greater peace-of-mind? The vastly more important decision is a carry configuration that allows one to “present arms” swiftly when necessary. It’s NOT the extra second needed to cock the hammer once the decision to fire has been made. Vastly more important is the comfort level of building and maintaining a carry practice with which one can grow to be comfortable with. Better the single-action-only revolver you carry than the semi-auto you will only keep at home.
    4. Theory vs. Practice: I readily acknowledge that the considerations I argue for are merely theoretical in a hardware market where there are few Single-Action-ONLY revolvers offered that lend themselves to carry. I solved this problem by thinking-outside-the-box. I bought a Ruger LCRX from a gunsmith. I asked him to convert it from Double-Action to Single-Action-ONLY before he delivered it to me. This model is about as light and compact as any effective semi-auto might be. In .32 Federal Magnum, it offers me four different bullet+powder-charge ammunition options to suit my taste in the power/recoil dilemma. My choice might not be optimal for many other people desiring to carry; but, it’s probably not the only attractive option available.
    Regards and thanks for all your advice and training.

  5. Good work here, Mas. You do great job o maintaining deliberate and obvious movements to make the displayed moves very clear. This is a rare skill.

    BUT… when you are handling a dark or black piece o equipment and wearing a black shirt the item being demonstrated is swallowed up by the black pit behind it. Might I strongly suggest wearing a medium tan or perhaps a light blue colour. This will make the sentre o attention stand out much more obviously.
    (yeah, I’ve done a consideble bit o video and still imaging…..)

    Always eager to learn more out o your vast experience.

  6. I saw Mas demonstrate this technique many years ago. My daughter was having a hard time with the slide on a Glock 26. I remembered this demo, and 3 minutes later she was charging the pistol like she’d done it her whole life.

  7. Most timely reminder of the details of the Israeli racking method*. If using it to clear the chamber, be careful where your hand is in relation to the ejection port. DON’T try to catch the ejected round. Within a couple of weeks of bringing that warning back, I had 3 guys admit they’d lost various degrees of hand function after fumbling the slide at the clearing barrel and detonating the cartridge. The pressures of the 9 mm and .40 make the potential damage worse. Much worse.

    While the vast majority of defensive gun uses don’t involve actually firing, and those that do seem to average 3 rounds, keep a couple of things in mind. First, that’s 3 rounds per attacker; second, there are verified cases of people with clean tox screens being bullet sponges-even with “fatal” wounds. The weight of a speed strip/loader or two isn’t that much.

    * In my elder days, the 18.5 lb springs in the 1911s is giving way to the OEM 16 pounders. They worked fine for decades.

  8. Mr. Ayoob:

    My wife has developed very severe arthritis in the thumbs of both hands. It’s to the point where she cannot remove tops from jars and bottles because she simply cannot grip hard enough. Because her fingers are still strong she can grip a pistol or revolver firmly enough and is able to manipulate a trigger okay.

    Her carry gun is a Ruger SP101 in .357 (we shoot .38+P’s through it since magnum loads are just painful) with a 2″ barrel. The problem is that while it’s a sturdy weapon, and we joke that she can beat a bear to death with it if she runs out of ammo, it’s very darned heavy and she doesn’t like carrying it. She’s also starting to have problems with the DA trigger pull as we age (we’re in our late 60’s).

    I’ve tried some of the supposedly “easy to rack” pistols at the LGS with her, but even the S&W “EZ” is far too difficult for her to rack. My 1911’s are almost impossible for her to rack even using the whole-body techniques and hammer-cocking you’ve demonstrated.

    I’ve looked at some of the lighter weight revolvers, particularly the Rugers, but they all have horrible double-action trigger pulls. Heck, we even looked at Ruger’s .22 LR revolver as a possible choice, but the one they had at the shop also had a terrible DA pull, too much for her to keep on target.

    I’m guessing that about the only solution is to get one of the light-weight revolvers with an exposed hammer so that she can manually cock it to single-action and then shoot with that lighter pull weight. I’d like to stay within our currently-stocked calibers of .38/.357 or .22 LR since we’re getting rid of firearms at this point in life and don’t want a new caliber like the .327 or something.

    Do you have any advice for aging geezers like us?

    • A single action revolver is sub-optimal for self defense in many ways. Have you tried a revolver with a lighter double action pull, such as the Kimber K6 series or Ruger’s LCR?

      • Mas:

        Thank you for taking the time to respond. Yes, the Ruger LCR’s were what I was referring to by “lighter weight revolvers”; all of the ones at the gun shop had fairly heavy trigger pulls. I didn’t even know Kimber was making a revolver, but finding one locally (TinyTown™ in NW Wyoming) would be tough without special-ordering it…and then it might be luck-of-the-draw as to the trigger pull.

        Thank you once again for the response, and also for your work on this blog and the videos. I always learn something new.

    • Blackwing1,

      First of all, I want to say I find Mas’ article, and all the comments, very helpful.

      After reading about Blackwing1’s wife’s problem, I had an idea. The trigger guards of most revolvers are fairly large. I just grabbed a double-action only snubnose revolver, held it with both hands, and pulled the trigger with both of my first fingers. Obviously, the right-hand first finger went to its usual place on the trigger, and my left-hand first finger pressed against the right-hand first finger. Maybe your wife could control the double-action trigger better if she pressed it with two fingers, instead of one.

  9. I appreciate this no-nonsense, detail-packed video.

    Is it also valid to talk about racking the slide one-handed (against the edge of a table, against your belt, etc) as part of this training, or is that reserved for levels more advanced than beginner?

    I would tend to think that a shooter who demonstrates safe gun handling should be capable of learning one-handed techniques.

  10. Good point, especially for those who may only have the use of one hand due to disability*. But a lot of popular rear sights aren’t real helpful in providing a ledge to rack a slide with. And, the guide rods of captive recoil springs prevent using the slide under the barrel. Depending upon the design of the front sight, using that might work, but one more reason to avoid fiber optic front sights.

    *Had a student who’d lost an arm in a motorcycle accident.

  11. Haven’t ever used one, but the “Handi-Racker” device may be worth a try for $25. Also, the Beretta Tomcat 32 ACP has a tip-up barrel with no need to rack a slide.

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