In Defense of the "Heel Release" Magazine

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briansmithwins said:
I owned a VP70 for about 6 months a long time ago. The stapler I use to hang targets has a better trigger than that pistol did.

BSW
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Hah! You are not supposed to use them for target shooting. Pop culture dictates they are used for Xenomorphs or Zombies. HK pistols are pretty much all film or video game products. Very few actually carry them which is why they are so collectable. Movie guns are always collectable. its pretty rediculous how films impact the commercial gun market. John Wick boosted an entire generation of tactical shooting lessons for endless John Thicks and Meal Team Six types who have yet to discover what mens razors are used for.

Anyways... heel magazines. Yeah... my opinion is mag drops are overated and unnecessary. If you are a gunslinger wannabee of speedshooter in competition maybe. Self defense.... you better be behind some cover or finding it fast if you are trying to outspeed someone while both of you are reloading.

Doesnt mean you cant do it... go for it. Heel release is superior for retention in basically every way on a small pistol. Duty size open carry... thats more of an open carry offensive handgun. My jogging gun is P11 with a thumb release... wish it wasnt... oh well.

Any of,you guys carry Makarovs anymore you can have it both ways. There are two systems now that convert the Mak into a modern Tactical super duper whatever. I still carry the Mak alot. Nice accurate bomb proof reliable pistols. Hard to switch from some of these classics.
 
I carried an AMT DAO Backup in .380 for a while... the heel release never bothered me, and once I got used to it, I thought it quite handy. Now... the rest of the pistol left a bit to be desired. You guys talking about the VP70 trigger being heavy... HAH! But, you know, it worked while I had it.... until the slide cracked in half.
 
Jim Watson said:
I had a P7 and did not find the heel catch to be a liability. I wish my pocket pistols had heel catches for Bill Jordan carry. (He carried a small gun in his LEFT pants pocket.) That will drop the magazine of my P32; haven't tried others.

Trivia: We call the heel catch "European" and the side button "American" but Mr Browning designed guns with heel catches until 1909 and the first button catch I know of is on a 1900 Luger.
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Almost all these modern pocket autos should be heel release... p32..p3at...LCP etc. Only good design I know that doesnt is a Beretta Pico. That is a well thought out mag release. Heck... modernize and bring back the Grendel P10.... No removable magazine! The Baby Sigma and Taurus Curve pinch magazine release isnt a bad system either.
 
Mark_Mark said:
You made my point… a revolver is completely a compromise to a to a auto loader but is as popular then ever! The P7 could fill a nitch for safety gun people and security group. The most returned gun after the KooFlu was was a Glock, people can’t can’t have a safety.

as for the VP70z, have you shot it… the trigger pull is 25lbs… you gotta really like history to buy a VP70
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Revolvers are done. That entire market is held up largely by Social Security checks from the Big Bubba Boomer crowd. As they die off from self induced cronic health problems the revolver will be left in the dust with only the small niche of hunting and hand cannons surviving until the next generation of automags arrive. The collectors market will collapse with all the inheritted guns getting dumped on the market to fund electronic devices and toy cars that drive themselves. Sure... there will be a few young guys still carrying revolvers because they are scared of autoloaders but they wont be reproducing.... making them irrelevant.

VP70 is great for what it is. The heavy and long trigger is overblown. DA 22lr revolver or Detonics pocket 9 is worse. Its a nice trail gun design for 9mm. I carry it once in a while since it has a heel mag release. My favorite Mag design ever is the VP70z BTW. All magazines should be made that way.

Any pistol I carry with a thumb release tends to get a stronger spring whenever possible. I have strong hands though. I dont like real light triggers either.
 
