racking your pump hollywood style

[gunsmith]

Hollywood has damaged many, many revolvers by using that annoying flick of the wrist to close a cylinder and has taught millions of people that gun damaging
technique.
I have friends who even with extensive gun experience close their revolvers that way.
What about that technique you see on countless tv and movie action scenes, you know where the hero or bad guy racks the slide of the pump by holding it in one hand and jerking it up and down real quick?

I have never done this to any shot gun but I am curious.

thanks!

 

[50caliber123]

It will never work, I tried it with a Mossberg 500 and a Remington 870. There's too much weight in the gun.

 

[Azrael256]

You can do it if you really want to, but you'll do it only once. By the time the cast comes off, you'll have learned not to.

 

[c_yeager]

Ive actually heard of this being taught by reputable schools as a means of racking a slide with an injured arm. Im not sure if its particularly healthy for the gun, but for a very narrow application it makes some sense. Really though, it accomplishes nothing except that you get to point the barrel of your loaded shotgun at your chin.

 

[Warren]

Ive actually heard of this being taught by reputable schools as a means of racking a slide with an injured arm. Im not sure if its particularly healthy for the gun, but for a very narrow application it makes some sense. Really though, it accomplishes nothing except that you get to point the barrel of your loaded shotgun at your chin.

Hey Cleetus, hold my beer an' watch this......

 

[SKN]

In the 1986 FBI Miami-Platt/Mattix shootout SA Ed Mireles functioned and fired his Rem870 4 times using only his one uninjured hand. In his situation he improvised, adapted and overcame. Since then it has become an instructed emergency/disabled action technique for professionals, much like drawing, firing, reloading, and clearing stoppages with a handgun using only one hand either master or support.

 

['Card]

The only time I'll use that one-handed technique to rack a shotgun is when I'm holding a Glock in my other hand, have my arm wrapped around some hot little starlet, and me and my plucky sidekick are about to storm the citadel of the evil overlord in a desperate and hopeless attempt to foil his plan to dominate the earth.

Other than that I usually rack it the normal way with two hands.

 

[Dave McCracken]

It's a hassle, slow and not as reliable as it should be for life and death crisis management. It can be done and like all training, should be done until it's nigh instinctive.

The techniques we worked out in the 80s for one handed operation of a pump shotgun were....

Keeping the weapon horizontal, move it back and forth with alacrity. This is hard on the arm but doable with practice.

Or, tuck the butt into the armpit,clamp down with the upper arm. Fire,work the action by moving the firing hand, repeat as needed.

 

[Third_Rail]

Dave McCracken, that second way sounds like a new way to tenderize meat. Whatever works in a life or death situation, though.

 

[Mesa Tactical]

Whatever the merits of this particular technique, it's certainly no problem for the weapon itself.

By Hollywood style, I had assumed the OP meant racking the pump every time you move your head until, presumably, you have racked all your shells onto the floor. ... unless you have a Hollywood style endless magazine.

 

[Bridger]

First time I ever tried it with my empty unloaded shotgun, I ended up dropping it

 

[355sigfan]

Actually it can work and does It is one method taught for one handed operation of a pump gun if injuried. A better one is to rest the gun on the ground and then work the action.
pat

 

[cgv69]

Hollywood has damaged many, many revolvers by using that annoying flick of the wrist to close a cylinder and has taught millions of people that gun damaging technique.

Having never owned a revolver, I will admit to my ignorance of this subject. How does flipping the cylinder closed on a revolver damage it? Just curious.

 

[355sigfan]

It bends the ejector rod.
Pat

 

[Rockrivr1]

Unfortunately I've done both of these actions. I tried racking the slide on my Mossberg 500 using just one arm. I had 8 rounds of mixed slug and 00 buck loaded in the tube and when I did the arm flick to rack it, I almost dropped it. Damn heavy and inconvenient doing it that way. Last time I do that.

Flipping the cylinder closed on a revolver though I've done more then once. I didn't realize there was a negative effect with it. I'll stop doing that from now on.

 

[cgv69]

It bends the ejector rod.

Thanks for the info. Is this an actual documented occurrence that happens easily and\or frequently or is it one of those, It's possibility and even though it's not normally seen, try to avoid it?

 

[dfariswheel]

It doesn't bend the ejector rod, it can spring the crane the cylinder rides on, causing misalignment of the cylinder.

Slamming the cylinder open and closed with a flick of the wrist is known as "Bogarting".
It was very damaging of pre-WWII revolvers which had softer cranes than modern revolvers do.

This is the gun equivalent of bracing yourself and slamming the door on an expensive car just as hard as you can slam it, or taking an expensive wrist watch and throwing it down the stairs.

 

[orangeninja]

In real life, if you are injured and trying to rack a shotgun one handed you will likely have to go down to one knee and brace the butt against the ground in the downward stroke and snap it up smartly in the upward/or hold it with your knees on the upward stroke while on your butt....that of course doesn't look nearly as cool.

 

[cgv69]

is known as "Bogarting"

I've heard that term a number of times before but never in reference to firearms!

Thanks for the info

 

[backlash]

I thought about racking it that way before I got it. I guess I won't now.

 

[riverdog]

If I needed to rack an 870 using one hand I'd use the floor or a table to hold the gun on the downstroke, the shotguns weight should be enough for the upstroke.

As for revolvers, I was taught to control the cylinder when reloading. I open it with my left thumb and with two middle fingers going through the frame to pinch the cylinder. Right hand loads either from a speedloader or two rounds at a time from loose ammo. Once the fresh rounds are in you close the cylinder in a controlled movement. Try it, you'll find the reload is faster if the cylinder isn't free-wheeling. Haven't thought about a one handed revolver reload. Slamming the cylinder doesn't seem necessary though. There are better ways to get a positive lock.

 

[Dave McCracken]

Resting the butt on the ground while operating it one handed is fine IF you're behind cover. More than likely, you'll be moving towards cover while needing to shoot.

Standing still without cover at those moments is not quite suicidal, but it is stupid.

Third Rail, not that bad. Some bruising may result.

 

[1911JMB]

If you want too see some hollywood shotgun shooting done right, watch The Wild Bunch.

 

[AJ Dual]

You're using the mass/inertia of the shotgun to hold it in place while you operate the pump in lieu of your other hand and the stock against your shoulder.

If you're trying this one-handed, with the shotgun pointed up at 90 degrees, you're fighting gravity on the downstroke to open the action, you have to move faster than the shotgun will fall at 9.8 m/sec^2, or you have to give it a bit of an upward impulse before the downstroke. You're then fighting both gravity and the shotgun's mass/inerta again when you complete the upstroke and have to stop the entire mass of the shotgun trying to hit the ground.

In playing around with my unloaded Mossberg 590, I found it easier to hold the shotgun horizontaly to the ground, and racking the slide against the shotgun's inertia. You're still fighting the action of gravity on the shotgun the entire time with a one handded hold, you can't escape that, but at least you don't have the shotgun's downward inertia vector combining with the acceleration of gravity when you do it verticaly. The downside is that you need to find a safe direction to do this where as "up" is usualy safer, especialy with shot loads.

 

[Okiecruffler]

For a while I had a Maverick that was my "hollywood" gun. 18 inch barrel, pistol grip, black plastic as far as the eye could see. I played all that movie action stuff with it. That one hand cycling had to be the hardest. Wish I had thought about holding it horizontal, might have been alot easier. Just went and tried it with the wifes Mossy, but with a full stock it's just real unbalanced for such things.