Limp wristing??

G

Greg Bell

New member
Guys,

I have some questions about "limp wristing." I currently own 229's and P7's, neither of which has any functionality problems. I keep hearing about limp wristing, but it seems hard to believe. I have, in response to all the talk about this problem, fired my guns at crazy angles with crazy grips at various rates of speed, Result: no malfunctions--just odd looks from the range owner. Is this something limited to plastic guns? I had a G23 and it wasn't 100%. I had a USP40c that worked 100%. I believe that this may be a case of blaming the shooter for the gun's problems. It seems odd that a gun manufacturer would rely on the shooter to keep the gun from deforming or whatever supposedly happens during limpwristing.


GHB
 
In theory, a pistol should become more susceptible to limp wristing as the ratio of the mass of the recoiling parts (primarily the slide) to the stationary parts (primarily the frame) increases. It's an obvious engineering problem for pistols with lightweight, plastic frames.

I can see how someone with an injury or an awkward firing position might encounter this problem, but it seems to me that most shooters under stress would grasp their pistols more, rather than less, firmly, and so I'm skeptical about gunfight stoppages attributed to "limp wristing".
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Greg Bell:
Guys,

It seems odd that a gun manufacturer would rely on the shooter to keep the gun from deforming or whatever supposedly happens during limpwristing.


GHB[/quote]


Soon or later, Greg, we have to take responsibility for our own actions. The semi auto pistols were designed to be fired from a stable platform; the hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, etc. You get the picture. The manufacturers have no control over their product one it leaves their shipping docks. It's up to us, the consumer, to safely and correctly operate said product. They did their part, now it's up to us to do ours. If the firearm has been manufactured properly, but is not properly maintained, stored, or operated in the proper manner by us, it's our own fault.


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johnnyb
A slow hit beats a fast miss.
 
I to have heard of this anomaly called "limp wristing." It seems quite odd that one must squeeze, (Hold firmly?) the grip of a gun to make it operate correctly. Now based on past arguments both here and around the net on this and similar topics, it appears that you actually must hold the gun tight enough to physically bring the structural componets into proper alignment or you run the risk of a jam/malfunction. Gheeeeshhhh! i'm not to sure about that. I own several firearms, a sig 229,sig 220,sig 226,SW.357mag,P7M8. All of these will fire just fine at any angle. (I too have done just as Greg has, experimenting with this theory.)

Matt, I would be intrested to hear more on your theory you stated as "a ratio of mass of the recoiling parts to the stationary parts increases."
I'm not quite clear on what you are getting at. The only associated ratio I can think of is force over velocity, but this has nothing to do with moving parts to stationary parts.

If you are talking about the relative weakness of a plastic frame being pounded upon by a steel slide, then why don't we see this problem with such guns as the HK USP? or the old SW Sigma's? How about the HK VP-70, that thing is so old if any gun should have the problem it would be the ideal guy.

SpeedBug
 
Limp wristing is a common cause of pistol malfunction, especially among new shooters. If a pistol is too large for a shooters hands this can also occur when the pistol shifts in the grip.

That being said, it does seem that LW is blamed far too often on this forum. When someone posts regarding their pistol malfunctioning the first response is always "you must be limp wristing it".

Contrary to what some "professionals" think a semi-auto can be shot successfully one handed. We train in this method all the time without a problem.
 
This phenomenon seems less common now than it used to. Maybe because of attention in design (tweaking of recoil springs, etc.). But when the small heavy calibers began to show up on the ranges (Early to mid-80s) it was not uncommon to see shooters with problems in feeding (stove-pipeing mostly). Often having a buddy fire the gun (same ammo) would only increase their frustration when the buddy had no problems.

The theory - as I understand it - is that if the arm/hand "give" in a backwards direction with recoil before the slide fully cycles, then there is a tendency for the slide to start forward before the empty is fully clear of the weapon. Or maybe the gun moving back prematurely interferred with the ejection process. The solution usually offered was to lock the elbow and/or wrist.

Guns with greater mass (full sized 1911) would not have as pronounced a rearward movement during the slide cycle. Enlarging; the ejection port, extending the ejector, getting an extractor with more tension, stronger/weaker recoil springs - sometimes helped - sometimes not.


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Jim Fox
 
My wife shot my sig 226. It jambed every 4th or 5th round for her, but functioned flawlessly for me. You have to resist the recoil. Is the HK P7 less susceptible to limpwristing?
 
SpeedBug,

Imagine, if you will, that you're floating in the vacuum of space. (Don't worry, you're wearing a space suit! ;)) You're floating above (from your perspective) a small rubber ball and two cubes, each with a volume of eight cubic meters. Both are extremely hard, but one is solid and has a mass of 10,000 kilograms while the other is hollow and has a mass of 1 kilogram.

