I was reminded of an important lesson today - Practice off hand, one hand etc

[Lee1959]

One never knows when you will have to load, and shoot with weak hand or one hand strong hand, so you need to practice this constantly. Last night I dislocated my left wrist, good news I shoot right handed, bad news, I do everything else left handed, and this brace is defintily a pain. I went oout and shot today, and even though I practice one hand shooting and reloads quite often, it is still a royal PITA when you HAVE to do it only. Revolver is easier, pistol it that much harder, especially reloading from empty with closed slide.

Do not neglect this people, practice practice, it only takes one split second mistake from your father in law to cripple you, take my word for it.

[webley445]

Do you use the "between the knees" method or in the holster for the semi reload?
I always found the revolver harder until I was shown a belt tuck method.
Tuck the grip under your belt, barrel down with cylinder open, cylinder away from body.
Allows use of loaders, speed strips, and loose rounds

[Lee1959]

I practice both styles of reload actually. I have found that my Makarov is the hardest pistol to reload, or load from empty with slide down especially. The heavy blowback spring makes snagging the smallish rear sight on something to pull back the slide very hard and you have to resort to pinching it between something very hard to manipulate it.

[webley445]

The heavy blowback spring makes snagging the smallish rear sight on something to pull back the slide very hard and you have to resort to pinching it between something very hard to manipulate it.


How about grab hold on top of the slide, place the back strap of the grip against your thigh, then push. Lots easier as you are using more area provided by the frame as opposed to the sights.

Another trick I have found is cock the hammer (can't remember right now id the Mak has exposed hammer) before racking the slide. This always makes for easier slide manipulation as you don't have the tension of the hammer offering resistance.
I show the hammer trick to females that have problems chambering the first round into autos.

[Lee1959]

Holding onto the slide is not a bad idea actually, that way had not occured to me. The bigest problem with the Mak is that it is a blowback pistol and I had added a heavier than normal recoil spring to help prevent hammering the slide to death. It is stiff, and some men I have known give it a rather stern look when working the slide due to the stron gspring and smallish grip area, lol.