[DrewBegley]

I've heard you can fire a 9mm striker-fired pistol (Glock, M&P) while pressing your thumb onto the slide plate cover (rear of slide) and keep the firearm from cycling. As in with suppressed fire to fire an even more suppressed shot. Where with an AR/M16/M4 type firearm you can use an adjustable gas block to keep the firearm from cycling, turning it into a single shot weapon. My question: Can this be done (the thumb behind the slide) and with a suppressor attached, how much more efficient would the suppression be? I was also told it can be done with a .40/.45 with BOTH thumbs over the slide end plate.

[Kiln]

The real question is, how much do you like your thumbs being sliced up?

With thumbs off the grip you would have less control over the gun too. In short, I wouldn't recommend it.

[AK47TIM]

Not anything I would want to try.

Sent from my MB870 using Tapatalk 2

[Bobson]

Seems to go against every grain of common sense. Using your thumbs to keep a machine thats powered by immense pressure from doing what its designed to do? Sounds like a great way for broken or dislocated thumbs.

[DrewBegley]

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY... but is it impossible to stop the action from cycling with pure 'thumb power'? And just to be clear, I'd never handle a firearm in a way that I could possibly imagine it taking my thumb off. It's one of the things that makes me human next to having common sense and I'd like to keep my sense and my thumbs.

[Trebor]

I know of a class that does this as part of "contact distance" shooting drills. The idea is the thumb on the back of the gun keeps it from going out of battery if the muzzle contacts the target.

I haven't attended the class, but I've read several AAR's. The students say it worked, the guns cycled, and no one hurt their thumb. This is a technique for a specialized purpose, not for general use, and evidently it does work.

[Bobson]

MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY... but is it impossible to stop the action from cycling with pure 'thumb power'?
I don't know if its impossible. I'd have to personally see someone do it successfully before I tried it, and even then I wouldn't be comfortable with it.

Write the folks who operate Mythbusters. I hear they're always looking for new things to try.

[Joe_m107]

I don't know about Glocks. But I have done this with my Ruger 10/22. I held my thumb against the charging handle to keep it from cycling.
With subsonic ammo, it was easy. But with high velocity ammo it hurt my thumb. I was able to barely keep the breech shut.

I would NOT want to try this with a center fire pistol.

[JDGray]

I personally wouldn't try it without leather gloves, but it isn't supposed to be a big deal to do....

[beatledog7]

I'm reminded of those frequently uttered pre-accidental injury or death words...

"Here, hold my beer and watch this."

[Havok7416]

I witnessed the results of a guy doing something along these lines at the local gun range. He was using a rental Glock and came out of the range with the gun in battery and blood all over everything. While I didn't see what he did, from the looks of his thumb it got in the way of the slide.

[eam3clm@att.net]

I have done this with an unsupressed Glock22. I also did not believe it could be done when our firearms instructor said that it could be done. He did it first himself and of course I had to say "let me try that". It didnt even hurt and the slide did not cycle. Remember its only a 16 to 18 pound recoil spring and plastic keeping the slide from comming off the gun.

[Taurus 617 CCW]

That's a technique taught at a Pat Rodgers class. It does work and it is possible. I watched it demonstrated first hand from a student that took his course.

[Havok7416]

Don't most suppressors have an option to allow the slide to cycle or not anyway? I remember someone telling me something about that years ago.

[hentown]

I witnessed the results of a guy doing something along these lines at the local gun range. He was using a rental Glock and came out of the range with the gun in battery and blood all over everything. While I didn't see what he did, from the looks of his thumb it got in the way of the slide.

What you witnessed was somebody who put his weakside thumb behind the slide, like some revolver-shooters do, when shooting a semi-auto. Has nothing to do with the question asked in this thread.

Also, I can't think of any suppressors that have a "cycle" or "not cycle" switch. :eek:

[Sam1911]

Don't most suppressors have an option to allow the slide to cycle or not anyway? I remember someone telling me something about that years ago.

A VERY few guns have been fitted with bolt locks that would keep them closed to eliminate the cycling noise and the noise from gas escaping at the breech.

No silencer has a way of locking the slide shut, itself.

[GMAN]

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw8sbb8eDjg

[Bawheed]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnU_QKoGzJM

This shows that it is possible with Glock 22.

[Havok7416]

I may be misunderstanding what I was told, sorry.

[Walt Sherrill]

So... when it's done successfully, do you have squib round in the barrel?

All of the pressure of that round has to be handled some how, some way. Seems like it would have to be HARD on the barrel or chamber, at least, if the primer is ignited.

[Sam1911]

So... when it's done successfully, do you have squib round in the barrel?

What? No...the cartridge still fires as normal. Just talking about stopping the slide from cycling and ejecting the case afterward.

[beatledog7]

But why?

[Certaindeaf]

^
Brass scroungers.

[Sapper771]

I have done it with a Glock 17. It can be done without injury. I dont see that it has any real purpose though.

[kcshooter]

Can't see risking injury for no apparent reason.