All good points from the OP. I have never used a heel release. I always wondered if left handed people had more problems with the mag button being inadvertently pushed against doors? I don’t have one but I am partial to the HK paddle release. Seems the most natural and fastest.
 
dodo bird said:
All good points from the OP. I have never used a heel release. I always wondered if left handed people had more problems with the mag button being inadvertently pushed against doors? I don’t have one but I am partial to the HK paddle release. Seems the most natural and fastest.
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Should just go all the way for speed and do automatic release. Be like a mag fed Garand. I think people just adapt. I have known a few right handers that did the Beretta release set up for a lefty because they didnt have to shift their grips to hit the mag button. Some left handers leave it set for right handers.

People get too wrapped up in this stuff IMO. Its fun to talk about though with other gun folk. I am partial to heel release because it stays put on a run. Nothing like finishing a 5 mile run and having to backtrack to see where your magazine went.
 
starling said:
Yeah... we had to hit the target as well. Different times I guess. I am sure now they are teaching guys to do a tactical mag ejection into the perps forehead during a roundhouse kick.
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I retired from le in 1998 after thirty years of service so I'm no doubt ignorant of some of the latest training techniques. But I was around when my agency introduced the method for "tactical reloads" (where you dump a magazine still having rounds left in it into your support hand, whilst replacing it with a fully loaded mag; keeping control of the exchange with one hand) into our training and requalification sessions. It didn't take long for us to determine that the so-called tactical reload took too much time and dexterity (i.e., the fumble factor :oops:) for most officers to retain control of the jettisoned partially loaded mag while reinserting the fully loaded one.
I'm sure that if a person practiced the method long enough, with proper training, one could become proficient with it. However, if you're not confident that you can make the exchange quickly, each and every time, you're probably asking for trouble that wasn't there in the first place.
 
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SwampWolf said:
I retired from le in 1998 after thirty years of service so I'm no doubt ignorant of some of the latest training techniques. But I was around when my agency introduced the method for "tactical reloads" (where you dump a magazine still having rounds left in it into your support hand, whilst replacing it with a fully loaded mag; keeping control of the exchange with one hand) into our training and requalification sessions. It didn't take long for us to determine that the so-called tactical reload took too much time and dexterity for most officers to retain control of the jettisoned partially loaded mag while reinserting the fully loaded one.
I'm sure that if a person practiced the method long enough, with proper training, one could become proficient with it. However, if you're not confident that you can make the exchange quickly, each and every time, you're probably asking for trouble that wasn't there in the first place.
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Might be better for folks to learn how to use a dump pouch for empty magazines then you get the best of both worlds. Do the hands free ejection and dont damage/lose your equipment. Sometimes I wonder if all this mag abuse is why people have problems with malfunctions and mag issues. There has been more than one LEO I had to explain that they need to clean the magazine on a regular basis..... and dont spray oil in the mag after a rainy shift.
 
starling said:
Revolvers are done. That entire market is held up largely by Social Security checks from the Big Bubba Boomer crowd. As they die off from self induced cronic health problems the revolver will be left in the dust with only the small niche of hunting and hand cannons surviving until the next generation of automags arrive. The collectors market will collapse with all the inheritted guns getting dumped on the market to fund electronic devices and toy cars that drive themselves. Sure... there will be a few young guys still carrying revolvers because they are scared of autoloaders but they wont be reproducing.... making them irrelevant.

VP70 is great for what it is. The heavy and long trigger is overblown. DA 22lr revolver or Detonics pocket 9 is worse. Its a nice trail gun design for 9mm. I carry it once in a while since it has a heel mag release. My favorite Mag design ever is the VP70z BTW. All magazines should be made that way.

