Racking the slide too hard?

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PeterF

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Hello :)

So, i have a question i hope someone can answer.

I own a Sig sauer p226 x five 9mm. Today at the range, someone who havent shot anything above .22 asked if he could try my 9mm. I wanted to be friendly, and said he could try.

He was kind of a big dude, and i noticed that when he pulled the slide back to chamber the first round, it was like he was expecting the slide to move farther back, causing him to keep pulling the slide even thou it was all the way back. It looked like he used a lot of force, trying to get the slide further back when it actually could not.

I of course said "just release the slide" when i noticed he kept trying to pull the slide.

Now, i am a little worried if this could have damaged anything? Maybe something could slightlly bend, and the barrel cant return to sit in the same spot anymore, or anything like that?

I am not entirely sure what keeps the slide from going back when its pulled. Is it the takedown lever, a place in the frame or something else?

Also, when firering the gun, will the slide travel all the way back, or will the spring absorb enough energy keeping the slide from fully travel to the back stop?` Cause if the slide slams all the way back to the stop when firering, i guess it should be fine even if someone keep trying to pull it back.

Hope someone can help me with my concern.

Best regards, Peter.
 
Your gun is fine. If the frame is made to run in competition like an X Five is, one big guy pulling on the slide a little harder than need be one time isn't going to hurt anything.

Edit: If he did manage to damage something, please let us know so I never buy an X Five series gun. Competition guns are meant to be run hard.
 
He did not hurt anything. On any quality pistol a human being is not going to generate enough force to bend, break, or stress the metals involved.

On nearly all modern semi automatic pistols the slide at full recoil is going to impact the stop built into the recoil spring assembly. Only with underpowered ammunition, which in all likelihood will result in malfunction by failing to pick up the next round, will the slide not impact the stop.
 
The alloys and metals used in gun manufacture are enormously strong. That is their nature.

The flimsy stuff used to construct your coffee maker or toaster, are orders of magnitude less so. That is also their nature.

Sadly, our disposable consumer society conditions us to expect fragility, even when it does not exist.

Were a human able to disrupt a modern handgun, you'd know it the very next shot.
 
I'll give that "big dude" a go at racking the slides on some of my pistols that are a bitch for me to rack with my full strength and see how he does. Some "teeny" little guns like a VZ-70 or a Beretta 84, for examples off the top of my head.
 
Thank you all so much for the answers, i guess i need to stop worrying over things like that ;-)
 
Think of all the pressure that is produced firing a 9mm. Now think of how many thousands of times a gun is designed to do that, cycle, and start over. Unless the big dude was Hercules himself, your gun is fine.
 
i may have needed a guy like that when i picked up my brand new les baer 1911. it was embarassing how much difficulty i had racking that slide to inspect the gun at my ffl.
i have only seen one x5 in a gun shop a few years ago. that slide was so easy to rack with a soft spring to compensate for that heavy, i think 5 inch.,slide.
 
I'd be willing to bet - you could try to rack the slide on any gun as hard as possible with your hands for an hour, and I'd bet against you on being able to cause any real damage to it. Although, your post says you really like your firearm and want to take care of it, which is cool.
 
To the OP, I think most, if not all, of your concerns have been answered. But to add...

Generally, semi-auto handguns, the slide stops against something hard like the frame or a pin. The one or two handguns that I have experienced that use the compressed recoil spring to stop the rearward movement of the slide have very short spring life and are maintenance headaches. In those cases, the manufacturer made modifications to eliminate the compressed recoil spring from being the stop for the movement of the slide.

Anyway, as already said, the recoil for the cartridge will put more load on the gun than any ham fisted gorilla cycling the slide.
 
My only concern would not be with pulling the gun straight back, but if on some guns he pulled and twisted to the side or up. Still not likely to harm any thing.
 
+P+ ammo will max out the slide....but the P226, being an absolute brut brick-poophouse of a gun, will take tens of thousands of rounds of it with no issue.
Your gun is perfectly fine, Bubba didnt hurt it one bit.
 
PeterF said:
Thank you all so much for the answers, i guess i need to stop worrying over things like that ;-)
Click to expand...
Yep, you'd be hard pressed to wear out your gun, permanently damage it by anything short of deliberate abuse, or really harm it at all. That's why we buy good guns and not cheapo disposable junk. Sig makes good stuff, if it works fine then that's your answer if you're ever concerned somethings happened to it. you would be surprised how tough good quality guns are, just shoot, clean and repeat .
 
Hi again guys, and thanks again for all the replys, and not bashing me for being overly concern about my treasured gun :p I can tell, that the big dude did got a couple of hits on paper, but most of them dident show on the target. He flinched alot right before the hammer dropped, so i guess thats the course. As said, he hadent really shot that much over .22lr, so he was really anticipating recoil by the looks of it. Hope you all had a nice christmas :)
 
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