Automatic Slide Release??

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Trey Veston

Trey Veston

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Some guy on another forum reported that he's having issues with bullet setback on a Sig P365XL.

He says it mostly happens when he uses the Automatic Slide Release. WTH? What is that? He says that when you insert a loaded magazine into the pistol and the slide is back, it automatically releases the slide and chambers a round without having to hit the lever or pull back on the slide.

Never heard of that. He swears it's a known feature on the P365XL. I looked up the owner's manual and there is no mention of this "feature"...

365release.PNG

I have the P365, which is identical mechanically to the XL, other than the flat trigger, and mine functions completely normal.

Did someone play a joke on this guy and convince him that his defective pistol actually has a tactical-ninja feature?
 
I am sorry I don't know anything about this particular pistol, but I can tell you that an automatic slide release, exactly as you describe it, was a feature of the Mauser HSc 32 caliber automatic pistol, which was designed in the late 1930's. It is an actual thing, although not terribly common. Some shooters find it disconcerting.

PS - I cannot remember if the slide release on the FN 1903 was set up to work that way. That would make it a really old feature.
 
I did some searching and found reference to it. It's a fairly common occurrence, though none of my pistols have ever done that.

If it was a 100%, happen every time, sort of thing, I can see how it would be handy and save time on reloads. But from what I've seen, it is due to worn or not properly aligned parts and is not 100% reliable.

With that in mind, I don't want my slide to slam forward when a magazine is inserted unless I hit the lever, slingshot it, or it is a 100% thing.
 
Most autopistols can be made to drop the slide when inserting a loaded magazine. If the mag is inserted "firmly" and the hand doing the insertion also pushes a bit forward as it seats the magazine up into the gun, the combined impact when the mag seats will bump the frame slightly forward while the inertia of the slide holds it in place. This has exactly the same result as if the frame were held still and the slide pulled back and released. Since the full magazine is no longer holding the slide release upwards and since the slide is now temporarily out of contact with the slide release, the spring tension on the slide release will drop it and when the slide comes back forward, it will go all the way forward and feed the top round in the mag.

Some guns will do this pretty easily, others take a pretty good whack to make it happen. It shouldn't happen if a mag is just slid into the gun and then pressed until it locks in place--the slide stop should hold the slide back unless there's a decent impact when the mag seats. If the slide drops easily from inserting the magazine normally, then something probably needs replacing.

I don't believe that any current manufacturer intends for this to be how the gun is operated, but in some guns it is very easy to do and very repeatable and doesn't really hurt anything. In others, you have to really slam the mag home and there's just no reason for beating on the gun that way.

You can try it with one of your guns, if you're interested. Lock the slide back, insert a mag with a dummy round and seat it into place. Now bump the bottom back "corner" of the grip--the heel of the grip--with the palm of your hand in an upward and slightly forward motion. In some guns it just takes a light bump to drop the slide.
 
Grand Power K100 and Q100 pistols are known for doing that. If you insert the magazine with a little more force than usual, the slide unlocks from its hold open position and chambers the first round.
It's a thing I like. If I insert the magazine as I usually do it doesn't happen, if I want to happen I apply just more force.
In the majority of the pistols, you have to slam the magazine pretty bad to make it happen.
 
Trey Veston said:
. . . issues with bullet setback on a Sig P365XL. . . when he uses the Automatic Slide Release.
Click to expand...
Bullet setback is an ammunition problem. Ammo with sufficient tension will not set back more than a few thou per feeding cycle, mo matter how hard the feed is. Most ammo will setback at least a little, which is why you shouldn't feed the same round tens or hundreds if times.

Automagic Slide Release is just something that some lighter-framed auto pistols do. Many plastic framed pistols I've played with do it; never seen a 1911 do it. Your manual of arms probably shouldn't depend on it.
 
It's called auto-forward last time I checked. My P-10C FDE will do it very reliably for my best friend. i understand competition shooters love it, but I don't care one way or the other.
 
My P365XL does that from time to time if I insert the magazine a little harder than normal. I've shot about 1200 rounds through it without any other issues so I'm not concerned about it.
 
All I can say is that I would never buy a pistol with such a feature. I want to control when a round goes into battery. Additionally I think the more gadgetry added to guns the more unreliable they can become. Such an automatic feature is just an inducement to jamming in my mind.
 
1942bull said:
All I can say is that I would never buy a pistol with such a feature. I want to control when a round goes into battery. Additionally I think the more gadgetry added to guns the more unreliable they can become. Such an automatic feature is just an inducement to jamming in my mind.
Click to expand...
I think you misunderstand "auto forwarding". It is "additional gadgetry" that is usually added to prevent auto forwarding.

