nettlle
Contributing Member
Not on my 1911's. I could on a Browning HP I once owned.
Can you reach the controls on your handgun without adjusting your grip?
- Thread starter Larry in wyoming
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herrwalther
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Part of the reason I like Walthers, and their paddle release, is I can release the magazine just by moving the middle finger of my shooting hand down. I never understood the preference for regular mag releases when you have to rotate the pistol in your hand just to reach them.
I have pretty big hands and quite long fingers. on most of my pistols I can manipulate all the controls without adjusting my grip. My Beretta 92 and Desert Eagle L5 are two exceptions and it is the magazine releases that are too far away. I have owned my beretta for almost 30 years and I can't remember the last time I had to adjust my grip on my 92 to hit the mag release, but I know I do.
FL-NC
Member
The only thing you really need to be able to access while "aimed in" is the safety, if there is one on the gun. Reloads require one of your hands anyway, and when doing them, the pistol should (if at all possible) be at approx. shoulder level, with the finger off the trigger, not pointed at your head, with the mag well oriented towards the weak hand that is retrieving and loading the fresh magazine- we always called this the "working space". This is far from a "shooting grip"- the pistol isn't even aimed "downrange", and is likely empty with the slide locked back. The slide can be released with the shooting side thumb or the weak side thumb, or sling-shotted from the rear if that is what you need to do for strength issues or whatever, or may even go forward and into battery on its own by vigorously slamming the fresh mag into the mag well.
StrykerByte.45
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Not my mag release. For quick reloads I use my support hand to drop the mag before I reach for a new one, but I can also adjust my grip. It doesn't really matter.
JTQ
Member
This thread got me thinking, can folks reach the switches on their mounted lights without shifting their grip?
Anchorite
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H
See here:
Hogues are nice, but several years ago I found ”Hideout” grips for the J frame.
See here:
TheHermit
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I'll have to disagree with this - I'd really hate to have to break my shooting grip to operate the pistol. Luckily, with my slightly larger than average hands I can easily reach the controls of pretty much any service pistol, HK USP 45 and 1911s included.
None of the top tier 1911 Action Pistol competitors I know don't break their grip while releasing their magazines. Shifting the gun in their grip to access the magazine release is a natural part of a reload as is pointing the magazine well at the incoming magazine. It is even taught in classes. It is considered much preferrable to having a magazine accidentally released by grip pressure. Having an extended slide stop is doubly silly as it can both all inadvertent release of the slide as well as prematurely lock it back .
If your technique is such that it avoids these possibilities, that's a good thing...just be aware that these kinds of things happen when there is too much access to controls when it isn't needed
Charlie98
Member
After working my way through this thread... I had to go see. Inquiring minds wanted to know...
I can reach all the controls on my daily carry Kahr pistols, including the slide release.
I can reach all the controls on my SA-35 HiPower.
I can reach the mag release on my 1911's... but at that extreme reach, I can't release the mag, and I can't reach the slide release.
In general, the mag release is most important to be able to reach, IMO, to drop the mag in a malfunction, change the mag, etc. To charge the slide and send it home, you can rack it with your off hand or rack it off of some other object if you have only one hand available. If your firearm is not amenable to one-handed slide racking for whatever reason, then not reaching the slide stop/release becomes an issue if you only have one hand. That said, you can reach and get it on a lot of guns, though you may have to break your firing grip. Long story short, I think mag release is most important to be able to reach w/o breaking your grip, and slide stop/release is not an issue in many/most circumstances.
Manual safety is an issue for guns that have one. I'm generally not a fan of those on a carry gun other than on a SAO like a 1911.
dfariswheel
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I'm right handed, but due to a hand problem I shoot pistol left handed.
I can use my trigger finger to operate all controls on most auto pistols except I have an ambi safety on my Colt Government Model and SAR 2000.
This is such an advantage for lefties, Jeff Cooper once had a high end German auto custom built so he could operate all controls with his right trigger finger.
I can use my trigger finger to operate all controls on most auto pistols except I have an ambi safety on my Colt Government Model and SAR 2000.
