Holding the slide while the shot goes off

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Hunter2011

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I've seen a video recently where the guy demonstrates a way to protect yourself if the attacker is armed but within reach.
Basically you must just grab the slide and point it away from you. Then when the shot goes off, the gun won't be able to chamber a round, giving you time to draw your own gun or fight back.
How doable is this? How strong must you be to ensure the slide won't take your hand off:)
 
Sorry, but putting your hand over the muzzle is a bad, bad, bad idea. All the person holding the firearm has to do is pull the firearm back, pull the trigger and you have a hole through your hand.

Holding onto the slide will prevent it from cycling. Been there, done that (as a demonstration, not to avoid being shot). You do not have to be the Hulk to do this either.
 
Have shot 100's of rounds thru suppressed pistols holding the slide shut to reduce noise. On a .22 you can use your right thumb backed up by your left thumb. On a 9mm I use the heel of my left hand pushing against the back of the slide while I pull the pistol back against that with my right. No biggle. There's not *that* much force involved. Getting in the way of something that's already moving at high speed can hurt. Preventing that same mass from accellerating to begin with is not that big of a deal.


Willie

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So the video is not a fake lol. Seems like a good option with a gun pointed at your head. That is if there are only one attacker..
 
Getting in the way of something that's already moving at high speed can hurt. Preventing that same mass from accelerating to begin with is not that big of a deal.

It's like the difference between letting someone wind up and punch you versus putting their fist on your body and trying to shove you backwards.
 
As V says, the old gimmick was to push the slide out of battery, or to grip a revolver cylinder so tightly it would not rotate. It is hard to see this working very well but I guess if you are A: in arms reach and B: sure to be shot if you don't try something, it would be a last resort.
 
All the training I have ever taken has never mentioned anything of the sort. Not that this isn't possible but gaining that kind of purchase on the slide vs. just controlling the arm holding the weapon is an easy choice in my book.
 
If you have time to reach and disable someone's gun then you have time to draw and fire.
 
If I can get my hands on an opponents gun I'm taking it away. Disarms are risky, but not nearly as risky as trying to disable the gun!
str1
 
If you have time to reach and disable someone's gun then you have time to draw and fire.

What if his gun is pointed at your head? Then you will be shot when you draw your own gun.

I think the point of this exercise is to disable the gun, and then either wrestle the gun from the BG, or to draw your own gun while holding tightly to his with your one hand. This is meant to give you the opportunity to get a chance to draw your own gun, even if he manages to pull his free from your grip. He must then first rack the slide of his own gun before it will fire, hopefully giving you enough time to draw yours and fire.
This is how I see it. It seems like a good idea to me. I was just not sure if you can really grab a slide like that. It is easy to make a video like that with much reduced loads. But it seems doable.
The video I looked at did not have sound, just music, so the guy only explained by showing you. Not a word was said.
 
In any disarming technique, you will be directing the muzzle away from you. That's the most important thing. If you have to grab the slide to do that, and if he subsequenty pulls the trigger and jams the gun, so be it. You're not going to rely on it or wait for it. You're going to continue what you were doing. Disarming, striking, grappling, and fighting for a better position than your adversary.

I would not dream of attempting this stunt in order to give me time to draw my own gun, unless I was some kind of special at quick drawing and point-shooting moving targets at close range in awkward positions while being pushed/pulled off balance. As soon as you grab the gun, he is going to react... likely he is going to pull the gun back. HARD. If your other hand is drawing for your gun, it is NOT controlling the situation. He has two hands and his gun is already out. If you are both untrained, you'll both end up with two hands on his gun and/or each other, and trying to stay away from the muzzle end. You will want to keep him as close to you as possible so you can maintain a grip on the gun/wrist/arm, all the while trying to keep your balance and throw him off of his. You might get opportunities to throw in headbutts, elbows, knees, or kicks, in the meantime. This will assuredly require two hands.

If you are trained and he lets you decisively and firmly grasp the gun in a positive grip in a moment of surprise, you will probably disarm him before he knows what happened. But if that fails, you are in the same situation. Two guys, one gun, and grappling and struggling for balance and position will ensue. Failing an immediate disarm, the only advantage you will have is surprise and that you will momentarily be in better balance. You will lose that advantage in about half a second, if you don't follow up immediately and continuously. You do not have time to figure out if he fired and/or if the gun has jammed. If you're not immediately and continuously grabbing, pulling, moving your feet and jockeying for position, and/or seizing opportunities to strike where it will hurt, you should not have done anything to begin with. He has the advantage of gripping the part of the gun where bullets don't come out and having control of the trigger, and that is not going to be easy to change if the initial disarm failed.

