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Dropping a slide on an empty chamber

36K views 108 replies 47 participants last post by  1saxman 
#1 · (Edited)
My Wilson friends:

Not too long ago we had a discussion on dropping a slide on an empty chamber and the potential damage this can cause to your gun. All over the internet there are opinions on this, and even experts in the field have said this can (over time) damage your gun.

However, I think it's worth questioning. In my limited years on Earth and with my very limited understanding of nearly everything, I have still observed a tendency for "wife's tales" of misinformation to be spread even by very well meaning people.

So on another forum I frequent a guy spent some time looking at the potential damage causes by dropping the 1911 slide on an empty chamber versus stripping a round and chambering the round. He had access to some high speed measurement tools.

Hoooray for high-speed video!

I taped up the side of my Gold Cup, and put bicycle helmet retroreflective stickers on the slide and frame.


With this method I had a constant reference on the frame, and could track the position of the slide regardless of the angle it was at in the frame. Used a Husky LED floodlight and I think a Redlake 3 or something like that... sorry, I don't remember the specifics, it's been a while. I think I was shooting at 3k fps? Nothing terribly fast but good enough for what I was doing.

Suuuuper low resolution but you can see how my method worked in these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R9jJxDm8P4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYaIhZUabfc

Basically, I found the centroid of the two stickers on the slide, drew a line between them, and then found where a perpendicular line passing through the sticker next to the slide stop would intersect on that line. Pretty straightforward stuff, but that way any limpwristing or whatever wouldn't affect things so much. :v: Also, don't worry, I removed the firing pin just in case something stupid happened. I filmed them over a couple days I was home with my folks for new years, and really didn't wanna put a hole in the wall.

Slide position vs. time


Here's a plot of slide position vs. time for a variety of cases: empty chamber, snap cap, 185 gr SWC, and 230 gr ball. Not sure what the spring weight is... I think 16 lbs.

Takeaway stuff from that plot: obviously, it's pretty much the same slide movement up until the slide starts feeding the round. There, no surprises, the empty chamber case doesn't slow down. The snap cap is pretty light and fed into the chamber almost as fast as the empty case. 230 gr was much slower because of the mass of the bullet, and then the 185 gr SWC, owing to the awkward shape of the bullet catching things up, was the slowest. Essentially all of the motion follows parabolic paths based on the mass of the slide and all of the reciprocating junk. No surprises there. Just straight up physics. Spring-mass system.

The most important part of the slide motion from the standpoint of whether or not dropping the slide on an empty chamber, though? That's the last little bit, where the slide slows way down. There, the barrel has to cam into place and lock up. The velocity of the slide during this last phase is all that matters as far as energy transfer into the barrel lugs, which is what I usually hear people saying is "damaged" by dropping the slide on an empty chamber. Sooooo.... is the velocity all that much higher for the empty chamber case in this final lockup phase?


Nope.

There's a fair bit of scatter on the data, but they show that the difference between the different cases really isn't that big. Those bars are set at one standard deviation... at two standard deviations they blend pretty thoroughly together. You might be able to tell them apart by looking at footage, but if that difference is all that's standing between safety and dangerous handling of your firearm, you need to ditch that platform immediately. ****ing Hi-Points have better factors of safety than that. :v:

Also, look at that velocity. A couple meters per second. That's about as fast as people go when they're powerwalking. Really, really not a concern. People see peening on their barrel lugs and flip a ****, but peening is healthy and safe. Peening is nature's way of removing stress concentrations. Don't worry about peening. Some other people worry about their slide stop pin holes going oval. 1: that's an insane number of rounds down the pipe, and 2: someone ****ed up on the heat treatment of your frame, if it's happening before hundreds of thousands of rounds fired.

There is one thing that I'll give people, but it has nothing at all to do with the empty chamber so much as the heavy ass slide that JMB put on the 1911: I did catch the hammer following in one case with the empty chamber.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbEtjh9BDKQ

See, metals are elastic... if you squish it, but not hard enough to permanently deform it, it'll bounce back to its original shape. When the slide hits the stop, it squishes and builds up energy, and then bounces back somewhat. This happens in every case, as seen in the position plot above, but it bounces the furthest with the empty chamber case because of the slightly higher velocity encountered there. The trick is how far it bounces back.