This is such an advantage for lefties, Jeff Cooper once had a high end German auto custom built so he could operate all controls with his right trigger finger.
Yup. I watched a bodycam from a police shooting where one officer unintentionally released magazines from his gun more than once during the shooting. Fortunately, he was carrying a number of spare mags and there were other officers backing him up so it wasn't quite the catastrophe that it could have been. I typically carry one spare mag, at most, sometimes not even that, and have no backup personnel. I don't relish the idea of scrabbling around on the ground trying to find a mag that was dumped by accident in the middle of a gunfight so I'm just fine with the fact that my mag release for my standard carry gun is just out of reach when I'm holding it in a normal firing grip.
The slight shift required to access the mag release in the unlikely event that I need to reload in a defensive encounter might incur a fraction of a second delay, but that would be nothing compared to finding myself unintentionally holding an empty gun in the middle of a gunfight because my mag release was accidentally activated.
I'm a lefty with XXL size hands. I can reach the controls on all my auto, even my cz97. The thing is huge. My issue is the smaller single stack 9's. With the exception of the old school single stacks like the 225's, p7's, 39's. And similar guns, I find most of the new ones just to small to shoot comfortably.
At some point, during my police handgun training*, I learned that it was not desirable to be able to reach a mag release, while maintaining a firing grip. Pistols were designed accordingly, to prevent un-commanded dropping of the mag. That now-well-known car chase and shoot-out, in Houston, Texas, caught on body-worn video camera, showed that officer with huge hands, dropping his still-loaded mags, multiple times, while under fire.
*I was an LEO from 1984 to 2018, during a time when police were transitioning from duty revolvers to duty autos.
*I was an LEO from 1984 to 2018, during a time when police were transitioning from duty revolvers to duty autos.
Alllen Bundy
Member
The issue isn't a possible delay while swapping magazines. If you need to release your grip in order to rotate your pistol in order to actuate the magazine release it leaves you more vulnerable to dropping your pistol, whether you are in a scuffle, lost your balance, or whatever reason. People with short fingers may be forced to rotate the pistol in their hand to actuate the magazine release and are stuck with this vulnerability. But if you have longer fingers then it's more of a matter of having the magazine release in the right place and protruding far enough to actuate without needing to rotate the pistol in your hand.
For me and my XL sized hands, extending the P365's low profile magazine release button to a more normal level was the answer and I can actuate the magazine release button without rotating the pistol in my hand. The position of the magazine release makes it nearly impossible for me to accidentally actuate the magazine release button.
But everyone's hands are different. What works well for one person may not work well for the next person. For my hands I'd rather have the trigger 1 inch further forward.
I'd be willing to bet that if you asked the actual designers they would tell you they put the controls where it was convenient to put them. Ergonomics is often of secondary importance. Even then the pistol design is NOT going to be a one size fits all. If the designer was concerned with ergonomics, they would most likely position the controls for an average size hand and everyone else must adapt to it.
InTheSwamp
Member
I cannot and I'm fine with that. When I bought my CZ P09, I changed the mag release to the right side for easier reaching, then dropped the mag twice while practicing unholsterIng. Back to the left it went, it's okay to adjust my grip a bit.
I'm not sure if it was this forum or another one but I was reading about a left handed shooter (I'm also left handed) that required all his semi-autos have reversible mag releases.
I didn't reply I just thought that was a dumb idea. Being a left hander you adapt to the world. One of the things I like about standard pistols with the mag release on the left side of the pistol, is I can access it with my trigger finger, without having to change my grip.
My rules for semi-auto handguns (being left handed):
1. If it has a thumb safety - it must have an ambi-safety or availability of ambi-safeties on the aftermarket. That eliminates a few Taurus and a few Ruger Autos for me.
2. I must be able to access / work the slide stop with my index finger. That eliminates Sig P22X pistols for me. The slide stop is too far back on the frame.
Re #2 sure you can sling shot the slide on a Sig P220 and switch hands to lock the slide open. However switching hands gets old fast and I don't think it's a safe practice.
