To tap, or just to rack, this is the question.

[Steven Cali]

So, now that the obligatory Shakespeare is out of the way, a bit of background: I'm running a Glock 22, to be converted to 9mm in the next couple of weeks, and I have found that my grip, with my hands very high on the gun, interferes with the slide stop, and about 80-90% of the time, the slide won't lock back on an empty mag. This problem manifests itself across all of my magazines, but not when I shoot with one hand. (I'm ambidextrous, so I don't think it's entirely accurate to call one the strong hand and the other the weak hand)
I have been dealing with it by tap-racking the pistol when it goes click, and that has been working fine, but I've been wondering about whether or not the tap should actually be a part of that drill, since the pistol going click has, through the 1,050 rounds I've put through it so far, always meant an empty gun, not a malfunction, and adds, depending on how badly I bumble the rest of the reload, 30-50% to the total time between the click and the next round. I know there is also debate on whether or not there should be a tap as part of a malfunction drill, but for the moment I'm not so much interested in that aspect of the debate, except perhaps as it applies to having only one set of responses to a click that need to be remembered.

 

[MOT]

I find my slide hardly ever locks back with two handed(righty) shooting as well. So for me a click just equals time for reload. Skip the tap and rack altogether. Of course I sometimes still do tap&rack out of habit, then reload.

 

[Sherlockanubis]

Watch Bill Blowers video on this. He very saliently lays out the 2 methods.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Qie

Sent from my LM-X212(G) using Tapatalk

 

[Steven Cali]

I find my slide hardly ever locks back with two handed(righty) shooting as well. So for me a click just equals time for reload. Skip the tap and rack altogether. Of course I sometimes still do tap&rack out of habit, then reload.

Just to clarify, what do you mean by skipping the tap and rack altogether? The slide still needs to reciprocate in order to load a new round, so I think you are saying you rack the slide after the new magazine is inserted?
It seems like that makes seating the magazine correctly much harder than if the slide were locked back on the empty, and the slide stop used to send the slide into battery.

 

[Steven Cali]

Watch Bill Blowers video on this. He very saliently lays out the 2 methods.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Qie

Sent from my LM-X212(G) using Tapatalk

The link isn't working, but I've seen a couple of videos from him on the tap being unnecessary in malfunction clearance, but I don't recall anything about when the slide doesn't lock back on empty.

 

[pilgrim]

I have the same problem with most striker fired pistols, and sold two perfectly good VP9's a while ago because of it, because it bothered me. Now if I get a click instead of a bang, I just drop the mag, insert a new one, and power rack the slide putting me back into business.

In other words like if you're running an AK.

 

[LukeNCMX]

A Kagwerks slide release might work for you. It was designed to overcome the issue you are having.

https://kagwerks.com/collections/slide-release

The Blowers video is titled: P&S Pistol Malfunction Reduction With Bill Blowers in case folks are having trouble searching for it.

 

[Steven Cali]

A Kagwerks slide release might work for you. It was designed to overcome the issue you are having.

https://kagwerks.com/collections/slide-release

The Blowers video is titled: P&S Pistol Malfunction Reduction With Bill Blowers in case folks are having trouble searching for it.

That is one of the videos I've seen with him, and is actually what sparked the thought that maybe I should just cut the tap.

The Kagwerks looks interesting, but probably won't help in my case, I ride really high on the pistol, and I'd probably still interfere with it.

The knuckle of my right thumb is only about 1/16 of an inch below the top of the slide.

 

[Chriscanbreach]

I’m completely for just racking the gun and skipping the tap.

Aside from that we’ve seen a lot of officers who don’t get slide lock on their glocks. The vast majority of them are our better shooters though. We recognize the high grip and thumbs forward style is interfering with the slide stop but I refuse to tell them to change their grip to accommodate for it when they’re shooting fine and the number one cause of reloading is missing.
The Kagworks stop is a valid tool and we have several who run them.

Here’s my opinion on the reload portion.

Empty gun reloads should only be performed at slide lock. Because if our immediate action for a click is to tap rack or in our case just rack the slide we should then be at slide lock if we’re empty or have a round chambered if we’re not.
You’ve all shot long enough to have run into bad ammo. And I’m sure you recognize even top tier duty ammo has malfunctions in perfectly working guns.
The excuse of when I get a click I know I’m empty if not acceptable to me. Rack the slide and if you have rounds left you’re in business if not you’re properly locked back for you’re reload.

