Tell me about limp wristing.

Status
Not open for further replies.
A

Amadeus

Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2003
Messages
638
Location
America
I may have limp wristed my 1911 the other day. But I cannot tell.

What are the symptoms of a limp wrested auto? Sure sure. I know it may jam. But what KIND of jam? Stove pipe? FTF? What failure is most common in a limp wrested gun.

Just curious.

Thanks.
 
Functioning of the gun, in a pistol cycling the slide, depends on the frame staying still relative to the slide .If the frame moves along with the slide ,the slide will not cycle properly and will thus "short cycle " and the fired case will remain in the chamber or jammed in the ejection port.
 
the fired case will remain in the chamber or jammed in the ejection port.
Click to expand...

So that could be anything from a stove pipe to the shell getting hung up on the extractor?
 
I'd go with FTE or stovepiping as most common, though a fail-to-feed (either hung up on the ramp or not going into battery fully) could be caused by this, as well. I don't see how a double feed could be caused by limpwristing, though (seems it would be more a function of the extractor tuning).
 
Thanks, Mulliga. But I did not say anything about double feeding. The shell in question just extracted from the chamber and then hung up on the extractor.

I gotta figure it was a limp wrist thing because the person firing it was not familiar with the gun. It jammed again a minute later when I fired it one-handed with my weak hand.
 
Thought this best served in autoloaders.

I think of limp-wristing, as allowing an insecure grip mainly, to ''soak up'' energy that should be going into slide op' against recoil spring. If too much of that energy is absorbed or loast to the action then some sorta problem may ensue - it gets worse IMO the lighter the platform.

The result of this may depend to a degree on the actual platform, ammo being used, mag functionality etc - and so FTE/stovepipe very possible but also too - maybe - a failure to feed fully into battery.
 
Limpy

If the gun is right, it shouldn't hang up no matter how it's gripped...Two fingers...Upside down...Sideways...and all in between. However, some people seem to have a knack for inducing malfunctions in dead reliable pistols.

Don't overspring the slide. The heavier the recoil spring, the more energy required to send the slide to full travel.

Grip the gun as high as is comfortable or possible. A low grip causes the gun to pivot more readily, redirecting linear momentum into circular motion.

Use ammunition with a bullet that is neither too light (in grains) nor so fast that it gets the bullet free of the muzzle before full momentum has been imparted to the slide. In .45 ACP, 185-grain/1150fps loadings seem to consistently give more trouble than heavier, slower loadings. A contributor is often that the owner mistakenly installs a heavy recoil spring for such ammunition...which is backward. The recoil spring has not one thing to do with containing pressures in a recoil-operated pistol. Best to stick to standard or close to standard loadings...at least if you're after reliability.

Yours may not be grip-related at all. If the extractor hook is a bit too deep, it can get the rim into a bind with the ejector and hang it up. More often noticed with extended ejectors. Rim diameters vary within the same lot, which may explain why yours only does it on occasion. If you hook is right on the peg, a rim that is as little as .003 inch larger than the rest can induce it. One test is to measure the rims in a couple boxes of ammo. Separate those that are over .475 inch in diameter and see if they cause the failure to eject more often than the others. If they do, check your hook depth. About .033-.035 inch seems to work best across the board. No deeper than .036 and no shallower than .032 please. Adjust by drawing the tip sideways across a stone, checking often... and lightly radius the bottom corner. Barely breaking the top corner may also help.

Luck!
 
Simple demonstration..

get a video camera and do the following:

1. hold the weapon very lightly and keep your wrist unlocked..just enough to keep it from falling.. and fire the weapon .. view this in frames on the video camera and you'll notice the entire gun trying to move with the recoil..this affects the effort of the slide trying to separate from the frame.. some guns are more sensitive to this based on design, balance, slide to frame weight ratio, spring weights.. A stronger recoil spring setup for example will keep the slide/frame lockup more and so a gun with this setup will be more sensitive to limp wristing.

Glocks for instance tend to recoil more to the back than up.. so they are more sensitive to the light hold and so the slide/frame separation may not be as complete as needed to allow a clean ejection. Plus many believe Glocks esp. the 9mms are over sprung.

Note also that a light hold for someone may in effect be a very strong hold and so I may say how come the gun doesn't jam when 'limp wristed'. Or someone may have a very strong hold but their wrist is not locked and this may cause a 'limp wrist' jam. Really to minimise limp wristing is more a training issue than a 'the gun aint good' or 'I can't shoot that gun'. If someone's grip is bad and the gun they are shooting is not jamming then that is nothing to be proud of, or comfortable with. :rolleyes:
 
I don't know if's it's me, but polymer frame pistols seem more prone to limp wristing. I find that I have to really try to limp wrist a gun with weaker ammo though to make it happen.
 
An in-spec 1911 pattern pistol is immune to limp wristing.

But today it hard to find one that is in spec.
Way too many people attempt to fit it when it isn't broke.


More things that were not broken were broken by trying to fix them than have been broken and fixed because they were broken.
 
The Glocks I have had, my current 1911 types, Taurus 92/99 series guns, and some others WILL NOT bobble on a limp wrist. Not even on a light two finger grip.

Tuner said it all, it should run no matter what, if it doesn't something is wrong.

Heavy springs are the easiest way I know of to induce limp wrist problems in an otherwise properly set up gun.
 
