Release the slide on a 1911

stinkeypete said:
As I was taught by someone that had been an Armor for one of the Army marksmanship teams..

Hold the 1911 Very Firmly. Think to yourself “it’s gonna go full auto or kaboom” and prepare for those malfunctions.

Release the slide using the thumb lever.

My relaying of his explanation may be faulty, but as I recall he said that working at a military firing range all day for years and personal putting untold rounds down range as part of various tests or for practice or competition, he said odd failures were not common but he’d seen them all.

So... safety first.

My personal opinion is the 1911 is my competition bit of sporting goods. As a fighting weapon, there are safer better modern handguns- but I shoot paper, not people.
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I don't know that there is a safer pistol than the 1911 out there. If the pistol is in condition 1 you have to disengage the thumb safety, disengage the grip safety, and then pull the trigger to fire it, don't do any one of those three things and it won't fire. If you disengage the safeties and choose not to fire just reengaging the thumb safety makes it safe, taking your hand off the grip safety so that it reengages makes it that much safer.
If there is a safer to handle handgun out there, I haven't seen it.


As far as the question at hand, I slingshot my autos, including my 1911s. That's the way I've trained for decades, it works the same with all of them.
 
Most professional training academy's that I have attended teach the slingshot method. My gunsmith who used to custom build 1911's says to use the slingshot method and thus I teach the slingshot method to my gun club students.
 
The advantage to teaching the slingshot method (sometimes called the Israeli method) is that it works for nearly all semi auto pistols. SO one training regimen suffices for everything, or just about.

The Israelis promoted the method because being critically short of arms they literally used everything they could get their hands on. So, a wide variety of pistols were in use as issue weapons, with a lot of difference in their operating controls and locations. And, due to the situation, there was no guarantee that the pistol you got for use today, and the one next week would be the same make, model or caliber, so the most universal method of training was used.

There are some guns where the only way to close them is to "slingshot" them. The Luger is one. There are other guns where using the slide release is actually easier (for me, at least) but slingshotting does work, though it requires both hands to do.
 
What it boils down to girls is either method is widely used and causes the weapon to be charged and ready for action. There are those of us who carried a weapon as part of their required job tools, carried that weapon or had it close by for a career of 30+ years and on into retirement using one or the other method ( or both actually depending upon firearm) and have survived just fine.
I normally use the slide release ( terminology works for me) however, with my PPK and some of my other pistols the slide is manipulated by hand, once loaded I do not change the weapon’s status until it is safe to do so.
 
Rangerrich99 said:
So I have a little over 20 defective guns. Good to know.
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Rangerrich99, I'm with you.

I have an array of handguns -- single-action, double/single, striker-fired, including two Colt 1911s -- and I think the slides on all of them will close when you insert a magazine firmly. (And I don't mean slamming; I just mean firmly.) The reason I say "think" is because I haven't made specific correlations as to which pistols do or don't, but I know my 1911s will, and I know my Glock 19 Gen 4 will. These guns aren't defective.

Last spring I took a female friend shooting for the first time, and I gave her thorough instructions on everything she'd need to know or might encounter: handling, loading, charging, shooting, clearing, responding to duds or hang-fires ... probably more information than she could process, to be fair. And we spent a considerable amount of time on how to release the slide, because some guns are easy to "overhand" (Glock or 1911) while others are not (Beretta 92 or CZ 75).

Then I threw in this last thought: "By the way, with actual loaded mags, the slide may close on its own if you tap it in firmly. Just be aware of that." And in fact it happened to me once during our session, but I don't think it happened to her.

I didn't explain why, because to this day I don't really understand why.
 
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Usage of the slide STOP as a slide RELEASE in an M1911 pistol will cause premature slide stop wear and is just begging for a malfunction when there isn’t enough force to chamber the next round.

Slingshot or overhand, girls. That’s what JMB would have wanted.
 
Usage of the slide STOP as a slide RELEASE in an M1911 pistol will cause premature slide stop wear..
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In over 50 years of being around 1911s, owning quite a few, and having been an Army Small Arms Repairman who handled, and inspected quite a few (hundreds, at least) I've never seen side stop wear where it was an issue to the functioning of the gun.

and is just begging for a malfunction when there isn’t enough force to chamber the next round.
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If there isn't enough force to chamber the next round with the slide closing from the hold open position, there's something wrong with the gun. Period. That extra quarter inch or so of spring compression and slide travel when you slingshot the slide shouldn't make any difference. If it does, there's something wrong with the gun.

That’s what JMB would have wanted.
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Maybe. But then why is there a serrated/checkered "shelf" on the outside of the slide stop? I don't think its there just for decoration.

Browning didn't put a thumb safety on his original prototype, only the grip safety. He didn't think a thumb safety was needed. A significant faction in the Army disagreed. Browning then added the "safety lock" (thumb safety) to the prototype that became the 1911.

Browning was the most prolific, and arguably the greatest firearms designer in the last few centuries, but he wasn't someone who made their living "on the sharp end". So his ideas of what was important wasn't always the same as people who used guns in combat. He did, however, understand that "the customer is always right", even if he personally felt they weren't.
 
"In over 50 years of being around 1911s, owning quite a few, and having been an Army Small Arms Repairman who handled, and inspected quite a few (hundreds, at least) I've never seen side stop wear where it was an issue to the functioning of the gun."