Suppose you want to squash the rubber ball by stepping on it. If you set it between the solid cube and your foot and stomp, the ball will be fully compressed before you fly away from the cube. If you set it between the hollow cube and your foot and stomp, however, the ball will be deformed very little before the cube flies away from you.

If you represent a pistol slide, the cubes represent pistol frames, and the ball represents a recoil spring, what we have is the ultimate "limp wrist" scenario where no external forces (such as the resistance provided by a firm grip) act upon the system of the recoiling pistol. While the momentum of a heavy frame tends to resist and compress the recoil spring, the momentum of a light frame is easily overcome by the spring and shoved backwards without much compression.

OK, so that's the best analogy I can come up with on short notice. I'm not an engineer and I don't play one on TV. :)
 
I got into this type of a discussion once. So I used my Colt .45 ACP with a 230 grain bullet and used a safe set up where it was laying on it's side and fired by pulling a string attached to the trigger. It fired and ejected the spent round and chambered another one. It seems that there are two types of handgunners, those that believe in the limp wrist theory and those that don't...I don't.
 
I have to disagree with everyone that believes that limp-wristing does NOT exist. It most assuredly does.

BUT

Some guns are more suceptible than others and some guns aren't suceptible at all. It all comes down Newtons third law of motion and the law of Conservation of Energy.

In order for an automatic to fully cycle, extract the spent casing and rechamber a new round it must do several things. It must recoil far enough to extract the round, it must compress a spring with enough energy to return the slide, and it must come back forward with enough force to strip off a new round and chamber it.

Now, in order for the slide to move bcakwards there must be some resistance to the frame moving backwards. The slide will follow the path of least resistance, hopefully back along the frame. If the spring is very stiff then the frame requires bracing (by the shooter's grip). Otherwise the path of least resistance will be to move the entire gun, NOT cycling the slide back far enough to properly extract and feed.

Imagine for a moment that we have three springs for the same gun. Spring one is a VERY stiff spring. Spring Two is a normal spring, and spring three is a very weak spring.

Spring one will require the MOST bracing by the person holding the frame. If a person limp wrists the hold, the frame may move in his hand and not enough energy will get stored in the spring which can cause a failure of the slide to fully retract causing a failure to eject and/or a failure to feed.

Spring two, if properly designed, will require very little support by the user, but just enough spring to ensure that there is enough force left over to fully chamber the next round. Limp wristing may not cause any problems, or it may casue an occasional mis-feed depending on the weapon.

Spring three will NEVER have a problem ejecting as there is virtualy no resitance to the slide going to the rear. You could fire this gun hanging by a string and it would fully recoil. However it also will not chamber the next round as there will not be enough energy left in the spring to make the slide go forward. Also, all that excess energy that spring couldnt absorbe was slammed into the frame at max recoil, causing excessive wear and damage to the gun.

So Gun manufacturers have a challenge... design a slide/frame/recoil spring sufficiently strong to ensure reliable feeding and to buffer the shock of the recoil of the slide against the frame with out making it too stiff which can cause misfeeding or extraction problems.

Guns with heavier slides, lighter frames and stronger springs are more suceptible to a weak support of the frame causing malfunctions while guns with proportionaly heavier frame, lighter slide and lighter springs do not have to be supported so much (if at all) byt the user. Also, the resistance of the rails makes a difference too.

So in response about whether limp-wristing any given gun will cause malfunctions, I take the stance that it CAN, but more-so or less-so depending on the particular firearm. Some will do it all the time in a weak handed shooter and others will never do it.

FWIW, YMMV and any other disclaimer that you can think of!

J.T.
 
I have no idea what "limp wristling" is...
May be it's my problem of having not enough ideas. But I think that if pistol is designed
properly, it must function no matter how you
hold it, tight or loose (with an exception of ones having grip safety). So I consider
"limp wristling" to be an excuse on the part
of gun makes to explain why their pistols
are having problems...
 
J.T. King nice to see someone knows some real physics. I agree with what you have said mostly. Also I would add that if you loosely hold a semi auto pistol that it will reduce the rearward inertial energy of the slide. combine this with poorly perfoming ammo and you have a jam.

If maintaining a tight grip on a gun wasn't important, John Browning would have never designed a grip safety into one of the greatest guns ever but he did and he was smarter than us so I think that says it all. ddt
 
JTKing is right, even if his prose is somewhat too prolix ;).

If you are operating a semi-auto pistol which is recoil (as opposed to gas-blow back) operated, and your wrist absorbs or dampens the recoil energy which is needed to cycle the action, and the action does not then properly operate, it may be because the diminution of recoil energy attributable to your "grip" on the pistol has shortened the cycle of the slide.

Or am I missing something?
 
I guess you guys are missing something.

