Brett,

During a recent class, Scott gave a period of instruction on reloading the handgun. With the slide locked back he showed us how to get rid of the empty magazine and place a new one in the weapon. He demonstrated how to depress the slide stop with the support side thumb and chamber a round.

One of the students expressed some concern with this technique. He felt that, under stress, he would not have the fine motor skill to hit the slide stop with his thumb. He believed that it is better to pull the slide to the rear to chamber a round.

Scott told him of an incident in which two LAPD officers were in a gunfight and had reloaded their pistols the way that he had demonstrated. He mentioned them by name and explained that they were both wounded and under fire (a more stressful situation is difficult to imagine) and that they were able to complete the reload.

Seeing as how this debate comes up from time to time I was hoping to get some more details regarding this incident so that I may use it to illustrate that this technique does work under stress.

Thank you

Mike Docherty

Mike,

A little late in the reply. I just noticed the FORUM portion of the site.

I guess only Scott would probably know the details of the incident but I just wanted to add that that's how I was also taught to do it. In fact, the instructor (a former SAS trooper) also advocated depressing the mag release using the support hand thumb.

Suffice to say that being a gamer, I had a hard time getting that done

Helmie Ashiblie
i-SHOT Shooting Sports
www.ishot-inc.com

The shooting mentioned was the Russell/Hamilton shooting. Scott wrote an extensive article in American Handgunner Tactical 2003 annual issue.

brett@internationaltactical.com

Another of looking at this issue is, when you clear a Type III Malfunction, what is the first thing you do? LOCK THE SLIDE TO THE REAR. Hitting that little slide lock, all of these "experts" say you can't hit under stress.

Well, which is more stressful, in a real, true, gunfight. Going to slide lockback or having a Type III Malfunction? Personally, I've trained in combat/emergency reloads thousands of times. However, clearing a Type III Malfunction hundreds of times.

So, it would appear to me, you can do, under stress, what you TRAIN yourself to do. If it means hitting the slide lock, then you can hit the slide lock. If it means coming over the top and racking the slide, then that will work too.

Would it be possible to purchase a copy of that article? I would like it for my reference material I use as a firearms instructor for my PD.

Thanks,

Eric

Sorry for the late reply. I just noticed the question from Jaeger.

You can purchase back copies of articles from American Handgunner from their website at http://store.yahoo.com/fmgstore/amhantac20an4.html

I hope that helps.

Brett

brett@internationaltactical.com

I'll check into that. Thank you for your time.

Eric