 

[MOT]

Just to clarify, what do you mean by skipping the tap and rack altogether? The slide still needs to reciprocate in order to load a new round, so I think you are saying you rack the slide after the new magazine is inserted?
It seems like that makes seating the magazine correctly much harder than I'd the slide were locked back on the empty, and the slide stop used to send the slide into battery.

Yes you are correct, I just rack the slide after inserting a loaded mag. What Pilgrim said, I just run it like an AK. Some of the time anyway.
Maybe what I’m doing is bad and wrong, and thanks to the folks at P&S, I’ll learn the good stuff. I really appreciate what goes on here.
I haven’t had any issues seating loaded mags on a closed slide, once the mag is partially in the magwell I’m very aggressively putting the two things together.
Now to be clear, click only means empty to me after I’ve already put multiple rounds out and I know my mag is either mostly or fully depleted.
And perhaps click means empty is not really what I mean, more like click (after shooting some) means now is as good a time as any to get fully loaded again. Hopefully that makes some sense. If I know I still have rounds left absolutely I’ll rack it instead of reloading.
Bill’s info has been very informative and I’ve changed how I do some things because of it.
The kagwerks slide catch is interesting. I would like to test one out.

 

[Chriscanbreach]

I prefer slide stop reloads because they are faster than reaching over the top every time. So maybe that’s why my thought process works best for me. If you rack the slide every time you reload I guess it doesn’t matter beyond being slower. The likelihood of bad duty ammo is very low but it does happen.

We’re getting away from the unrealistic 3 empty gun and 3 garbage and just having people load their magazines with 1 2 and 3 rounds. Shuffle them up one in the gun and two in the pouches. We then say fire all you magazines empty on the tone. This is where the wheels generally fall off. Try it out the goal is to fire 7 rounds including starting with one in the chamber.
An even better drill is a course of fire with magazines loaded with 4 8 and 11 rounds.

 

[marcusa]

So my 2 cents on this.

Personally, I prefer my carry option to consistently lock back on empty (and really, competition option too - though in USPSA you can often get away without ever getting to slide lock). It takes the guesswork out of what I need to do, and (with training of course) I can easily diagnose what needs to happen by the way the pistol recoils. I've tried several options that would not lock back on empty consistently due to my preferred grip so they went out of the rotation. There are lots of quality and reliable pistols out there to choose from (unless you are issued something, or restricted in other ways) so it is likely that you can find one that matches up better with your preferred grip. For example, I really liked the HK VP9 but it seemed regardless of how I modified my grip, something would interfere with the slide catch. It did not last long because I got really tired of playing "reload or other malfunction" roulette every time I went dry.

Regardless of whether I "know" the pistol "tends" not to lock back on empty, I could still have a malfunction and it needs to be addressed. Under stress this is something I don't want to have to think about. My thought process would have been, 1. Click, 2. think "reload or other malfunction???", 3. rack or tap rack 3. slide locks and on inspection realize need to reload, 4. execute reload.

This is as opposed to 1. feel slide lock 1.5 visual verification since I'm looking at/past what I'm intending to reload anyway and 2. execute reload.

As far as whether to train tap rack or just rack depends I think - some on application and some on preference. The question comes down to "how sure am I that when I rack the slide, my magazine isn't just going to drop?" I tend to prefer to train the tap and rack and if the situation is such that a tap isn't needed, so be it.

It is not an uncommon occurrence for a mag to not get seated fully at the get-go, or that the mag catch gets partially depressed. It also doesn't take a lot of extra time to execute a tap if I'm going to rack the slide anyway (hand is coming up that way regardless). Maybe I can save a little time but it's going to cost me a lot more if I rack the slide and the magazine falls on the ground.

