Ive seen boomers in forums saying this is bad for guns. I know it is for 2011s, but what about duty pistols like browning hipowers, cz75s, and m9s?
Racking slide on empty chamber
Ive seen boomers in forums saying this is bad for guns. I know it is for 2011s, but what about duty pistols like browning hipowers, cz75s, and m9s?
Sounds like fuddlore
It's fine to an extent, i think it's mostly just unnecessary wear on the breechblock.
Yup, people are always saying "Well firin muh bullets must be much more wear!!" but its not that simple. Slamming two heavy pieces of hardened steel together will wear them both. When a gun is being loaded/cycling, the force it takes to strip a round from the magazine slows the slide down enough that the breech isnt slamming agaisnt the barrel/trunnion. Dropping a slide, or even bolt on a rifle to some extent, on an empty chamber over and over again thousands of times over the service life of a gun WILL cause undue wear. I dont mind doing it on my guns but I refrain from doing it on others guns.
There's that too. People forget how the primer deforming from the pin striking it means that metal absorbing that energy, and the extractor grabbing onto the rim or groove on a cartridge and pulling it out is another place where the softer metal on the casing takes that force.
This is why snapcaps are good for dryfire practice and fidgeting (assuming not shitty ones). The caps will take that abuse, even if the components of your gun are tough steel, the cartridge is supposed to be taking a lot of the wear they'd be subject to otherwise.
You can compare to rimfire guns, people are generally well aware to not dryfire rimfire guns, because rimfire pins will inevitably strike hard on the edge of the chamber and suffer. Centerfire guns don't have the pin strike hard against a flat surface like that, so the pin doesn't get beat up the same way, but there can still be minute wear on things like that which adds up as you do it a lot.
I think external extractors are plain better, so I agree with you, but remember, the 1911 is outright an antique design, while its influence remains strong in automatic pistols, there's a lot of small specifics about it which we just don't do anymore because we know better.
The extractor is one, it's less flexible and more delicate. The other is how the action locks, the 1911 has separate lugs cut out on the top of the barrel and corresponding recesses on the inside for them, and that works fine, but I believe it was Sig who figured "Hey, what if we skip cutting locking lugs and give the chamber a raised profile to lock into the ejection port?" and that turns out to work fantastically, much faster, easier, and cheaper to manufacture. You then have stuff like captive recoil springs.
To me, the typical 1911 is a bit like an old Colt 1873 and its derivatives, you COULD depend on it in a serious manner, a gun is a gun, but they primarily remain today for appreciating historically and culturally.
>but I believe it was Sig who figured "Hey, what if we skip cutting locking lugs and give the chamber a raised profile to lock into the ejection port?"
It was Glock, but yeah pretty much every new handgun design copied that afterwards.
Guns (other than rare ones) are consumable items. To be cared for to ensure a normal service life. Don't baby them. In cases like this, the wear caused is so minimal that it doesn't matter. Use guns up, then replace them. If you've never worn a gun out, you're not shooting enough.
You shouldn't do it to 1911s and similar since they have internal extractors (as you see on the little round plunger on the back of the slide), and you also shouldn't load the chambers from the ejection port on those either. Not gonna break the extractor right away, but you're putting a bad flex on it and unlike external extractors they can't pivot to avoid the problem, it's needless stress which will cause problems if it's in your habit.
Some people give 1911s with external extractors shit because Kimber fricked up trying to do them, but just don't cheap out on the little spring, it's already much cheaper and easier to make your pistol that way. Look at any other automatic pistol with an external extractor (like the Hi-Power), and you'd see they all do great.
Now, 1911s, and some later pistols with internal extractors, such as older Sig P220s, can also do great, but you're gonna hurt them if you load them from the ejection port and slam them home on empty chambers a lot.
For most pistols, slamming the slide home on an empty chamber isn't a problem. For typical 1911s, it can be, and you should ease the slide home when you're done shooting them. That's how it can be with a pistol design from over a century ago.
>you must baby the gun or you hurts its wittle springies
Controlled round feed is for fricking losers.
The only thing I can see being a problem with a 1911 is dropping the slide on a loaded chamber, but even then, I doubt if it's a problem and not just a myth. Dropping the slide on an empty chamber is definitely not going to hurt anything, because if you look closely when handling a 1911, the extractor never makes contact with the barrel.
Yes, you should NEVER EVER rack the slide!
>Guns are consumable items
You just _use_ them? You'll wear them out if you use them! What's wrong with you? At least don't use them until you have to shoot zombies.
Not all forms of wear are the same, and for ones that are expensive it's not unreasonable to check whether you're doing something that will significantly raise your long term costs (or not). And "guns are consumables" is overdone for handguns. Any typical quality handgun should last easily 100k rounds, or more. Handgun rounds are much easier on guns then rifle rounds. For most people (those who aren't doing serious comp or other training) that essentially means a handgun can be for life. So if there was some simple little habit thing that mean it'd die way sooner it'd matter.
This one just isn't it except for certain guns. Same as how most guns are fine to dry fire with an empty chamber, but for a few you really should spend the $10 and get a dummy round.
It’s fine. It sounds cool and you feel like a gangsta.
nothing that would normally be done while firing a gun is 'bad' for it.
Not an issue simply because you will have to do it thousands of times to see any appreciable wear on things. If it concerns you that much, a little bit of grease on the frame rails and slide rail channels will help.
If your gun breaks from merely racking it while empty, then it's a shitty gun.
Never heard anything about racking the slide on an empty being an issue. What is true for 1911's is that you don't won't to load a round manually, then release the slide. Is that what you mean?
I have to imagine you'll do much worse to it when firing a live round if that's true.
No, it's fine.