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Rejoice with me. Some of ya'll may know that Mrs DRW has had a lot of trouble racking the slides on our various semi-auto handguns and consequently this has dramatically limited her carry options.

This morning I found http://corneredcat.com/RunGun/rack.aspx which is a tutorial for women with weaker hands racking the slide. I took her through the exercises and corrected her mistakes, and she is now successfully and actually almost effortlessly racking the slide on even our most difficult handguns!

Our Kahr P9, for example, is an excellent small 9mm which she loves to shoot, but it has an extremely tight slide that is very difficult for even me to pull. She has always needed me to load it, then hand it to her so she can shoot. After these exercises, though, she was racking it over and over again, making it look like she'd been doing it all her life. She no longer relies on me to chamber a semi-auto for her anymore. This was such a confidence booster for her.

I can't say how pleased we are.

ooo, thanks I have a friend who this is perfect for, she's very petite, and had a hard time with our Ruger MK1 slide.

drw wrote:Rejoice with me. Some of ya'll may know that Mrs DRW has had a lot of trouble racking the slides on our various semi-auto handguns and consequently this has dramatically limited her carry options.

This morning I found http://corneredcat.com/RunGun/rack.aspx which is a tutorial for women with weaker hands racking the slide. I took her through the exercises and corrected her mistakes, and she is now successfully and actually almost effortlessly racking the slide on even our most difficult handguns!

Our Kahr P9, for example, is an excellent small 9mm which she loves to shoot, but it has an extremely tight slide that is very difficult for even me to pull. She has always needed me to load it, then hand it to her so she can shoot. After these exercises, though, she was racking it over and over again, making it look like she'd been doing it all her life. She no longer relies on me to chamber a semi-auto for her anymore. This was such a confidence booster for her.

I can't say how pleased we are.

This is great news and I am going to visit now. My wife has the same problem and has limited herself to her .380 Pony 1911 which she can rack, or a firearm I prep for her. She generally cannot use a revolver either since she cannot pull the heavier triggers. She isn't incapacitated or anything, she just has smaller, weaker hands.

Going to look now -- whether it works or not: THANKS!!!


I read through it and it looks very good (my wife hasn't had time to try it yet) -- near the bottom it also has special attention to Left handed problems too.

And also, links to FTF clearing too -- they are probably good pages too.

It really is all in technique! +1

Good news for Mrs. Drw. I am wondering if one of the problems with women having trouble racking slides is that many of them have .380 Pistols, which have blowback designs. My 380 seems to be harder to rack than my 40 S&W.

I have found it is two issues:

1. lack of technique
2. finger strength

99% of the trouble is technique. I have only had two women that did not have sufficient finger strength to hold onto the slide when raking it irregardless of caliber. The size of the gun can help or hinder as well. The smaller the gun the harder it is to get a hold on it. I

CompVest wrote:The size of the gun can help or hinder as well. The smaller the gun the harder it is to get a hold on it. I

The .380s are usually smaller guns.

Again, THANKS to the OldGringos.

Carol read most of the web article and thought about it -- tonight when she saw the 9mm Taurus 92 for the first time (in about 5 years), and recovered her surprise after asking, "What's that?", I was going to show her the Taurus (basically its a Beretta 92F with Ambi-Safeties and she is usually a lefty so I thought it might help.)

But before I could offer her the emptied pistol, she reached her home defense Glock 21 (.45 -- it's my usual IDPA gun but we are limited in budget and some must do double duty) and proceeded to fully clear the load -- with some difficulty.

She had to work at racking the slide but it was possible. Thanks.

Then she tried the Taurus and once again I found myself realizing that NO RULE of choosing a "Ladies gun" applies to her. She (almost) cannot reach the safeties with either left or right thumb -- almost means the thumbs reach the safeties but she doesn't have enough strength/leverage to operate them cleanly. She couldn't decock the thing at all -- so what I thought would be a cool feature (decocker) to her, is totally wasted on her. The ambi safeties went pretty much the same way since they were so difficult.

Ok, she CAN rack the slide and that is a big deal. Thanks again.

I was going to get my Glock back and give her the 9mm. Oh, well. Weird thing is, if I load it, she can handle that big old Glock .45 just fine, firing it at the range well too. No problem.

We'll stick with this, and her little .380 for now.

But the slide is a really big deal. Thanks all.

Have you tried her on a fullsized 1911? Since a .45 is no problem, the 1911 would give her an easier reach to the thumb safety, and trigger, plus I find them to be the easiest slide to rack in a .45 caliber.

Vic303 wrote:Have you tried her on a fullsized 1911? Since a .45 is no problem, the 1911 would give her an easier reach to the thumb safety, and trigger, plus I find them to be the easiest slide to rack in a .45 caliber.

It's worth trying (and at this point I probably wouldn't have thought of it) -- I don't know that I have done so in the past, because it was only by using this article that she has been able to rack the slide on a full size frame, and her left handed hold has made dealing with right handed safeties problematic.

The Taurus/Beretta 92 style is pretty close to common 1911 frames/models (without being the same design) so I am not hopeful but will give it a try.

Thanks.

This was timely as my wife can't rack the slide on her new P232. I told her she needed to start excercising .

What's strange to me is that the P232's slide is actually harder to do than my P239. I was wondering whether my spring was just worn out while the P232 is new.

I've always taught this method to my girls. It's much easier to push forward than to try and pull that slide back.

Good Article!

Facing this same issue with my significant other and it has been effecting her gun choice. One question...I am not understanding the second method involving the pivot. I have known the sling shot for a long time now, but the other seems worth learning I just think I am missing something. Can anyone elaborate?