Does a press check negate slingshot slide

[Ric]

I saw this again just the other day. A well known gun trainer slingshots the slide on his 1911.
I have heard all the advantages of this including, fewer 5 and 1 groups, reliability enhanced, full travel of the recoil spring.
But then he press checks the slide. Pulling the slide back slightly till it unlocks then checking for a round in the chamber and letting the slide return.
Checking with your finger because you can not trust a loaded chamber indicator not to get debris or something under it and give a false indication.

Doesn't this negate any benefit from slingshotting the slide?

Are we "overtraining' ourselves?
It is kind of like putting a spoiler on the rear of a front wheel drive car?

 

[Drail]

The difference between "slingshotting" a slide from full rearward travel or releasing from slide lock is absolutely negligible. Or pulling back just enough to check a chamber and releasing. If the gun won't lock into battery from any of these positions there's something wrong with it or the spring. It either goes into battery completely or it doesn't. Feed problems are another matter entirely.

 

[9mmepiphany]

slingshotting a a slide to chamber a round doesn't insure that the magazine was correctly inserted or that the top round wasn't pickup for another reason...that is why folks who have been shooting for a long time check to see if a round was chambered by looking for the brass when we retract the slide.

BTW: while i understood from the context of your paragraph what you meant, i came onto the thread...after reading the thread title...with the intention of telling you to never press check a gun.

the term press check comes from the manual of arm of the 1911...as do many terms still ing use...and entailed hooking you support hand's thumb into the trigger guard and hooking the index finger on the recoil spring plug under the barrel. the press, was pressing the slide back with your index finger toward your thumb to open the chamber to check for a chambered round. this just isn't a good idea on many levels

 

[mljdeckard]

It depends on how you do it. When you press check, you are doing it when you aren't in the middle of a gunfight. You can feel at the back of the slide to make sure the slide is flush and in full battery.

As for hooking the trigger guard to do it, it depends on how strictly you read the safety rules. Is it 'keep your finger off the trigger' or 'keep your finger out of the trigger guard'? I've been doing it for so long I don't worry about it. But I can just as easily do it with the armorer's grip.

 

[Shawn Dodson]

I perform a tactile "Battle Readiness Check" to ensure the chamber is loaded.

I grasp the slide using the overhand method and retract the slide just enough to insert the pinky finger of my support hand through the ejection port to feel for chambered cartridge. When I feel it, I remove my pinky and release the slide. If the slide doesn't go all the way into battery then a quick palm strike to the rear of the slide takes care of the problem.

If I don't feel a chambered cartridge I remove my pinky, roll the pistol in the direction of the ejection port while simultaneously racking the slide. I repeat my battle readiness check.

 

[Allentown]

And neither has anything to do with 5 +1 grouping (or in my case 14 +1)

Thats usually an effect of a gun that has a DA first pull and a single action second pull combined with poor trigger control. The heave DA pull tends to pull the gun both down and to the right (if you are right handed). You have to tain yourself to pull the trigger...without moving the wrist.

Guys with SA .45s or who HAVE hammers to cock..usualy dont have the problem wtih the "first flyer" the way Glocks or other hammerless designs do.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

Two different things

The "press check" is a quick check to ensure that you successfully (or remembered to!) loaded the chamber. To ensure that the chamber is empty (e.g., preparatory to cleaning the gun), you want to remove the magazine, cycle the slide, lock it back, look in the chamber and feel with your finger.

 

[GLOOB]

Thats usually an effect of a gun that has a DA first pull and a single action second pull combined with poor trigger control. The heave DA pull tends to pull the gun both down and to the right (if you are right handed). You have to tain yourself to pull the trigger...without moving the wrist.

I've personally experienced the "5 and 1" effect with a GLOCK 17L. That first shot went left each time. It didn't matter how I loaded it, sling shot or otherwise. I have no idea how this is even possible, other than it was clear as day. First shot went left about 1 inch or so at 30 feet. All the rest through 1 hole, dead center. I had never experienced this before, nor have I since.

 

[9mmepiphany]

posted by Allentown
Thats usually an effect of a gun that has a DA first pull and a single action second pull combined with poor trigger control. The heave DA pull tends to pull the gun both down and to the right (if you are right handed). You have to tain yourself to pull the trigger...without moving the wrist.

if you've been experiencing the first shot being pulled off target, i'm thinking that you haven't had proper training in the management of the DA trigger stroke of a DA/SA trigger...you are correct in that it is caused by poor trigger control. the DA trigger stroke is just as fast to the first accurate shot as a SAO trigger system and is usually how i start out my students to avoid flinching their first shot out of the holster.

the 5 and 1 effect is a result of the manually loaded round being loaded differently than the following rounds. if you want all the rounds to hit with utmost consistency, manually load the first round and then fire it off...allowing the round in the chamber to be loaded by the action of the recoiling slide

 

[qwertice]

WRT slingshotting the slide, my security, firearms and defensive tactics course taught me to always drop the slide with the release, to minimize the chance of riding the slide and fouling up the load procedure.

 

[9mmepiphany]

my security, firearms and defensive tactics course taught me to always drop the slide with the release, to minimize the chance of riding the slide and fouling up the load procedure.

which platform?

that training sounds a bit dated, i can't think of any nationally known schools that still teach that

 

[sidheshooter]

What Dodson said for condition check. I've slowly become convinced to always release the slide from lock using the overhand method as well (except for wounded shooter drills).