In the case above where the hammer follows (to half-cock), the hammer starts falling after the slide bounced back a pretty significant distance. My theory is that the slide bounced back just far enough to tickle the disconnector. Because of the peculiarities of the 1911 trigger design, I believe that this must have bumped the sear and got the hammer moving. The half-cock notch grabbed the hammer before it could fall all the way. Watch the video a few times and I think you'll come to the same conclusion I did.

I've never actually been able to recreate that situation, though. I think my dad was limpwristing pretty hard, which may have made the situation worse. To be fair to him, it was a very awkward thing to film with the amazingly bright lights, having to hold the gun in frame and whatnot, so oh well.

Anyway, make of all that what you will. My takeaway: science rules, also drop slides all day long I don't give a ****. I have never heard the "don't drop the slide on an empty chamber" thing with any other pistol ever, even ones directly patterned off of Browning's designs, namely... uh... well pretty much everything.
Interesting. I have no idea why the hammer dropped to half cock during one filming or if that's in any way related to the test itself. What surprised me is the relative speed of the slide at the end of the run as it cams into place. The difference between an empty chamber and a 230gr bullet being loaded is basically 1 foot per second in slide speed. While I don't have a degree in metallurgy, that doesn't seem significant (though we know what assumptions do). From a percentage standpoint, it's ~20% faster empty slide versus 230gr bullet. Though the spreads are pretty significant.

I'm not convinced it hurts your gun.
 
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#2 ·
Very interesting. My take and opinion?

If there is even a chance of damage, no matter how small the chance and how minor the damage, why take it?
 
#3 ·
1 mile per hour? Hmmm, is that conveying the necessary information? How many slides can you line up in a mile? How many times can a slide slam shut in an hour?
I remember reading about Black Talon bullets "spinning like a buzz saw, at 20,000 rpm", or something similarly dramatic, but when you look at in the context of one complete revolution per 16" of travel, it sounds like it's hardly moving.
My takeaway is . . . I have never heard of a single benefit to repeatedly dropping the slide on an empty chamber.
 
#7 · (Edited)
It's much less than 1 mile per hour difference in the slide speeds. It's less than 1 foot per second different (you can do that math). I'm not sure what that other bit is about...the number of slides in a mile...

I don't drop my guns on an empty slide - but that's mostly because I don't need the noise of it, not because I believe it to be overly hard on them. I'm interested in people looking at the argument and refuting it. It's pointless to post about our lack of perceived benefit of dropping the slide. We might as well say the sky is blue. Meanwhile we have people showing up and posting how they don't want a gun now that they say a salesman drop the slide on an empty chamber. The myth has gone on long enough. Or is it a myth?
 
#5 ·
Is that a good thing or bad thing? :)
 
#6 ·
The only time damage can occur to the hammer/sear engagement is if the hammer actually falls to half cock on the sear nose. Even then it would typically have to happen several times to cause a problem.

I do not condone dropping the slide on an empty chamber. Doing it repeatedly over and over will certainly put undue wear and stress on your slide/barrel fit...but an occasional slide drop won't hurt your gun.
I'll follow what WCR says.
 
#62 ·
I'm with bamashooter... and just to be safe, I'll continue to NOT drop the slide on an empty chamber.
 
#12 ·
#13 · (Edited)
The whole point of not dropping a slide on an empty chamber is so that it doesn't batter the sear nose. Yes, it batters the lower barrel lug (and slide stop pin and frame holes), but how much more than during live fire, I do not know.

What MOST people forget is that as long as the trigger is held back when dropping the slide, the sear is held in place by the disconnector - and no battering can occur.

However, I don't subscribe to "pull the trigger and drop the slide". Sooner or later you will "drop the slide and pull the trigger".

Bottom line - don't do it. It isn't necessary except for infrequent safety checks or after fitting new fire control components.
 
