Gun bloggers are presently all a flutter about how to drop the slide on a semi-automatic handgun.

I think it started with Caleb and this “quote of the century” post. Actually no… it goes back further, to this thread on pistol-forum talking about a “tactical ninja kick” as a way to drop the slide (if you don’t know, don’t ask). Then Caleb’s post, where he was specifically trying to point out that the “it’s a fine motor skill” argument isn’t a valid one in this case (thumbing the slide lock vs. racking the slide) because they’re both fine motor skills. But IMHO the post wasn’t worded well and people thought he was bagging on the techniques, not the argument. So Caleb posted a follow-up article that went deeper into the issue. I think he still didn’t present the argument well enough — that he’s upset about the reasons put forth for justifying the technique, not the technique itself. But here we are. Heck, even KR got into it, with some very valid presentation.

Now, Shelley Rae posted to GunNuts about a recent failure she had during an IDPA match. The interesting part is that her slide stop/release broke. She normally thumbs that lever to get the gun back into the game faster, but it broke, she diagnosed the problem, reached over the top to drop the slide, and continued with the match.

And of course… this justifies everyone’s way as the best way, and everyone can take this as proof their way is right and best.

I’d like to take a different approach.

It depends.

(and I am talking about the techniques, not the “fine motor skill” justification because strictly speaking Caleb is right, they are both fine motor skills… I think tho what people mean isn’t the strict definition of fine vs. gross, rather that it is a more precise thing to thumb the lever, involving just your weak thumb vs. more body/muscle/parts involvement in reach and rack; but perhaps we’re splitting hairs).

Now personally, I’m biased towards the line of thinking that Karl puts forth because he’s my mentor and I spend a lot of time around him. But as for which technique one should use? I’ll put forth that it depends upon your goals and/or problem set and/or operational context.

You can’t serve two masters. So in weightlifting you can’t try to gain mass and lose fat: pick one, focus on it. I’d say the same applies here in gun work. What is your goal? Competition? Self-defense? Pick one, because you can’t serve two masters.

In competition, all that’s on the line is if you end up in the winner’s circle or not. Most action shooting sports have time as a critical factor, and the less time you take the better. Thus, techniques that allow you to be faster are generally more desirable. In this case, there’s no question that thumbing the slide lock/release is going to be faster than reaching over the top to drop the slide. This is going to be a more desirable technique for this context.

In self-defense, your life is on the line. Seconds still matter. So, one could say thumbing the slide lock/release is better. But will it always be? It’s cold out now… you have gloves on. Can you thumb it? You’re covered in blood. Can you thumb it? You lost your thumb, can you… well, no you can’t. When your life is on the line, you need things to not go wrong, you need things to go your way. It’s better for things to be “bulletproof” than “fast but risky”. Failure of the gun in a competition isn’t a big deal; failure of your gun or technique in a gunfight is a big deal.

Let’s go back to Shelley Rae’s video. Failure of the component is rare. 99.9% of her competition shooting will be better off thumbing the slide lock/release. So in the context of the game, something went wrong, she lost a few extra seconds to diagnose the problem, but she got it corrected and finished the match. Life goes on, all is fine. Now, let’s pretend the same video was of a gunfight. Those same few seconds where your brain is going WTF? your OODA loop is resetting, you have lost focus on the fight, not to mention she continued to move out from behind cover while dealing with the problem… what could that have cost her in a gunfight? Reaching over the slide she never would have noticed the problem and never would have had a WTF? moment; may have cost her 0.5 seconds more to do that technique always, but that’s a lot better than how things played out (again, pretending it wasn’t a match video).

I’ve been shooting the FAST drill because it’s a good drill. On that drill, 5 seconds is considered Expert and is a tough number to achieve. But to achieve that number, you’re going to have to use the slide stop/release to drop the slide because reaching over the top to drop the slide just takes longer, and the nature of the drill and limits of human ability just work out as they do. But for me? I’m fine with never breaking the 5 second barrier in that case, because I train primarily for self-defense thus my go-to technique is reaching over the top of the slide to drop the slide (no thumbing for me). Thus if the best I can ever do is 6 seconds, I’m OK with that because I know what master I am trying to serve.

There are reasons for each technique. They both have their strengths, they both have their weaknesses. They can be applicable to a wide range of situations, they may be more appropriate for one situation over another. So, instead of just saying “mine is right” or “mine is best” always, step back and examine what each technique brings to the table (good and bad). Weigh that against your context, be willing to accept the strengths and weaknesses, know and understand how to deal with them, and be sure you know what master are you serving. Work towards that end.