Today’s issue: difficulty using the slide release on an empty magazine.
This is an utterly irrelevant issue. First off, that little lever on the left side of the gun is a slide stop, not a slide release. Notice the somewhat inconvenient placement on many guns. To release the slide, the proper technique involves pulling the slide to the rear and letting it “slingshot” into battery.
Now, I’m aware that there are very experienced and knowledgeable shooters who use the slide stop as a release. They’re not wrong, but that method has its drawbacks. In a stress situation, fine motor skills evaporate. Operating a small, oddly-positioned lever with shaking, sweaty hands will be problematic at best.
If you try the slingshot method on a pistol with an empty magazine inserted, you’ll quickly discover that it does not work. Why not? Because you’re not supposed to drop the slide in that state. The whole idea is that the gun locks up to tell you it’s empty and needs reloading. Insert a live magazine, and the slide drops easily.
There is nothing wrong with a gun on which it is difficult to drop the slide on an empty magazine.
There is also a significant safety issue here. Many people clear their weapon, then drop the slide and dry-fire the gun to take tension off the sear. This is common practice for pistols without decocking mechanisms, such as the 1911 and the various striker-fired pistols. The safest way to do this is without a magazine inserted. Check for an empty magazine well, and for an empty chamber, then release the slide and pull the trigger.
Remember the DEA agent who shot himself in the foot? Sure. Everybody does. I hear about it at least twice a day. Watch the video and note the sequence of actions leading up to the negligent discharge. The gun was handed to him with the slide locked back, but with a live magazine inserted. Assuming an empty magazine, he dropped the slide and pulled the trigger to release the striker. In this case, his actions chambered a live round prior to pulling the trigger.
If asked, he’d likely tell you that he was simply repeating the same final action he’d performed countless times while clearing the gun. The only problem was that he lost his place in the sequence there.
I have personally witnessed one negligent discharge that placed lives in danger because of such a mistake. I recently spoke with someone who shot himself in the leg after reassembling a Glock, inserting the magazine, dropping the slide, then pulling the trigger to take out the slack. That young man’s femur is broken into ten pieces, and he’s going to be in quite a bit of pain for quite some time.
The only time the slide should be dropped forward is when the gun is being loaded, or when there is no magazine inserted. You must be wary of the gun’s condition at all times, and at no time should your attention be more focused on one thing in this life than when you pull the trigger.