fact or myth?

If extractors were not meant to slip over a chambered round, they wouldn't have springs. Think about that.
A properly installed 1911 extractor has enough room to go over a rim without unduly stressing it.
While I'm not into SIGs and Glocks, I have never seen a gun that wasn't designed to have the extractor ride over the rim of a cartridge.
 
While I'm not into SIGs and Glocks, I have never seen a gun that wasn't designed to have the extractor ride over the rim of a cartridge.
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But why do it though? Why not just feed a round from the magazine and then top the magazine back off?
 
But why do it though? Why not just feed a round from the magazine and then top the magazine back off?
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Because I don't care to worry about the small chance of breakage for the small number of times that I do it.

If it does break, I can fix it!

Separately - The odds of discovering any breakage are higher while doing the "wrong" thing, than while shooting the handgun later. If it's going to break, I'd rather find out sooner, rather than later.
 
Because I don't care to worry about the small chance of breakage for the small number of times that I do it.

If it does break, I can fix it!

Separately - The odds of discovering any breakage are higher while doing the "wrong" thing, than while shooting the handgun later. If it's going to break, I'd rather find out sooner, rather than later.
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Right, but to me it's not even easier to chamber the first round that way than the way I described above. I just don't see the point.
 
Because I don't care to worry about the small chance of breakage for the small number of times that I do it.
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But this does suggest that you digress that frequent engagement of said practice is not exactly... beneficial. I would be lying if I said I have never done it, I have. But I also know that this is outside of best practice now, hence I no longer load this way purposefully. If there is a round left in the chamber as a result of a malfunction, yeah I’ll drop the slide on it in hopes it will extract the next time the slide cycles. But I don’t load this way, because my understanding of firearms has increased over the years. It’s the same reason I don’t drop a round in the chamber of a controlled feed rifle.
 
It’s the same reason I don’t drop a round in the chamber of a controlled feed rifle.
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No, not really.
Some CRF rifle designs don't have enough room in the action, and/or enough flex in the extractor, to allow snap-over. Forcing snap-over in those designs WILL damage the extractor. It's not a "maybe ... eventually". It is WILL damage, right now.

But this does suggest that you digress that frequent engagement of said practice is not exactly... beneficial.
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Know your weapon and pick your poison: Snap-over and "risk breakage". Or load from a magazine and risk bullet setback.

Which is more likely to cause injury that you prefer to avoid?

(I have chosen the option of a potentially broken extractor over hand and facial injuries.)
 
(I have chosen the option of a potentially broken extractor over hand and facial injuries.)
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I've chambered idk how many rounds, many of them multiple times. Bullet setback is fairly noticeable. To me if you chamber a round so many times that you get setback to the level you're describing (where the round blows up on you) without noticing you're not paying attention, incredibly so. I will also say that the only rounds I chamber multiple times are defensive rounds and in my experience they are fairly resistant to setback as most have a cannelure. It does happen, but it takes a long time and by the time it does I've long tossed that round simply because the extractor has chewed up the rim more than I am comfortable with.
 
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Know your weapon and pick your poison: Snap-over and "risk breakage". Or load from a magazine and risk bullet setback.
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Ahh, but do you only fire single shot pistols? Every round fired after the first chambered round in a semi auto is subject to the dangers of the great beast bullet setback. Every round in that 15 round mag, save the first one if you plunk it in the chamber and shut the slide on it, will ram its nose into the feed ramp during the operating cycle. So, 15 out of 16 rounds will experience this violence, why cause undue wear on the extractor to lessen it in 1 out of 16 rounds?

Bullet setback is a real thing, but in normal quality ammo it is not a major concern unless you repeatedly (more than 2 or 3 times) load and unload the same round. And almost every round WILL hit the feed ramp anyway?
 
As he was reloading his glock I noticed that he manually loaded the first round into the chamber instead of from a magazine.
So I said that was an unusual practice.

So, is this bad, and if so, why?
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Unless a semi-auto is approved for direct chamber loading, rounds should be chambered from a magazine. The extractor can be damaged if it is forced to snap over the rim of a cartridge if it is not designed to do so.

I own a few semi-auto pistols that are designed to tolerate direct chamber loading according to the manual. Glocks are not. In Glocks, the practice can chip the extractor.

Simple solution. Unless the manual or the manufacturer says it's an approved practice, chamber only from the magazine.