[ny32182]

Every time that I am aware of that I have seen someone get their thumb behind the slide, dripping blood has been the result.

I wouldn't be any more likely to do this than I would be to stick my hand in front of the muzzle to make a 115gr go subsonic. :rolleyes:

[56hawk]

I think a lot of people are forgetting that we are talking about recoil operated pistols. The slide and barrel are locked together until they have moved back 1/8 - 1/4 inch. All your thumb has to do is absorb the normal recoil of the gun.

On a blowback gun this would be entirely different. As someone mentioned this was difficult even with a 22.

[holdencm9]

The difference between slide bite and holding the slide shut with your thumb is like the difference between a bad shouldering of a high power rifle and a solid shoulder. If you hold it shut then it will be fine and not hurt so much. If you let it start moving it will hit you harder and the sharp edge of the slide will cut you. Just like if you hold a shotgun at 1" away from your shoulder bone and pull the trigger, versus shoving it nice and tight into your shoulder socket.

[1911Tuner]

I've heard you can fire a 9mm striker-fired pistol (Glock, M&P) while pressing your thumb onto the slide plate cover (rear of slide) and keep the firearm from cycling.

Yes. Not surprising at all if you understand how the locked breech short recoil operated pistol functions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw8sbb8eDjg

[TimboKhan]

Huh. I confess that I didn't know this.

[kcshooter]

Yes. Not surprising at all if you understand how the locked breech short recoil operated pistol functions.When you say it like that, I understand it.
I still don't get why you'd want to do it.

[labhound]

Why would anyone want to do this?

[1911Tuner]

Huh. I confess that I didn't know this.

An eye opener, eh what?

Sorta raises more questions than it answers, no?

;)

Why would anyone want to do this?

For the same reasons that people climb Mt. Everest.

I don't know if the guy in the video understood why he could stop the slide with his thumb, but he knew that he could and he did it to show that he could.

[psyopspec]

Why would anyone want to do this?

It could be considered an induced malfunction for competition shooters, though snap caps or even empty cases loaded at random into a magazine would be more realistic for that scenario.

For those that train and carry for SD, it's good to have a skillset to defend ones self and retain the weapon in close combat, or to take away an adversary's. In those scenarios I was taught two things that relate to this:

1) If you need to disarm someone, your priorities are to get a solid grab on the slide and get the weapon pointed away from you. The gun will likely go off. Doing an experiment like the one in the video demonstrates that it's a viable technique and that as long as that pistol is pointed somewhere else it's not going to bring about serious injury.

2) Having carried out (1), when you complete the drill and take that gun away, it's likely to be in a state similar to the video - magazine loaded, empty case in chamber or FTE. The last part of disarming someone is Tap/Rack/Fight, so here too inducing the malfunction lets you train a specific step of a specific scenario.

[Sam1911]

1) If you need to disarm someone, your priorities are to get a solid grab on the slide and get the weapon pointed away from you. The gun will likely go off. Doing an experiment like the one in the video demonstrates that it's a viable technique that is not going to bring about serious injury.


Not to belabor this point, but if you can get that slide grip, and if the gun goes off (not INTO you), you've disabled that weapon. The bad guy may or may not be "gunny" enough to know exactly what to do to quickly get it back into service, and you can certainly occupy his attention (and hands) to try and keep him from doing so. At the very least, he cannot now simply pull the trigger to fire again, and that is a very good thing.

[DrewBegley]

I've also been told that it is a technique SOF and the like use to further silence a suppressed sidearm and to catch the shell for safe-keeping, which is viable though super secret squirrel.

The more reasonable answer is Sam1911s, using it against an attacker to create time and space.

When you think about it, it's not really that scary. Everyone is actually thinking of slide bite, not purposely holding the slide shut.

[General Geoff]

Just like breaking a wooden board with your hands, it's a matter of resolve and technique. Do it right and there's essentially no risk of injury.

[1911Tuner]

Just like breaking a wooden board with your hands, it's a matter of resolve and technique. Do it right and there's essentially no risk of injury.

It's not even that. The slide on a locked breech pistol really isn't hard to stop. We hear of shooters inducing short cycle by inadvertently letting their thumbs contact the slide.

The simple truth is that the slide just doesn't have all that much oomph...which tells us something about the warnings of frame destruction and the need for heavy springs and shock buffs.

If you can keep a slide from moving at all with your thumb while the accelerating force is working...how hard can it hit the frame after that force is gone and after compressing a 14-17 pound spring for 2.5 inches?

It's also a clue to how much of the slide's acceleration is lost due to the bullet's drag on the barrel and the resulting resistance imposed on the slide. If this trick had been attempted with a straight blowback 9mm...or as I prefer to say "Undelayed Recoil Operated"...with identical slide mass and action/recoil spring...it would have broken his thumb.

A final clue...

He could have removed the spring from the pistol and still stopped the slide.

[GLOOB]

If you think about it, it's no different then shooting a 22 oz 38 special revolver with just your thumb behind the grip. Well, at least if you could get your thumb inline with the barrel, anyway. That certainly wouldn't rip your thumb off.