Now if the gun goes off, and you know it's jammed while you are struggling, and you have time to process this, you have more options. If he's strugging to create distance, you might find yourself in a position to suddenly let go and give a shove in the process. Hopefully quick and hard enough to make him lose balance and fall down. You might be able to draw and point before he regains his balance and figures out to rack his gun. You would have to know what you're doing in advance.
 
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The biggest thing I can see as a problem is that you will be giving up the use of one or both of your hands with this trick. I would doubt that you would be able to unholster, aim, and fire your weapon whilst hanging on to a slide that is quickly being jerked away from you.

In the amount of time necessary to remember this maneuver you must wait for the adversary's gun to go off to eliminate the round in the chamber. Then with precise timing, you must then grab the slide and lock it in place before it cycles back into battery. You must simultaneously draw your weapon and aim and fire it, taking into account the surroundings and any other person who might be in the line of fire. If your timing is off on any part of it, you will not have a good outcome.

I can think of much better things to practice doing.
 
You can hold the slide and the gun will not cycle and will do nothing to the hand holding. I've seen it demonstrated live by one of the local SWAT instructors that I did a training with. The slide can be held in place by only a thumb if its firmly behind the slide. Again this causes no harm. Now if the slide has soon to get going, it will hurt.

If you have time to reach and disable someone's gun then you have time to draw and fire.

Not necessarily. You are failing to account for many scenarios and factors. I'll post more when I'm at a computer.
 
"What if his gun is pointed at your head? Then you will be shot when you draw your own gun."
I think you'd also be shot if you gripped the slide in order to prevent it from extracting and loading the next round :D. I think the key is to not let people point guns at your head ;)

TCB
 
While you're at it, go ahead and drop his magazine, too, then kick it far away.. :D

Seriously, I guess there could be a time somewhere where someone would find this as their only option, so no harm in keeping it in one's back pocket. I remember training in "cylinder-locking" gun grabs as well, back in the day when I was entering LE.
 
Lol.
No it surely sounds like a terrible idea, even one that might get you killed. But what if you are going to be killed anyway? The attacker might be someone known to you. I think when you are in such a situation, anybody are willing to try anything to stay alive. I surely don't want my son to grow up without me.
 
I just seen that demonstrated on Best Defense.Just a firm grip will do!Sure u could check their site for vid or maybe youtube.
 
Suppose you were skydiving. Your instructor gives you two boxes and tells you to pick one:

Box A: Contains one backpack, which has a parachute that was packed by a guy off the street. It may or may not open. (50%)
Box B: Contains eight backpacks. Seven are empty. One contains a professionally packed parachute, which will open. If you choose Box B, you will need to select one of the eight backpacks inside it. However, there's no way to know which of the eight contains the chute, and you can't change your mind after making your selection. (12.5%)

Wouldn't you rather pick the option where you at least know you have a parachute?

Choosing Box A is the same as trying to counterattack immediately. You might not be fast enough.

Choosing Box B is the same as trying to grab the attacker's gun, then trying to deflect the shot, then hoping you bought yourself enough time to counterattack. You may or may not succeed in grabbing the gun. If you do, you may or may not succeed in deflecting that first shot. If you do, you still may not be fast enough to counterattack.

Your odds are much better if you simply attack right off the bat. Frankly, this type of thread, while getting a bit ridiculous at this point, serves as an excellent example of why it is SO important to already know how you'll react if ever faced with a violent situation. You can't wait until you're in the fight of your life to understand justification laws in your state. You can't wait until you're being attacked to make your decision how to proceed. You need to be mentally prepared NOW for what might happen tomorrow.

This is exactly what Col. John Boyd meant when he said, Mindset, Skillset, Toolset. If you don't know the best way to react, all the shooting skills and fancy carry guns in the world aren't going to keep you alive.
 
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I watched the videos -- including the Mel Gibson one. Pretty neat. They reminded me of two inescapable facts. One: I'm old. Two: I got this way by being very careful not to do things that would have precluded my getting old.

I would still suggest that its not a very good idea. I would also suggest to Bobson that I do not intend to do any sky-diving -- but that's a great example.
 
Bobson, while I see your point in the parachute analogy, keep in mind that the numbers you offer there are definite. Math remains the same no matter the situation or the person involved.

This would not be so in the hypothetical "gun-disable" attempt. There are no statistics to offer a specifically-defined probability of success, and every such attempt would have so many variables as to be impossible to predict the outcome with definite numbers.

In fact, even the parachute analogy is corrupted by the fact that there is no way to say for certain that a chute packed by "some guy off the street" has exactly a fifty-percent chance of opening properly (what if the random guy of the street happens to be retired Airborne?)
 
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