Watch: Grabbing a Pistol Slide for Self Defense

Can you disable a pistol by grabbing it to keep the slide from moving? Well, not exactly. But you *can* sorta-kinda turn it into a single-shot if the trigger is pulled and the round in the chamber is fired while you have a hold of the slide.

And no, it won’t hurt your hand because your hand keeps the slide from moving more than a fraction of an inch, if you have a good grip on it. In this remake/revisit of an older video, we clearly see that this method is effective on a number of different firearms.

The idea would be, grab the slide and point the muzzle away from you before the bad guy can fire. If he pulls the trigger, the gun goes bang but will not sure again until/unless the slide is racked. Racking the slide takes time, and in a fight, it will often take up too much time. So, that can put an assailant at a distinct disadvantage, which should at the least buy you some time.

But can you disable a semi-auto pistol entirely by shoving the slide out of battery? Sometimes, but don’t count on that to save you. All it would take would be one slip of your hand to allow that pistol to fire.

The video does provide proof of concept of this with two different models of pistol.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.