In order to understand that this "limp
wristling" is a non-event, just try to imagine what is moving to relation to what...
relative movements of slide, barrel, bullet
and spent case are happening INSIDE the
physical system of a gun, and unless gun is in some theoretical empty space and can move backwards without any resistance, relative
movements of gun parts can not be avoided.

If the gun function is sensative to the hold
by hand, gun is not properly designed. Whatever the hold is, it is a hold, period.
The fact that some guns work w/o problems when hold is really lose, and some do not work, and that laws of nature work the same
way for any gun proves the point that it is
design fault and not the shooter's problem.
 
I agree with Oris that an auto-loading pistol should be designed to cycle reliably under most grip situations. After all, who knows when someone's life may have to rely on that weapon under non-ideal conditions?

With that said... it still remains that some pistols do NOT cycle reliably in all hands with all grips. I have known of pistols by very reputable manufacturers that would not always cycle relaibly in my sister's hands when she first started shooting. Whether the gun in question was just a less reliable iteration of that model or if it was truly indicative of a small, powerful compact in the hands of a slight girl who didnt have a good grip, I won't fathom to guess.

But she definately "limp-wristed" the gun. In my hands or my father's hands the pistol never malfunctined. I mean ever. So my take on this is, there is DEFINATELY in existance the phenomenon of grip related malfunctions. They are more likely to happen in guns that exhibit the the physical characteristics consistant with proportionately heavier slide, lighter frame and/or stiffer spring. A perfect example is a tiny .45 cal pocket pistol. They need a firm grip.

Me? I would never carry a pistol that I could cause to mis-feed by limp-wristing, and in the case of my sister, I suggested that she try a differnt pistol as that one did not seem reliable enough to bet your life on. At least for her.

As far as it always being the gun's problem and not the shooters, my opinion differs. My father owned the gun in question for 5 years and he routinely carried it and practiced with it regularly. It never failed to feed on him and he would have scoffed at the idea that it was not a reliable firearm. My sister, once she learned to maintain a firm grip, never again had a problem with that particlar pistol malfunctioning on her.

This would seem to be a text book case of where the pistol performed very reliably with decent technique. Was the pistol designed poorly? Perhaps. But the shooter was equally involved in the misfeeding of the weapon.

Any recoil opperated firearm is NOT a closed system. It is UTTERLY dependant on the opperator to insure proper function, much like our automobiles are dependant on gravity and air preasure to continue running. WE, the shooter, provide the resistance of the frame to the slide and WE increase or decrease the reliability of our firearms by presenting the system with a more or less demanding shooting environment.

agian, FWIW, YMMV, and any other necessary disclaimers!

J.T.
 
and so I'm skeptical about gunfight stoppages attributed to "limp wristing".
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Don't go into much denial on this one. It is rather common and you can SEE one on my web page that was caught on video with a .380 where a cop is in a gunfight in a bank robbery. San Antonio had one a year or so ago and others are showing up.
The term "limp wristing' is becoming a buzzword catch all phrase for " my gun screwed up." A recoil operated gun does need certain physical things to work. It is a big picture of the shooters physical charactoristics, angle, ammunition, and other factors. It isn't much about the wrist. If such guns were gas operated we wouldn't see this problem I suspect. I make it clear to students it does and can exist. We see it on the range constantly, so it would have to show up in the streets unless someone can show the streets are immune to this. Why ignore it? Grasp it as a problem and learn how to avoid and cure it if it does happen. I still carry a variety of semi autos but I am well aware this can happen and it is a peril of semi auto gun use. My kid would do that.
 
So I take it if proper grip/shooting techniques/safety aspects/practice and learning are no longer necessary for the reliable function of a pistol, then we can just throw it at the BG or target...?

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johnnyb
A slow hit beats a fast miss.
 
I have a Colt Officer ltwt. that I could get to malfunction any time I wanted to by meerly unlocking my elbows. After a mainspring change, the problem has ceased. There seems to be wisdom in both camps in my observation.
 
J.T. King is correct. Oris is incorrect. This is simple physics as J.T. King explained. "For every action, there is always an equal and opposite reaction." Newtons Third Law of motion. Limp wristing is the perfect illustration of this law. Heck the only Jam (out of 200 rounds)I had Friday out of my (new) Para-Ordnance P14-45 happened when I KNOW I was holding the gun too loosly. It was weird. I definitely felt it recoil back farther than normal and although the casing was ejected, the next round didn't cycle into the chamber properly and the gun jammed. After that I was more aware of my grip and didn't have another problem.

Hey I may just be a chemical engineer, but that's basic high school physics...In terms of a force balance, the gun is not a closed system in that the base still needs something to hold it steady. :)

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The first step is registration, the second step is confiscation, the final step is subjugation.
 
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