5 things to get you comfortable with your Firearm
The things I’m going to be discussing in this article are very simple and can be implemented inside your actual every day task. They can be done while your waiting for your food to get done or while your watching family feud, and cracking up at Steve Harvey. With a empty fire you can practice these things and you don't even need to carve out any extra time in your busy day. First make sure the firearm is unloaded, make sure your environment is conducive to what you’re doin. If you have dogs, kids, annoying spouses maybe make sure they’re not around just like when you’re cleaning your firearm.
These things are most things that people look over when they’re learning about firearms. They think it’s common sense but when they go to do them they come to realize it’s not as easy as it looks on TV. If you have taken my class, you know I usually do these things in the class under pressure, under time, while I’m yelling at you, and while people are staring at you. This is because I want you to understand the pressures of being in an actual situation and trying to do these things.
So let’s get into what these "things" are actually called to me these are some fundamental actions that you need to know how to do like muscle memory without hesitation, and sometimes without even looking!
- Racking the slide
- Locking the slide
- Dropping the magazine and reloading the magazine
- Loading the magazine to full capacity and unloading the magazine
- Breaking down the firearm for cleaning and putting it back together
These five fundamentals will help you get more comfortable with your firearm, understand your firearm better, understand how to manipulate your firearm in the time of need, and be faster with your firearm on the range, and in a real life situation. Practicing these fundamentals will over time build up your muscle memory to be able to fundamentally perform better than you ever have before.
Let’s break down each fundamental. Why it’s important, what’s the actual function of it and more. After you understand these things you can create goals for yourself that your practice will help you get to. Before I get started I just want to say reading this article and doing these exercises does not take the place of actual training, still get into a training course, still take a training class and practice these things in the meantime.
The first fundamental is racking the slide. Racking the slide is different than locking the slide. When I tell you to rack the slide it is simply you training your hands, your brain, and your eyes to move the slide back and fourth. Without putting your hand in the wrong place and cutting yourself on the gun . Every gun requires a different amount of pressure and everyone needs to apply a different amount of pressure based on their hand size and strength level. Rack the slide so that it actually simulates putting a round in the chamber. You will start to get use to the resistance of the slide itself. Being able to manipulate the slide without looking, without overthinking, and at the end of the day being able to load it and get on target in a timely fashion.
Doing this multiple times will get used to all of those things, doing this multiple times over and over will start your relationship with your firearm. You will Start to understand how you’re firearm works, what doesn’t work, what works for you and what doesn’t work for you. Learning how to place your hands or how not to place your hands, and what mistakes you make help you understand what you should do differently.
Here’s another tip, videotape yourself doing these exercises, watch the tape back pick out your inconsistencies and do it again.
Now your going to practice locking the slide. Yes locking the slide sounds like I am telling you to do the same thing but before we were just racking the slide. Now what we’re doing is racking the slide while simultaneously pushing the lock button up with our thumbs. What this does is lock the slide in place. It is true that most of the time your slide locks back in place automatically when the magazine is empty and there isn't a round in the chamber. However some guns tend to not do it, have you ever been on the range and you were out of ammo and you don’t know it because the slide didn't lock back on his own? You’re pulling the trigger and nothings happening, and you think it’s you.
Well it’s not you, it is the firearm and it does happen. What you don’t want to do is turn the firearm around and look into the barrel! I know it seems funny, but people do it! What you want to do is rack the slide multiple times really quick make sure that there’s no casing coming out, no bullet coming out, and then you want to push the slide lock button up and lock the slide back. Now how can you do this without practicing this exact fundamental? That is why it is important and on the list. Being able to do those two functions at the same time and at a good speed will be helpful on and off the range. You also want to get in a habit of having the slide locked back to be able to know that your firearm is empty and safe. Now of course there’s a plenty of other reasons why your firearm might not fire when you’re trying to pull the trigger but we’re not discussing that right now.
Now the second fundamental is locking the slide but what I didn’t mention is releasing the slide lock. To me it's common sense but when you are new to this you may not realize there’s two parts to manipulating the slide. You have to unlock the side which means you have to push that slide lock button down not up. Your thumb in the same position but now the slide is going the opposite direction. You want to practice both locking the slide and unlocking slide, locking the slide un locking slide. Yes I wrote it twice because I want you to get that repetition into your brain as you read this so when you go to do it you know that it is s not a one time thing. Do these exercises in multiple reps just like in the gym.