At the very least, don't let the slide slam home from all the way back when direct chamber loading a gun that's not designed for it. Only pull the slide back just enough to let it snap over the rim.
I'm not advocating loading manually, but trying to see if it's that big a deal.
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It won't be a big deal until you chip an extractor. The real question is why do it? Glock provides a method for loading their pistols in the manual. It works just fine.
It's having to go around the rim case to do that. So it seems the same function.
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If your gun isn't working and you need it to save your life, risking a broken extractor to get it running again seems like a reasonable tradeoff. That doesn't mean it's good for the gun.
I expained to him about bullet setback and higher pressures, but this led me to wonder if this is overblown.

If setback does happen on loading the round by manually letting the slide slam forward, then would it be true that every round loaded when gun recycles has setback also? Which then made me wonder if ammunition manufacturers take this higher pressure from setback into account in their loadings.
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Some loadings are more sensitive to setback than others. Mild loads with light for caliber bullets and large cases are less sensitive to setback than hot loads with heavy for caliber bullets in small cases.

In extreme cases, a tenth of an inch of setback can double the discharge pressure. That's a real problem.

Premium ammunition with brass cases will not setback from a single chambering, or even several chamberings. I seem to recall that at one point I found some information somewhere from one particular manufacturer stating that their premium ammo should tolerate 4 chamberings without setting back. But eventually, the slamming will break things loose and the bullet will start to setback.

Fortunately, there's a simple solution. Don't keep rechambering the same round over and over. And if it's cheap practice ammo, especially with aluminum casings, chamber it only ONCE.

I have seen ammo that would setback from being chambered once. It was bargain practice ammo with light bullets loaded in aluminum cases and the loading was pretty mild. So I didn't have a problem shooting it--but you can bet I didn't rechamber ANY of that ammo. Once it got into the chamber, it was either fired or discarded.
Or load from a magazine and risk bullet setback.
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If you have ammunition that is setting back enough from a single chambering to be dangerous, then you need to contact the manufacturer and get your money back rather than adopting non-standard loading practices to try to compensate for the extreme lack of quality in the ammunition.
While I'm not into SIGs and Glocks, I have never seen a gun that wasn't designed to have the extractor ride over the rim of a cartridge.
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Come on Bill.

It might be reasonable to make the claim that: "In your opinion, every gun you have ever seen appears to be designed to allow the extractor ride over the rim of the cartridge without damage."

Implying that you know with a certainty how the extractor system of every gun you've ever seen was designed to operate is just not remotely credible.

Anyway, unless you've never seen a Kahr, the statement is false. The Kahr P9 manual tells the user: "Do not load an individual round into the chamber and then close the slide. This can damage the extractor. Only chamber rounds from the magazine as described..." Clearly there are pistols that are not designed to have the extractor ride over the rim of a cartridge.
 
If you have ammunition that is setting back enough from a single chambering to be dangerous, then you need to contact the manufacturer and get your money back rather than adopting non-standard loading practices to try to compensate for the extreme lack of quality in the ammunition.
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I don't use cheap ammo. I am not compensating for anything, unless you include statistical probability.

All brands and quality levels of ammunition can suffer bullet setback. Whether due to the manufacturer's loading practices, a quality failure, or negligent repeated chambering by the end-user, they can all suffer setback.

The most recent examples that I've setback with were Hornady Critical Defense 90 gr FTX .380 Auto, Speer 124 gr Gold Dot LE 9mm, and Barnes 115 gr TAC-XPD.
It happens with rifle ammo, too - and setback doesn't even have to happen inside a firearm. About two months ago, I dropped a factory Remington .300 Blk 220 gr OTFB subsonic load on a concrete floor. It landed base-first. When I picked it up, the cartridge overall length was more than 0.150" shorter.

I don't think anyone would classify any of the above as "low quality." Yet, they all suffered from bullet setback with minimal or single chamberings (or one drop).


Some people snap-over. Some people don't.

Some people wipe front-to-back. Some people wipe back-to-front.
Some people do both.

It's a personal choice.
(Just don't wipe side-to-side. That's not good for anyone.)
 
I think. That with the Beretta 92 series, that you can load a single cartridge that way.

Seems I even saw that in this thread here somewhere.?????
 
Anyway, unless you've never seen a Kahr, the statement is false. The Kahr P9 manual tells the user: "Do not load an individual round into the chamber and then close the slide. This can damage the extractor. Only chamber rounds from the magazine as described..." Clearly there are pistols that are not designed to have the extractor ride over the rim of a cartridge.
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I just looked and the Kahr extractor does have a beveled extractor.
Kahr states in their manuals that one should not "slingshot" the slide to chamber a round, but instead release the slide stop to load from a magazine. In fact, I've seen on many forums that many will not purchase a Kahr arms pistol for this very reason, thinking that this would not be good from a defense pistol viewpoint, i.e with a closed slide, and empty chamber you would have to first LOCK BACK THE SLIDE, and then release the slide on the magazine to chambe the round versus simply inserting a magazine and racking the slide.