Don't know enough about first round flyers to comment, except that Ayoob has made much the same comments as 9mmepiphany, above.

 

[Manco]

I saw this again just the other day. A well known gun trainer slingshots the slide on his 1911.
I have heard all the advantages of this including, fewer 5 and 1 groups, reliability enhanced, full travel of the recoil spring.

Maybe the full travel benefits the reliability of some guns, but they'd have to be pretty marginal to begin with. For comparison, I can "ride" the slide of my M&P all the way down, stopping it whenever I want, and it will still load the next round and go into battery every time (note that I've only ever tested a clean gun in this manner). Based on this, I'm pretty confident that pulling down on the slide stop would work reliably.

The main advantage of pulling back on the slide is that it works equally well on all autoloaders and is the same basic motion, whereas slide stops may vary in how they function.

But then he press checks the slide. Pulling the slide back slightly till it unlocks then checking for a round in the chamber and letting the slide return.
Checking with your finger because you can not trust a loaded chamber indicator not to get debris or something under it and give a false indication.

Doesn't this negate any benefit from slingshotting the slide?

I don't see why it would, unless pulling the cartridge out partially and pushing it back into the chamber has some negative effects that I'm not aware of. The gun doesn't remember how it got into battery in the first place, and as long as it ends up in the same state after a "press check," then everything should be fine.

Are we "overtraining' ourselves?
It is kind of like putting a spoiler on the rear of a front wheel drive car?

Well, I don't know about training, but you might be worrying about too much. I don't think it hurts to have a better, more complete understanding of how your firearm functions unless it confuses you or makes you worry, which can be remedied by additional learning.

Guys with SA .45s or who HAVE hammers to cock..usualy dont have the problem wtih the "first flyer" the way Glocks or other hammerless designs do.

But aren't the trigger pulls of Glocks consistent from the first pull to the last? My M&P always has the same trigger pull, and it doesn't have a hammer, either. While Glocks are technically half-cocked as opposed to fully-cocked like M&Ps, my understanding is that they are always half-cocked and therefore always have the same trigger pull as well (I've never noticed anything different when shooting them).

the 5 and 1 effect is a result of the manually loaded round being loaded differently than the following rounds. if you want all the rounds to hit with utmost consistency, manually load the first round and then fire it off...allowing the round in the chamber to be loaded by the action of the recoiling slide

Does the round sit in the chamber differently, or something like that? If so, then wouldn't doing a press check cause that to change?

 

[9mmepiphany]

Does the round sit in the chamber differently, or something like that? If so, then wouldn't doing a press check cause that to change?

much more technically inclined men than I, equipped with a Ransom Rest, have never been able to determine why the difference occurs...but it does...they have tested everything including position in the chamber, seating depth, speed of feeding and speed/angle of release from the mag.

if you think about it, you wouldn't need to chamber check after firing the first round. if it fed the 1st round, the mag would not have changed it's orientation between that and the 2nd round

 

[Ric]

That was my original point.
Does the press check negate anything we get from the slingshotted slide?
Why slingshot the slide if we follow that up by press checking, rechambering the round that we slingshotted to fully chamber, rather than using the slide lock?

Some trainers train a press check but want you to slingshot the slide. It seems like an training oxymoron to train two techniques when the second one negates the first.

Or maybe I'm just bored and picking nits

 

[9mmepiphany]

That was my original point.
Some trainers train a press check but want you to slingshot the slide. It seems like an training oxymoron to train two techniques when the second one negates the first.

maybe i'm mis-understanding you, i'm not sure what part of releasing the slide by grasping in and releasing is negated by checking the chamber.

i think you might be mis-understanding that they are two separate drills which are not inseparably joined. i press check much less than i release my slide...like during reload drills

i consider the press check part of administrative loading

releasing the slide using the overhand method is practice which transfers well between platforms

 

[Zerodefect]

Either method works for an admin reload.

But I rack the slide when reloading usually. My better CCW's go into battery whenever I slam a mag into them so it's a non-issue to me. If your gun is reliable it really deosn't matter.

You can also spot me press checking between runs on a run and gun training course. Just to make sure I have one in the pipe before running to the next stage of cover. It's not just an admin thing. If you have time, it's good to check before a risky manuever.

 

[9mmepiphany]

It's not just an admin thing. If you have time, it's good to check before a risky manuever.

i usually try not to shoot to slide lock, when i have time, which would make a chamber check pointless. when i do shoot to slide lock, it usually means i don't have the time...i'm driving the gun back out for another shot

 

[jackpinesavages]

Try asking him? When you say "slingshot", how is it that he is gripping the slide? Over the top with his whole palm or from the rear with 2 fingers?





"I saw this again just the other day. A well known gun trainer slingshots the slide on his 1911.
I have heard all the advantages of this including, fewer 5 and 1 groups, reliability enhanced, full travel of the recoil spring."

 

[yeti]

I would say that at social gun interaction range the theoretical change in POI from a round loaded by slide lock release, slingshot, or 'fire loading' would be so small as to be irrelevant. It would seem having a round in the chamber would be much more important, by orders of magnitude, than how that round got there.

In a game shooting fractions of an inch can be the difference between 10th place and first, social engagements, firstest with the mostest is more important than one hole groups. (I don't want to minimum shot placement, but actual combat accuracy and sporting accuracy are not the same thing)

So get a round in there any way you are comfortable with, just be sure there is one there to begin with if the need arises.