Locking the 1911 Slide for Slow Fire

Hey, Jerry, et al.,

This is something I wonder about every once in a great while:

Has anyone ever entertained the idea of locking the 1911 slide during shots in Slow Fire?  I'm wondering if there was ever any thoughts (or experiments) on removing the cycling from the equation in the pursuit of essentially creating a single shot platform for Slow Fire.

Ed Hall wrote:Hey, Jerry, et al.,

This is something I wonder about every once in a great while:

Has anyone ever entertained the idea of locking the 1911 slide during shots in Slow Fire?  I'm wondering if there was ever any thoughts (or experiments) on removing the cycling from the equation in the pursuit of essentially creating a single shot platform for Slow Fire.

That is an interesting option.. My concern is the hand cycling phases.. There would be ten cycles, instead of one..so the advantage of the locked system would be lost to hand cycling.. Might be something to try..

All I can say is ouch!  With no spring to take some of the recoil I don't think my wrist would last long.  Maybe with no slide movement you could load lighter or maybe if it had one of those rails for mounting lights under the frame you could hang a 2lb weight and that would help with the recoil. 

- Dave

[quote="dronning

I can say is ouch!  With no spring to take some of the recoil I don't think my wrist would last long.  Maybe with no slide movement you could load lighter or maybe if it had one of those rails for mounting lights under the frame you could hang a 2lb weight and that would help with the recoil. 

- Dave[/quote]

Lighter loads, interesting option.

Something like a 2 part extended slide/thumb safety. The original safety would remain perfectly functional but the thin extended safety under it could be clicked up to block the slide. It would probably be brutal.

I think a little innovation with ambi set up, and it would be doable. I don't think the recoil would be an issue..Does a revolver recoil that much more???? No...

hmmmm...

Special Ops used to use a H & K .45 with a slide lock for shooting suppressed back in the 90's. Doable, but I don't think the hand cycling would be consistent in my experience.
Jon

Way back when the original Hushpuppy (model 39 with locked slide and simple suppressor) didn't seem to kick that much.

Now that there are some responses, I'll post a few of the things that have crossed my mind over the years:

Many very accurate firearms, through the years, have been single shot or manually cycled.

Many top shooters believe in using a single magazine for all Slow Fire and will reload the one .45 magazine during the string.  The most consistent loading is when everything is "EXACTLY" the same.  Does this not include the magazine spring tension and the cycling of the slide.  Since the first round has to be loaded from a static point, would not the most consistency come from doing this ten times?  This actually can be accomplished by loading only one round in the same magazine ten times, and I wonder if that is what drove the current Slow Fire commands, "10 shots slow fire, 10 shots in 10 minutes, load." rather than, "with (whatever number of rounds) load."  I also wonder if anyone does/did this...

If reliability in cycling is not an issue, round accuracy can be the most important detail, whether this is lighter or heavier loads.

I see this as a pistol that you would chamber a single cartridge by hand, lower the slide, then insert a single shot device. The single shot device being a solid magazine that would in some way either use lugs to lock into the bottom of the slide or activate a system that would wedge the barrel against the slide. It is possible.

Ed this is exactly what I have done the last two years with my Beretta for service pistol matches for slow fire.  I do not have a custom built gun and so the barrel will move slightly depending on the number of rounds in the magazine pushing up.  There was a magazine article years ago where David Sams mentioned this.  He had found out that the point of impact for a Beretta would change based on how much pressure the magazine follower was exerting on the slide.
I began loading five rounds in the magazine and following the first shot would drop the magazine and load one more round into the magazine.  That way the magazine spring tension would be the same for every shot.  From a sandbag I noticed a definite tightening of my groups. 

I have heard that one way top keep every round chambering the same is to load a dummy round first in the magazine then your five rounds.  That way each live round has some tension under it when it chambers.  I have never tried it before.

Ed Hall wrote:Now that there are some responses, I'll post a few of the things that have crossed my mind over the years:

Many very accurate firearms, through the years, have been single shot or manually cycled.

Many top shooters believe in using a single magazine for all Slow Fire and will reload the one .45 magazine during the string.  The most consistent loading is when everything is "EXACTLY" the same.  Does this not include the magazine spring tension and the cycling of the slide.  Since the first round has to be loaded from a static point, would not the most consistency come from doing this ten times?  This actually can be accomplished by loading only one round in the same magazine ten times, and I wonder if that is what drove the current Slow Fire commands, "10 shots slow fire, 10 shots in 10 minutes, load." rather than, "with (whatever number of rounds) load."  I also wonder if anyone does/did this...

If reliability in cycling is not an issue, round accuracy can be the most important detail, whether this is lighter or heavier loads.

Ed,

It's entirely possible that single loading rounds as you suggest could reduce the number of variables and contribute to enhanced accuracy. I just wonder how that improvement could be measured and proven - it would involve handling the gun in a Ransom rest or similar device for every shot, and that is bound to skew the results. Just sayin'

Walt Jackson

I think that locking the slide will become more work than needed and eventually cause you to shot worse that before it was lockable. Shooting one round in a magazine is manageable if you have 10 magazines. They don't have to be the best just so they will load a round and with visual inspection be sure the slide has gone as forward as it was supposed to.
 Pulling the slide back every time will become rather labor intensive.
 If it were me I would find out why if any the single shot method works better and correct it. During a match at Camp Perry I was vertical stringing yet my left to right spread was under 2" During the NMC slow fire I decided to load one round per mag. My score shot up and I came in 2nd overall beaten by only an X.
 However I eventually found the problem, increased spring weight and my gun shot "Normal" again. The AMU has their 45's shooting about an inch at 50 yards proving that the gun is capable of shooting accurately with 5 rounds in the magazine. 

Frank