#19 ·
The whole point of not dropping a slide on an empty chamber is so that it doesn't batter the sear nose. It really has little to do with slide/frame battering.

What MOST people forget is that as long as the trigger is held back when dropping the slide, the sear is held in place by the disconnector - and no battering can occur.

However, I don't subscribe to "pull the trigger and drop the slide". Sooner or later you will "drop the slide and pull the trigger".

Bottom line - don't do it. It isn't necessary except for infrequent safety checks or after fitting new fire control components.
No disrespect intended, but I am still going with what the Wilson Combat rep says:

"The only time damage can occur to the hammer/sear engagement is if the hammer actually falls to half cock on the sear nose."
 
#17 · (Edited)
Shane: Good point. I'll look into that further tonight. I hadn't considered the trigger being back or forward during cycling may have an impact.
Well, it won't affect slide velocity one way or another - but again the point of not dropping the slide on an empty chamber is to preserve your finely fit/polished sear nose.

Yes, the lower barrel lugs take a pounding, as well as the slide stop and frame holes. How much more so than during live fire, is debateable.
 
#22 ·
it seems some obsess about the dumbest stuff when it comes to 1911s


in one breath, they'll tell it's so tough, it's been to war for back for over century now (proving it's tough enough to take abuse in all conditions)
while in the next breath tell you it's an egg when you drop the slide empty :scratch:

or you'll surely beat the pistol to death with a heavier than needed recoil spring

oh, the irony of it all.....:biglaugh:


..L.T.A.
 
#31 ·
one of the serious comp shooters mentioned comp guns being mod'd to NOT lock back on last rnd .
if not mistaken, it was member Entropic86 that mentioned it
(can't recall the reason)


never the less, the slide runs forward empty all-de-time.
You'd think serious comp shooters that shoot 20K+ rnds a year wouldn't do , such if there was any "real" evidence of it causing harm/undue wear. no?



.L.T.A.
 
#35 ·
I have friends that do it all the time (on different models) and I am yet to see FOR MYSELF and damage. I do not drop the slide on any of my pistols without at least a dummy round present. That is how I learned and there has never been any reason presented to me to change my habit.

Interesting to see the "data" compiled in a way that gives us a visual representation of what is happening.
 
#37 ·
Not to change the topic but how many times can you hit someone over the heat with the butt of a 1911 before it hurts the gun? Just curious.

It may not hurt to drop the slide or dry fire the trigger/firing pin. But I see no benefit in doing it to my guns. I have one gun (DW Heritage) sort of set aside for shooting at Front Sight, where they do a lot of dry practice. I just figure sooner or later something will break as a result of hundreds or thousands of hammer drops on empty chamber and or slamming the slide. It will be a tribute to Dan Wesson if the gun lasts awhile without a breakdown!
 
#38 ·
Thanks Subscriber.

So the question I would ask to the audience is: Does it hurt a glock to drop on an empty chamber? Sig? Why do you believe a 1911 is different?

Note: There is no advantage to dropping on an empty chamber. It's not a guilty pleasure. We get it.


All guns wear out. All of them. They'll wear out shooting or in dry fire/cycling. If you believe dry cycling is more damaging that chambering a real round, I'd like to know why.
 
#40 ·
I have my old Colt Series 70 that I got new back in the 1970's that had the slide dropped on an empty chamber quite a few times during the first few years of its life. It still works fine but has been treated more gently for the last several decades. The energy that it takes to strip a round from the magazine and to chamber it has to go somewhere if there is no round. The firearm will have to absorb that energy.

I prefer not to expose my firearms (It does not matter to me whether it is a 1911, Glock, Ruger, S&W, Sig, Springfield, autoloading long gun, or any other firearm in which an action can be slammed shut.) to unnecessary stress and strain. I also don't slam shut double barrel shotguns or double action revolvers and I don't dry fire bows.

Will it hurt the firearm? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I do not know what the threshold for damage is and prefer not to get any closer to that threshold than necessary.
 
#43 · (Edited)

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