But on both my Kahrs, a K40 and PM9, they work just fine with an overhand "slingshot" as long as you don't ride the slide forward.

In general, lots of stuff in owners instruction manuals are written by lawyers, not technicians.
 
Bill DeShivs said:
Regardless, most guns are designed for the extractor to slip over the rim of a chambered cartridge. That's why they are sprung.
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I wonder whether the fact that not all ammo is made exactly to spec might also justify the use of a slightly flexible material in an extractor? Case bases that are a hair larger than spec might eventually break an extractor that wasn't at least a little bit flexible as those oversize cases are slid under the tip of the extractor as it's fed from the magazine. Spring steel extractors might also be a bit more resistant to chips and cracks than harder steel extractors that can't give a little.
 
Bill DeShivs said:
Regardless, most guns are designed for the extractor to slip over the rim of a chambered cartridge. That's why they are sprung.
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Not so sure about that.
 
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Regardless, most guns are designed for the extractor to slip over the rim of a chambered cartridge. That's why they are sprung.
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Kahr extractors are "sprung" and still the manufacturer explicitly states that they are not designed to slip over the rim of a chambered cartridge.

I don't think it's true that "most guns" are designed to tolerate that, and clearly, based on the Kahr example, whether they are beveled on the face or "sprung" isn't a reliable way to make the determination.

If you have some other evidence to support your assertion, I would be interested to hear it.
All brands and quality levels of ammunition can suffer bullet setback.
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This is absolutely true.

HOWEVER, it is absolutely NOT true that chambering a round a single time will setback properly manufactured, good quality ammunition sufficiently to be dangerous. It doesn't even require a lot of thought or careful consideration to realize that good quality, properly manufactured ammunition can safely be chambered and fired.

It is also not true that all ammunition WILL setback even a small amount from a single chambering--in my experience the ammo that will set back from one chambering is in the small minority.

In addition, when we do see setback from a single chambering, the fact that there's measureable setback from a single chambering does not automatically imply that there's a dangerous situation. The setback needs to be significant, not just detectable. A detectable amount of setback from one chambering DOES, however imply that ammunition like that should NEVER be chambered more than once.

What I stated was correct. "If you have ammunition that is setting back enough from a single chambering to be dangerous, then you need to contact the manufacturer and get your money back rather than adopting non-standard loading practices to try to compensate for the extreme lack of quality in the ammunition.

Good quality ammo is safe to chamber normally and fire. Period.

There is no need to direct chamber load to avoid setback with good quality ammo. Period.
Kahr states in their manuals that one should not "slingshot" the slide to chamber a round, but instead release the slide stop to load from a magazine.
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If you have proper technique, slingshotting the slide actually makes the gun more reliable in the general case because it results in slightly more slide energy than dropping it from the slide release. If you don't have good technique, it can cause misfeeds, particularly in small guns. So Kahr decided that consistency is better than the small amount of extra energy and they tell people to use the slide release instead of slingshotting. However, the whole slide/slingshot is a red herring in this discussion. Kahr doesn't state that slingshotting the slide can damage the gun. They do state that dropping the slide on a chambered round can damage the gun. Two very different things going on here.

Look, if you want to direct chamber load, go for it. It's probably not going to result in rapid breakage--it just stresses parts in ways that they aren't normally stressed and that can cause parts breakage over time.

Don't feel like you have to gain a consensus here before you can do it or feel like you need to convince people who know better that it's actually a good idea.
 
with a closed slide, and empty chamber you would have to first LOCK BACK THE SLIDE, and then release the slide on the magazine to chamber the round versus simply inserting a magazine and racking the slide.
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I'm a fairly new 'returnee' to handguns but how is 'locking slide back and releasing with slide release', any different than pulling slide back and letting go of it?
 
Here's some "science" for you. Because I'm data-driven (and a big nerd) I once went to the range to test this. I ejected and reloaded (from magazine) the same hollow point round 50 times. I did get a few funny looks and one "do you need someone to show you how to shoot?" offer :)

But after 50 repeated runs, I fired the round. It fired. Don't know what else to say.

Can't say that necessarily establishes anything, but in at least that case, 50 chambering of the round didn't appear to cause any problems.
 
I'm not really surprised. I haven't gone so far as to use my calipers, but in a visual comparison in terms of bullet exposed even after a number of times with both Speer Gold Dots and Federal HST there is little difference. Again in my experience the case body and rim are chewed up before setback becomes noticeable. However, I acknowledge care should always be taken when it comes to setback and that each ammunition type and individual cartridge need to be examined.

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