The Glocks I have had, my current 1911 types, Taurus 92/99 series guns, and some others WILL NOT bobble on a limp wrist. Not even on a light two finger grip.

Tuner said it all, it should run no matter what, if it doesn't something is wrong.
Click to expand...

My experience is a little different. I can easily and consistently induce stovepipe jams in my Glock 26 by limp-wristing it. I used to have a couple of other Glocks (17 and 19), and I seem to recall being able to do the same at least occasionally in those.

Conversely, I have never been able to induce failures by limp-wristing in any of my 1911's (four at last count).

I can't tell you why my Glock is susceptible and my 1911's aren't. One instructor told me that polymer frame pistols flex more and are therefore more sensitive to limp-wristing. Someone else above suggested that 9 mm Glocks are quite sensitive, whereas other calibers may not be. Perhaps the lighter recoil impulse of the 9 makes it more sensitive to a flexible platform than the stronger impulse of a .40 or .45. I dunno. All I know is that my 9 mm Glock 26 is sensitive to limp-wristing, and my .45 ACP 1911's aren't.

Incidentally, my Glock is in excellent shape and has not been "tuned" or otherwise messed with. My brother is a certified Glock armorer and went over it with a fine tooth comb. He says it's fine.
 
The S&W Model 39 was succeptable to feed failures when limp wristed. The Illinois State Police learned that lesson the hard way.

The simple factis that some pistols were designed to NOT rely on a rock solid grip in order to function properly. While others were not.

It is my personal belief that a pistol model that regularly fails from a weak grip has a fundamental design flaw. However in most cases that flaw can be remedied by a proper rebalancing.
 
One way to tell if you might be limp-wristing...

I don't know if this applies to 1911s too but the few times that I've had FTEs on a Glock 17, I've had the ejected brass hit me in the forehead a few times before the FTE. My NRA instructor told me that that's a good sign that you need to stiffen up your wrist and/or check your grip because it's probably limp-wristing that is causing the brass to hit you in the head.
 
Limpy Limpy

Bear:

>It is my personal belief that a pistol model that regularly fails from a weak grip has a fundamental design flaw. However in most cases that flaw can be remedied by rebalancing<
*********************

OOH! OOH! OOH! Me too!

If the gun has to have just the "right" grip in order to function...how can ya trust a snake like that? Emergencies rarely go the way we think they will.
We may have neither the time nor the option of obtaining a textbook, two-hand grip in the combat stance of our choice...We may not even have the option of using two hands at all. Like as not, you'll be fending off a knife or baseball bat with one hand...backpedaling...and firing your piece from the hip with a bent wrist. If it won't work like that...every time...best either get it fixed or pick another gun. Of course...that's just one man's opinion. YMMV
 
1911Tuner, that is just what I was thinking:

If the gun is right, it shouldn't hang up no matter how it's gripped
Click to expand...

I have never had an issue with my HK USP 45. I've even tried to cause a
jam by a super loose hold and still no issue. : :D
 
Out of balance pistol.The first time I heard that was last year when I destroyed a sig 226 shooting 9mm +P+.An old German gun smith said it is out of balance poor design of the slide.It was properly lubed and cleaned.His thought was Americans should leave a German designed pistol alone.H&K are Ruger are fine,if it needs a break in period get rid of it.I wish I could have spent a day talking to him but he had terminal cancer.The slide should cycle smoothly with out trying to bounce like a ball.Ejected cases should fall in a nice neat small pile is a good indication of a proper design.If limp wristing causes problems then something is wrong.

Ed
 
I've said it for years so once more won't hurt.

Limp wristing is often used as an excuse for a poorly designed, poorly maintaned, improperly modified or worn pistol, or one using ammo it wasn't designed for, not functioning reliably.

If it isn't reliable, no matter how it is held, get it fixed. If it can't be fixed, get rid of it and get something that works.

This is potentially your life and the lives of your loved ones we are talking about.


DM
 
If it isn't reliable, no matter how it is held, get it fixed. If it can't be fixed, get rid of it and get something that works.
Click to expand...

Well said. I am examining that option. The gun is completely stock. Factory mags. Factory springs. It has been back to Kimber once for a new extractor. Yet it still occasionally has failures that DO NOT appear extractor related.

It was just limp wristing I was prepared to re-train myself and others to grip the gun differently. But if the gun should function no matter what then I think I have some careful considering to do.
 
Last edited:
People who say limp-wristing is only a problem with problem guns probably don't shoot many large caliber polymer framed handguns... ;)
 
what about those of us who shoot large caliber steel frame handguns?
Click to expand...
I tend to agree that it should be possible to get them working so that they don't have limpwristing issues. I'm just pointing out that it's not quite accurate to extend that generalization to polymer framed guns.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

P
  • Locked
What happens when you "limp wrist" a 1911?
2
Replies
31
Views
3K
JDGray
J
G
  • Locked
Limp-Wristing
2 3
Replies
65
Views
3K
jaysouth
J
K
  • Locked
Limp-Wristing and the Glock
2
Replies
27
Views
6K
Hicap30
H
F
  • Locked
tell me about limp wristing a 1911
Replies
18
Views
674
flyboy1788
F
T
  • Locked
Limp wristing
Replies
10
Views
947
Capt. Ct.
C
Back
Top