Let’s move on the fundamental three dropping the magazine, now just like above dropping the magazine comes with two parts. You want to drop the magazine and then load the magazine back into the magazine well. First you want to make sure there is no ammo in your magazine, matter of fact no ammo in the room at all. In order to drop the magazine you want to push the magazine release button on the same side as your slide lock.
Let’s break this down a little bit for my ladies who's hands are a little bit smaller. A trick to getting to the release button is to manipulate your hand on the firearm by moving your thumb towards the button without letting go of the firearm, sliding your palm around the grip until you can reach it. Trust me it can be done, it’s a little awkward at first, a little hard at first, but again more reps better outcome. As your thumb pushes down on the magazine release button you want to train yourself to not have to look at the button, and not have to watch the magazine drop.
Those magazines on your firearms are durable they can hit the floor, they can hit the concrete at the range it is OK. Once you drop the magazine you want to pick the magazine back up and load it back into the magazine well. Drop the magazine again, and again, and again picking it up reloading it again, and again. this will help you get familiar with all of those actions become one function the more you do it the better you will get at it. The faster you will get at it as well. If you have more than one magazine drop one load one and pick them up later.
Function four is gonna cause you to bring that ammo back into the room, but you can do a couple of things to stay safe. You can take the firearm out of the room and lock it up. Again you want to make sure there’s no distractions in the room. Now that the room is clear you want to take out the amount of ammo that your magazine takes and you want to start loading your magazine. Practice loading your magazine because you never know when you’ll need to do that under a time crunch. As a disclaimer I don’t mean for you to keep your firearm that is your home protection or your self defense firearm unloaded. It should already be loaded especially if you are out in the streets.
Let’s say you for some reason it is unloaded and you do need to load it quickly. This exercise will help you gain muscle memory and the hand strength to do so. You want to load the magazine to it's capacity. Then want to unload it, then repeat the process over and over.
Now these practice exercises are not in order use your common sense to put them in the order that you need. Which may depend on your environment, your time frame, how far you got to go to take the ammo out of the room and bring it back. in because
The next fundamental I suggest practicing is breaking down the firearm for the simulation of Cleaning it. You may have seen on Instagram or youtube people cleaning it and breaking it down super fast and putting it back together super fast. Some go as far as doing it blindfolded or with their eyes closed. Well your not them so learn how to do it first and then get to that. So first you need to know how to break it down and if you have taken any of my classes you know what I’m not to say next.....
I’m about to tell you to read your manual! I’m not telling you to go to YouTube first even though YouTube is also an option if your firearm didn't come with a manual you can simply look it up on Google, look up a video on how to break it down on YouTube, or call the manufacturer and get a manual sent to you. You can choose the best course of action for you. Don’t worry about speed at this moment, worry about getting the functions correct, putting your fingers in the right place. My advice is to take out only the parts that need to be taken out. I personally don’t go further than taking out the recoil spring and the barrel. I’m not a armor so there’s no need for me to go any further.
If you go any further you run the risk of not being able to put the firearm back together in the proper way. This is another place you can video yourself, you can blindfold yourself and test yourself in whatever way you would like to test yourself. First practice breaking it down slowly as possible with a fire and 20 in a safe direction because after you take it apart when you put it back together and becomes a gun again so you don’t want to forget the safety rules just because the gun is a part. Continue to break it down and put it back together, break it down and put it back together , and so on and so. As time goes on the faster you get, the more accurate you get, and sooner or later you won't even need to look at it to do it.
Of course there’s other fundamentals that you can learn and you can practice but to you get you started on being comfortable with your firearm in and out of the house these are things that I found that are most useful to help you with that. Especially if this is your first time having and carrying it on you at all times. It may feel weird but you’re not alone everybody goes through that stage.
To get out of that stage you need to spend time with your firearm. I always say that you and your firearm are in a relationship. You need to know what it likes, what it doesn’t like. This is just my way of making you spend time with your firearm.
OK it’s your time to shine and take what you’ve learned in this article and implement it at home. Good luck and please feel free to send me DM’s, inboxes of videos of you doing these exercises. If you need help or need questions answered feel free to email me them as well. My goal is to make a better protector out of you. If you wanna learn more about being a better protector or getting more comfortable with your firearm check out my new e-book " there’s no such thing as a girl gun " It is 106 pages of my brain put on paper to help you with your journey of CCW (just in case you don’t know what that means concealed carry weapon)
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