S&W went to great lengths to modify their M&P line-up with design and parts to keep their guns from auto forwarding.
DukeConnor said:
M&P 1.0's were famous for this "undocumented feature".

The 2.0's don't do it so the feature was corrected.
Click to expand...
 
I can do it everytime on my glock 22 if I want too, and half the time I do it accidentally. Glocks are the most famous for doing this because of their grip angle.
 
MCFLYFYTER said:
Glocks are the most famous for doing this because of their grip angle.
Click to expand...

Loose tolerances of poly framed pistols make it easy to accomplish.. I dont think it has anything to do with grip angle. Yes, I can do it on my Glocks. Buttttt I can also do it on my other poly pistols. The only one I haven't is an HK
 
tarosean said:
Loose tolerances of poly framed pistols make it easy to accomplish.. I dont think it has anything to do with grip angle. Yes, I can do it on my Glocks. Buttttt I can also do it on my other poly pistols. The only one I haven't is an HK
Click to expand...
Loose tolerances, right... I'm sure physics have nothing to do with it.
 
I have multiple semi-autos that do it, including a couple Les Baer 1911s and HKs.

If you reload from slide-lock with enthusiasm.....in does happen with a lot of guns. IMHO it's not an issue unless you get to the point you're counting on it happening.
 
It's a defect which is what SW fixed it on their pistols

Some OCD comp shooters, remove the slide lock and count their shots, drop and insert a full mag with one round left in the pipe.

https://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/reload-semi-automatic-pistol/

Auto-Forward
What you really don’t want to do is ram the magazine in so hard that you trip the slide release without even touching it. Sometimes that’s called auto-forward. This happens occasionally with some pistols, often polymer framed guns and 1911s, and it is not a feature, it’s a defect. It very frequently results in a closed slide with an empty chamber, and even when it doesn’t, it’s not a reliable enough technique to count on it working every time, because the gun is not designed to be reloaded that way. If you’re really going for maximum speed, using the slide release is not any slower.
 
My S&W Plastic M&P 1.0 does it very well, thank you. A friend's has been known to fail to pick up a round from the fresh magazine, though.
I have seen Glock shooters so accustomed to it that if hard ramming a fresh magazine does NOT trip the slide closed, they will bump the magazine again instead of going for the small lever. I have heard of Glockers rounding off the corner of the slide stop to induce reliable auto-forward.

I'm waiting on a pistol that will automatically drop an empty magazine like a Garand spits out an empty clip.
 
Rule3 said:
It's a defect which is what SW fixed it on their pistols

Some OCD comp shooters, remove the slide lock and count their shots, drop and insert a full mag with one round left in the pipe.

https://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/reload-semi-automatic-pistol/

Auto-Forward
What you really don’t want to do is ram the magazine in so hard that you trip the slide release without even touching it. Sometimes that’s called auto-forward. This happens occasionally with some pistols, often polymer framed guns and 1911s, and it is not a feature, it’s a defect. It very frequently results in a closed slide with an empty chamber, and even when it doesn’t, it’s not a reliable enough technique to count on it working every time, because the gun is not designed to be reloaded that way. If you’re really going for maximum speed, using the slide release is not any slower.
Click to expand...
What exactly did they do to "fix" this on the 2.0?
 
My Beretta 92FS Brigadier Inox does it.
My Ruger American Compact 9mm does it.
My Beretta PX4 Storm Subcompact does not.

Just tested them "for science".
 
What you're describing is "auto-forwarding". It's simply something that happens with a ton of pistols if you insert the new mag with enough force.

If the force required to do it is low enough it could be considered a defect, but it's the nature of relying on friction to hold open the slide. The empty magazine was what pushed the slide lock into place - it's no longer there keeping it in the "up" position, so the only thing keeping it there is the friction between the slide lock and slide (and the slide lock actually has downward spring pressure acting on it). Any sufficient jar of force can cause those two parts to separate however briefly and at that point the slide stop spring is going to snap it down, resulting in the slide closing.

It's not really a feature, nor would I call it a defect unless it does it while gingerly inserting the magazine. It's just something that can happen. My opinion is to understand that situation, understand that it MIGHT happen - if it does, continue shooting it, but always be on the ready to by default close the slide manually. For me I prefer the "slingshot" method. On some guns the slide stop is so difficult to disengage with your thumb that slingshot is more reliable (and a few guns don't have a manual lever on the slide stop). Also, the easier it is to drop the slide with your thumb, the lower the friction between those two parts, and hence typically the easier it is for a gun to auto-forward.
 
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