I didn't reply I just thought that was a dumb idea. Being a left hander you adapt to the world. One of the things I like about standard pistols with the mag release on the left side of the pistol, is I can access it with my trigger finger, without having to change my grip.
My rules for semi-auto handguns (being left handed):
1. If it has a thumb safety - it must have an ambi-safety or availability of ambi-safeties on the aftermarket. That eliminates a few Taurus and a few Ruger Autos for me.
2. I must be able to access / work the slide stop with my index finger. That eliminates Sig P22X pistols for me. The slide stop is too far back on the frame.
Re #2 sure you can sling shot the slide on a Sig P220 and switch hands to lock the slide open. However switching hands gets old fast and I don't think it's a safe practice.
Go rapid fire 150rds through that pistol and get back to me about how genius it is...
I learned that he 1st time I shot one. They get HOT fast and those chamber gases venting into your fingers is really dumb design.
I agree with you about the mag release. It's quicker to hit it with the trigger finger than a thumb. I never use a ambi mag release on guns that have them. As far as the slide lock. I always slingshot the slide no matter the gun I'm shooting. So no issues there.
I agree, that slight delay shouldn't be an issue. For non-LE, having to reload in a defensive encounter is quite rare. It doesn't make sense to increase the likelihood of dropping the mag while holding the gun in a shooting grip in order to gain a very small time decrease for a procedure that only very rarely seems to occur in non-LE defensive encounters.
As far as retention goes, I can't recall handling a semi-auto where it was necessary to actually "release the grip" to get to the mag release. Just a slight shift is required and that doesn't involve anything that could be reasonably characterized as "releasing the grip".
I suppose that retention might become an issue if one actually did have to go to the extreme of releasing the grip to release a mag. If a person really did find that they couldn't could operate the mag release without compromising their ability to retain the firearm, operating the mag release with the weak hand would be a good option.
That's probably good enough. It might be worthwhile to enter a few "practical" type pistol events to shoot under different conditions, from different positions and under the stress of timed competition to get a feel for how your carry pistol operates under conditions that are less controlled than normal range work. It's often possible to find some of these types of competitions that actually have categories or events specifically for carry pistols, but one can always enter in a standard category/event.
I'm reasonably sure that the officer I saw unintentionally release his magazine repeatedly while shooting the gun with a normal grip had never had the mag fall out before or he would have remedied the situation before he got into a gunfight. Maybe if he had shot under slightly more stressful/less controlled conditions the problem would have showed up earlier and he wouldn't have had to go through all his spare ammunition in a gunfight because he was repeatedly dropping nearly full mags out of the gun by accident.
A more "normal level"? Customizing the mag release length on a carry pistol changes it away from the "normal" by any reasonable definition. Unorthodox terminology aside, if one is going to extend the magazine release on a carry pistol, it's important to ensure that the longer release won't be operated with the gun holstered. One doesn't want to have the mag fall out of the gun on the draw because it's already loose in the magwell. I've even heard of people losing magazines because they fell out during the course of normal activities due to the mag release being operated while the gun was being carried in a holster. I'm sure you've checked this thoroughly with your gun, just throwing it out there for people who may not have thought about it.
doubleh
Member
I am a medium sized individual with hands to match so, no, I can't. I have a S&W 22a that it's easy to release the slide one handed as the release is operated with the middle finger of your shooting hand. The problem for me is remembering as it is the only gun I have ever owned with that feature. I used to have a Walther P22 with the paddle release and it was the same. My brain is trained that the release is on the side.
Didn't you get the memo about switching between your two P7s every 2-3 magazines
...I don't have two identical ones; one is an original P7 and the other is a ex-LE M8I must have missed gases venting into my fingers too. The gases which are bled off to retard the opening of the slide are vented back into the barrel as the piston is pushed back into the gas cylinder by the recoiling slide. The only reason I didn't continue to carry a P7 as a duty gun was the lack of an easily available duty-style holster for it...the P7M13 was a great value at less than $400
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