 

[MOT]

Absolutely slide lock reloads are faster and preferred.
Chris can you expand on the drills you’re talking about? Are you adding dummy rounds to induce clicks or just working through live ammo. Because as I read that it just seems like reps with reloads and there isn’t a need for anything but working the slide however that goes. I’ll go try this out in a bit

 

[Mike_IA]

In what I have seen and train I am for taping the magazine and rolling your thumb slightly outboard or doing a high thumbs grip (like the old 1911 thumb on safety grip).

first if the gun is equipped with a slide lock you should use it and not train that feature away because you are exponentially slowing your reload under stress, you get a click not a bang in modern malfunction protocols you are going to go into a tap rack or just a rack the slide not go straight into a reload costing you time you don’t have if you are in a fight that needs a reload. If you train to go straight into a reload and dump a partial mag you just lost all those bullets you may need later because you had a bad round. Moving your thumb a quarter of an inch or going to a high thumb grip will not cost you split times or accuracy (both have been left handed Sig and both hands 1911 shooter solutions for decades at this point) and you get the benefit of not intentionally inducing a malfunction with every magazine.

As for wether to tap before you rack on a malfunction or not. I have seen more than a few Pmags, Aluminum GI mags, 1911 mags, Glock mags, Sig P226 and 320 mags on poly framed and metal framed guns that were “properly maintained” fail to seat and stick in magazine wells. Based on that and the fact of if I am going through a malfunction clearance for time anyways, I want to give that gun every opportunity to work once I have completed the clearance and if it doesn’t I want to know that I now have a paper weight not a gun. Watching students and experienced people on the range if they skip the tap and get a second click they then go back into malfunction clearance and on the second go add a tap, whereas if they started with the tap rack they could have been sure in the first place. Also in my review taping the mag on a pistol adds around 0.2 to the total clearance time, so what’s the insurance worth to you?

 

[Mike_IA]

For reloads I use the slide stop and don’t support using the power stroke or whatever it is 2020 after all.

kidding aside lefties like me with non-ambi pistols I pinch/push the slide and get sub 2.5 reload times from covered pouches (Not uspsa fast but quick for a lefty without a slide stop)

 

[Chriscanbreach]

@MOT Nothing complicated. Just load three mags 1 round 2 round 3 round and run them empty. The only way to force people to stop just thinking click means I’m empty is to put a dummy round in the two or three round mag and still require the 7 rounds be fired. We only started doing it that way because we noticed the old drills were creating bad habits and people were just shooting to get to the reload. Have a defined accuracy standard as well. Center A zone is fine.

 

[MOT]

@MOT Nothing complicated. Just load three mags 1 round 2 round 3 round and run them empty. The only way to force people to stop just thinking click means I’m empty is to put a dummy round in the two or three round mag and still require the 7 rounds be fired. We only started doing it that way because we noticed the old drills were creating bad habits and people were just shooting to get to the reload. Have a defined accuracy standard as well. Center A zone is fine.

Yup, wheels came off. Ended up gettin all kinds of confused. Tappin and rackin, just racking, and just reloading all happened. Took a nice chunk out of my thumb too. I didn’t drop any loaded mags on the deck, however. I’ll have to do it with 4,8, and 11(how many dummies?) and see what happens. I don’t think I did it the same way twice. I only did a half dozen reps or so. I’ll be doin more of that.
Thanks a bunch man.

 

[Chriscanbreach]

Glad you got training out of it. When you can’t plan you just have to run the gun. As for dummies. Just one somewhere.

 

[user12358]

The Kagworks stop is a valid tool and we have several who run them.

Is the Gen 1-4 stop being used or the the Gen 5 stop being used on duty guns? My sample of 1 one Gen 1-4 part ended in the parts bin after 900 rounds when the bar was started slipping out and locking the pistol back prematurely by digging into the side of the slide. I would have more faith in the Gen 5 release because of the construction but I have no time on that version.

 

[Clay1]

@MOT Nothing complicated. Just load three mags 1 round 2 round 3 round and run them empty. The only way to force people to stop just thinking click means I’m empty is to put a dummy round in the two or three round mag and still require the 7 rounds be fired. We only started doing it that way because we noticed the old drills were creating bad habits and people were just shooting to get to the reload. Have a defined accuracy standard as well. Center A zone is fine.

I'll have to run this drill at the next range session this week.

At a match today had 3 FTF and all three were, tap, rack over the top and bang. One stage had TWO FTF on a single stage. What frustration at a match, but because I have been having this problem lately, the failure drills just flowed without much hesitation at all.