Reach Over?

[Lone_Ranger]

Over the years, I was taught various techniques, for racking the slide. Initially, as Glocks were popular, back in the day, I was taught to reach over the slide, with my left hand, and rack the slide. The instructors would want us, to "rack it hard," hitting yourself in the right shoulder, with your left hand in the follow through.

A more recent, more advanced class, had me abandon the "Reach Over," if favor of the "workspace," technique. The pistol would be held with the barrel downrange, and parallel to the ground, and then rotated to the right, 90 degrees, (magazine floorplate to the left) for the "Tap" and then rotated 180 degrees, to the left, (magazine floorplate to the right) for the "rack."

I find the workspace technique a little quicker, in that my support hand is close to my pistol, instead of needing to be recovered from back by my right bicep.

The Reach Over, has an advantage, in that you can do it the same way, every time. You don't have to do anything different between a speed reload, or a malfunction drill.

I'm afraid of teaching the Workspace, to new shooters. Because when you get to the stovepipe malfunction drill, you would normally, do the tap, rack, with the pistol tilted to the right. The workspace has you doing the opposite. I personally, haven't had an issue. If I see that it's a stovepipe, I rotate the pistol a little farther to the right, (top of ejection port down) or give a little sideways flick, to kick the casing away.

I am afraid an inexperienced shooter, doing it too slow, would actually make the casing drop back into the ejection port, and cause more problems when they let go of the slide.

I helping an instructor friend, teach a class. What is the current technique de jour? What do you guys use?

[AKDoug]

I was taught palm up, palm down, and palm neutral from Jason Falla. Palm up to reload, palm down to clear malfunctions (you can see the chamber) and palm neutral to shoot.

[Lone_Ranger]

That's what I find myself doing, when I get into Zen mode. But, doesn't that create confusion, in an inexperienced shooter? When they reload palm up, then get a malfunction? I can see it making them start to move for palm up, then correct, and go the other way.

[Axcelea]

Personally I do the workspace concept however we differ in that I do not do palm up or down. For slide operations my palm will point inside and down at a 45 degree angle with the ground and for magazine insertion it is inside up at a 45 degree angle. Rotation is limited to a total of 90 degrees, 45 to inside and 45 to outside with inside being slide operation and malfunction clearance and outside being magazine manipulations.

To clear a stovepipe rotate gun inside 45 degrees, put offhand beyond the stove-piped shell, sweep back the shell while working the slide slightly and it should come out. To clear just about anything rotate gun outside and extract magazine, rotate inside and rack a couple times, rotate outside and reinsert magazine or insert fresh one, rotate inside, rack, grip, fire.

[AKDoug]

That's a good description of how I was taught and I'm still trying to perfect. 45* might even be a little further than most of us do.

[Axcelea]

That's a good description of how I was taught and I'm still trying to perfect. 45* might even be a little further than most of us do.

Its a rough guesstimate, not an exact science either where if doing it quicker there seems to be more rotation out to that 45 mark or even a little further but when more "controlled" it may not ever break 30. At least in my experience there is more rotation when doing say a speed reload or malfunction clearing then doing an admin or tactical reload.

[Lone_Ranger]

The point was kind of moot. All of the females had to reach over to get the slide back. They weren't able to cant to the left and slingshot the slide.

[Surf]

All manipulations should ideally be done high in our workspace. We personally teach the method you are familiar with. For a right hander we rotate the weapon to around 45* mag inbound for the tap. We leave the weapon in that position and come over the top for an overhand rack technique, port side down. Not truly table topped but at that same downward angle set up from the tap portion. Indeed if you do a port side up enough the shooter may be more prone to induce a worse failure during the clearance portion.

We do not teach diagnostics or looking into the chamber as probably 80% of our operations are in low or reduced light. We also do not sweep for brass, but rather focus on the rear portion of the slide. Too many people will sweep for brass and not accurately rack the slide which may fail to chamber a new round and they attempt to continue to fire from there and get nothing. Just our way of doing things and what we have found is most reliable for our given situations.

[AKDoug]

The point was kind of moot. All of the females had to reach over to get the slide back. They weren't able to cant to the left and slingshot the slide.

My 12 y.o and 16 y.o. daughters do just fine with "workspace". I do catch them getting a running start at it with their gun hand, but they get it done. Surf, do you happen to have a video of how you do it?

Added on edit** Just had the girls try it. They are not doing it in the "workspace", they have to have their arms pretty well extended to rack the slide, but they both said they prefer the "slingshot".

[Lone_Ranger]

I'm not sure. None of them lacked the strength to rack the slide. Still, it seemed to be more difficult, than it should have been.