I have. One. Replacement slide stop that was way too soft and that wore over time to the point where it wouldn't hold the slide back anymore under any circumstances.
 
I have. One. Replacement slide stop that was way too soft and that wore over time to the point where it wouldn't hold the slide back anymore under any circumstances.
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I knew there had to be some, thanks Mike. ;) I know there are bad parts out there, otherwise no one would bring it up. I've been (perhaps) fortunate never to have run into a bad slide stop, though I will admit that most of my experience has been with Colt commercial guns or GI 1911/A1s and GI parts.

Now, here's the question, did the bad slide stop wear and fail because it was a bad part to begin with (too soft for the intended job) OR did it fail because of the way it was used??
Meaning, did you slingshot the gun slide only? Or did you use it in the usual way, to release the slide by pushing down on the stop?

The claim has been made that using the stop as a release wears it out "prematurely". I don't think this happens with good quality parts.

I won't argue that it certainly CAN happen with crap parts, and today its tough to know if replacement parts are really quality or not.
 
Model12Win said:
Slingshot or overhand, girls. That’s what JMB would have wanted.
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See post #18.

If slingshot or overhand is what JMB would have wanted, why did he write the following in his patent application?

https://forum.m1911.org/documents/Browning's 1911 Patent of 1911-02-14.pdf
Page 5, first column.

... but when the last cartridge has been fed from the magazine, the lug j^2 stands in the path of the spring-follower of the agazine, and when the breech-slide is moved to the rear above the empty magazine, the follower will raise the lug j^2 and the handle j and cause the projection l to enter the recess m in the breech-slide, thereby locking the same in the open rear position, and serving as an indicator to show that the empty magazine must be replaced by a charged one before the firing can be continued. After placing the magazine in the grip the breech-slide is released by depressing the handle j.
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Usage of the slide STOP as a slide RELEASE in an M1911 pistol will cause premature slide stop wear and is just begging for a malfunction when there isn’t enough force to chamber the next round.

Slingshot or overhand, girls. That’s what JMB would have wanted.
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Say what???
 
Mod 12, I too worked in the armory for some time when in the service where we issued 1911’s and other weapons. There was not a day when the 1911 was not cycled and returned to battery using the slide release multitudes of times. The pistols were in the armory long before my arrival and continued on long after, there were no incidents of. Premature wear of the stop or notch in the slide...in fact those pistols which were fired monthly just did not break any parts that I know of, however, magazines were a different problem.
 
"Now, here's the question, did the bad slide stop wear and fail because it was a bad part to begin with (too soft for the intended job) OR did it fail because of the way it was used??
Meaning, did you slingshot the gun slide only? Or did you use it in the usual way, to release the slide by pushing down on the stop?"


It wasn't my gun. It was a customer's who brought it into the shop for repair. He was a regular at the range attached to the shop -- with that gun.

I'd say the answer is a combination of his habitually releasing the slide with the thumb latch and the fact that the part was dead soft where it shouldn't have been because of how it was rounded over.

My guess is that that particular part simply slipped through a step in the manufacturing process.
 
Invited from afar, so here goes.


Usage of the slide STOP as a slide RELEASE in an M1911 pistol will cause premature slide stop wear..
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With an empty magazine in the gun, pull the slide full rearward. (5-inch gun)

Look at the slide stop notch in relation to the stop lug...the part that engages the notch.

When the magazine is empty, the follower pushes up on the stop. As the slide runs forward, it pops up into the notch. The leading edge of the notch slams into the rear face of the stop lug under near maximum spring tension driving a 14 ounce slide.

If it'll stand that over and over, it's highly unlikely that a little friction will do it much harm.

Cheers.
 
Okay, so just curious, if one of your 1911s begins to send the slide forward when inserting a mag, is the fix likely installing a new slide stop release? Or could it be a plethora of issues and just be sent back to the manufacturer?
 
I would say do what is comfortable for you, unless you are planning to be in a high-stress situation in the future.

I was taught to use the slide release before going to work for Uncle Sam; however, it was pointed out by an instructor in VA, the sling-shot method was more advisable.

His reasoning was if under high-stress, after the last round the slide locks back, you hit the mag release, then slam in a new mag, you might when under stress possibly hit the slide release before the full mag is inserted. Plus, the slide is always in the same position; whereas, a slide release might be slightly different so if need to switch weapons, it makes the weapon faster to make ready.

Therefore, since that, at the time made sense, I learned to always sling-shot. Right thumb releases the spent mag, right hand slams the fresh (full) mag into the well and them proceeds to take hold of the slide and do the sling-shot.

It became so automatic I don't even think about it.

But always issued DA/SA no 1911s but don't believe that would be a factor.
 
Rangerrich99 said:
Okay, so just curious, if one of your 1911s begins to send the slide forward when inserting a mag, is the fix likely installing a new slide stop release? Or could it be a plethora of issues and just be sent back to the manufacturer?
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It's a several step diagnosis.

First question: Does it always do that, or only if the empty mag you dropped was a certain mag (or one of a few certain mags)? It may be that the magazines have weak springs and aren't fully engaging the slide stop. Start by trying to isolate whether it only happens after certain mags get shot to slide lock, then check to see if those mags are fully engaging the slide stop.
 
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