Racking the Slide on a Handgun
Personal Defense Network EditorsDescription
Using two different sizes—a full-size and a compact gun—for demonstration, Mandy Autrey of Gunlady Defensive Firearms Training shows an efficient and effective method for racking the slide on a handgun.
Improper Techniques
Many people come to Mandy and say they don’t have the hand strength to rack the slide. The reason they think that is because they’ve been taught the improper technique. With the slingshot method of racking the slide, people grasp the slide with their thumb and index finger, meaning they have to push the gun away from them, and that takes some of the strength away as they are getting ready to rack the slide.
Additionally, most people do not have a lot of strength in just their index finger and thumb. Placing the gun too far away from the body while pulling the slide toward you means you lose a lot of dexterity and hand strength. Overall, it’s not an efficient technique.
Mandy then details two other improper techniques that lead people to conclude they are not strong enough to rack the slide. Here’s an efficient way to accomplish it.
Recommended Push-Pull Technique
To rack the slide during handgun training, practice, and defensive use, start from the high compressed ready position—the gun is in close to the body, where we naturally do tasks such as opening jars. Grasp the back of the slide with all four fingers on one side and the meat of the palm on the other side. Squeeze these together to get a good grip on the slide. Do not cup it or wrap the thumb around the slide.
With this solid grasp, push forward with the strong (firing) hand while pulling back on the slide with the support hand, and let it go. The slide will get into full battery and work.
On a full-size handgun, it’s easier because you have more mass to hang onto on both the frame and the slide, and the spring is not as tight as it is on a compact gun. But the technique is the same for a compact!
All right, what I'd like to talk to you today about is how to rack the slide on a handgun. So, I actually have two different sized handguns and I'm gonna explain that when we start the actual hands-on. So, a lot of times what I get is the person comes to me and they say, "I don't have the hand strength "to actually rack the slide." The reason they don't have that is because they've been taught the improper technique. So, if I pick up this full-size gun and as you know, all these guns are empty up here. So as I'm holding this, people have a tendency to wanna do the slingshot, which is, they're actually grabbing with their thumb and their pointer finger. And what happens with that is I actually have to push the gun away from me and that takes some of the strength away as I'm getting ready to rack the slide. There's also not a lot of hand strength for most people with just the finger and the thumb. So, the gun has to be pushed this way and then they're pulling back. And we're losing a lot of dexterity when we do that and hand strength and it's not efficient. Another way that I also see people that will do the racking on the slide is once again, they're pushing the gun away from the body. They're actually covering up the ejection port with their thumb, so if they had a malfunction, they would not be able to actually clear the malfunction by racking the slide this way. The other style that I see that happens is you'll have somebody that will actually reach in front of the ejection port and pull the slide back and do that. You're getting way too close to the muzzle when you try to rack the slide in that style and once again, you're pushing that away from the body, so you're losing that strength that you have. What I find is that racking the gun is a two-handed technique and it's not so much the strength that we're looking for. We're looking for the push-pull technique. So my strong hand is gonna push on the frame, while my left hand or support hand is pulling back on the slide. So, like I said, I have two different style of guns here. I have the full-sized gun, which the spring is a little bit easier to work and then I have a small-sized gun here and you have less gun to hang on to and the springs are usually a little stronger. So what we're talking about when we talking about racking the slide, is I pick up the full-size, I'm gonna bring it into what we call high compressed ready position and I'm actually going to grasp the back of the slide. This is where people start to have difficulties because they wanna cup it, they wanna wrap their thumb around the whole slide. What we're looking for is that we're catching the one side of the slide with the mid of our hand and our fingers and we're squeezing it together so that we can get a good grip on that slide. So once I do this, I get this good grip, and I'm gonna push forward with my right while pulling back with my left, and let it go. And that's how we get the slide to get into full battery and work. On a full-size gun, it's a little bit easier because you have more mass to hang on to on the frame and you have a bigger slide to hang on to and the spring is not as tight as when we get to a smaller size gun. The technique is still the same technique. So I'm still gonna squeeze here. I like to keep my thumb back, so I'm not wrapping it around and I'm still going to push forward while I'm pulling back, and let go. You notice, I just let the slide go. We don't wanna ride the slide forward. You can induce malfunctions in the gun when you do that. So the proper technique, once again, and I'm do it with the bigger gun because this is where most people would start was a full size, is it's this push-pull technique. What I find is sometimes people have a tendency to wanna leave this hand still and I'm telling you to grasp here and push so that there's actually some movement away from the body. Once again, a full grip on the frame of the gun, grasping and squeezing the slide, pushing forward while you're letting the slide go. That is the most effective, intuitive way to work the slide on a gun. It works well with what the body's doing. We're using a natural style of anything we would do as in, if I gave you a jar of pickles to open, you wouldn't open them out here. You would bring it in here. So we wanna keep everything we're doing with our gun as natural and normal with the body as we can.
nobody pays attention to lefty shooters. ejection is on right side, slide rack meant for tight handers. I shoot very well left handed and will not change. I rack slide placing hand in from of ejection not behind since that is only way. Plus then you would have to purchase left ejection port guns. Sucks.
Great video! Thanks!
<strong>Ticket 38363</strong> Are there any techniques for opening the slide? In other words, the push-pull process works well to rack the slide, but how does someone with poor hand strength (my wife) rack the slide to keep it open. For instance, she can rack the slide with minimal difficulty, but is not able to pull the slide back while pushing up on the release button to keep the slide open. Any ideas for that?
I thought someone would chime in with the best method. Her analogy with the pickle jar is correct and would be applicable to racking the slide, unfortunately she does not explain it that way. She is correct, that the closer to the body, the more leverage. You would not open pickle jar pushing away from your body. You would hold the jar close to your chest and twist parallel to your chest. If you have to turn your body slightly to stay range safe, that would be acceptable.
Thanks for the tip on cycling the slide on my striker-fired Ruger SR-9 (9E). I have had it for about two years and the spring strength is amazing. I previously owned a Springfield 1911 and the difference in spring tension is radically different. The magazines for the Ruger are also tougher to depress and load. I bought a loader from Ruger for my pistol and now I can get a full magazine (17 rounds, loaded to 15), without breaking my thumb. Why do striker-fired pistols have to have slide springs so stiff? The only drawback to the slide retraction technique, is that the slide-lock lever is so small that I can't engage it with my thumb on the firing hand with the magazine removed. Thanks again. Gary
Spring pressure not as tight as it is on a compact gun. Shooting a 45acp it takes xyz number of pounds of pressure to hold it back, it does not matter what size the gun is, full size compact or sub compact slide pressure spring pressure will be the same! Started out sounded like you knew what you were talking about, stick to what you know not what you think you know! Loose your credibility with your last words.
Or use the slide stop/release
Well done video, but there are better techniques that can be employed. As she pushes the gun away from the body, leverage and strength diminish almost exponentially. The gun should stay as close to the body as possible to gain the most leverage and to leverage the individuals given strength limit. Her explanation was good, but there are better ways.