Any pistol I carry with a thumb release tends to get a stronger spring whenever possible. I have strong hands though. I dont like real light triggers either.
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do you know the spending wealth value of Boomers?? It’s in the muti Trillion, who else is buying $5,000 revolver and boat with 4 engines to go flounder fishing

yes they are carrying the $5k revolver to flounder fish
 
Mark_Mark said:
do you know the spending wealth value of Boomers?? It’s in the muti Trillion, who else is buying $5,000 revolver and boat with 4 engines to go flounder fishing

yes they are carrying the $5k revolver to flounder fish
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I believe it. Live it up attitude I guess. Must be some hard core flounder. Last one I caught was off the beach and I just had a Corona for my CCW.
 
tark said:
Me too! Lol. That's why I don't carry one ! But I still like the design. :)
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Back before the days of Forgotten Weapons you could get oddballs like those old Astras cheap. Now everyone think they have some sort of Indiana Jones relic. I had the choice of the Astra 600 or a Mac 1935A for $120 in really nice shape. I grabbed the Mac and then discovered nobody made 7.5 French Long over the past 1,000 years. Oh Well. Those Astras do feel like some sort of strange tool more than a pistol.
 
Zerodefect said:
"Slower to reload and clear" trumps the other issues.

Most normal mag releases are ambi friendly. Flippable, or trigger finger able.

A hybrid IWB holster eliminates the mag button press issue. If necessary, punch a hole in the leather there.

If I make a OWB holster from 090 kydex. I include a guard for the button. Formed to contact the frame, before contacting the button.

Sometimes I do install a stiff button spring.

Generally, heel release, is something I'll allow only on pistols I'd never carry a reload for. Or a quirky cool relic, like an HK P7.
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My view is absolutely 180 degrees from this post.
 
tark said:
And smokeless powder is a passing fad... Revolvers will always be popular because of the many things they can do that autoloaders can't. Like not throw your empty cases all over the place and function just fine with reduced loads, just to name two.
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New gen doesnt care about any of that. They want bic lighter version of pistols. New shooters dont know what smokeless powder and reduced loads even means. Probably be a couple custom shops making revolvers here and there. Thats it... stick a fork in them...its over. Maybe there will be some sort of 3d printed revolver resurgence but ... I doubt that too.

Not saying I like it. If it was up to me all the classics would be back at least in limited production runs once in a while.
 
As a civilian concealed defensive carrier, what is a more probable scenario:

Needing a speed reload where the magazine retention system makes a critical difference...

or

Having a magazine become unseated due to a side mounted button being inadvertently and unknowingly activated...
 
.455_Hunter said:
As a civilian concealed defensive carrier, what is a more probable scenario:

Needing a speed reload where the magazine retention system makes a critical difference...

or

Having a magazine become unseated due to a side mounted button being inadvertently and unknowingly activated...
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I keep extra mag for mag failure
 
Can anybody post a real example of a civilian concealed carrier ever executing a reload in an encounter where the reload was critical to a successful outcome?

Off-duty LE, home or business defense need not apply. I am referring to Jimbo getting gas, visiting an ATM, going to Walmart, and taking his wife to Applebee's.
 
.455_Hunter said:
OK, but not the part of the question I asked

If you draw a weapon were the mag has been partially ejected, you will either have a single-shot or a zero-shot depending on whether you have a mag safety or not.
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Multiply that by ten if its a pocket gun. My P11 jogging gun ejects so hard I heated and warped the polymer grip inward so the mag stayed in even if the button got bumped. So I made it non- drop free. I even thought about running a pin though it and locking it in. Nice thing about modular is you can do all kinds of funky stuff.

Another Makarov fun feature. You can remove the fireing pin and deactivate it without any disassembly. Good feature if you have to leave your gun or children are around.
 
.455_Hunter said:
Can anybody post a real example of a civilian concealed carrier ever executing a reload in an encounter where the reload was critical to a successful outcome?

Off-duty LE, home or business defense need not apply. I am referring to Jimbo getting gas, visiting an ATM, going to Walmart, and taking his wife to Applebee's.
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Nothing I can come up with. I dont want to be that guy though when out with my kids. Most of these wild scenarios people come up with are not realistic IMO. First thing you are going to do if you see a threat is run so its important to be able to move fast and not have your pants fall down. If you dont see it coming... I guy with a knife will have the jump on you before you know what happened....bye bye world....hello Jesus. I still carry because you never know and guns are like pocket knives these days.
 
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