Actually, the under-slide racking video above doesn’t highlight a tactical move. It’s a safety thing! “This shooter explained that he racks the slide from underneath because he is concerned about out of battery detonation,” thefirearmblog.com reports. “Supposedly another competitive shooter had a fail to fire and racked his slide with his hand covering the ejection port to capture the round. The round went off in his hand when he extracted it.” Wait. What? I reckon the RSO should have flagged his ass. Anyway, I’ve seen some pretty dopey tactical moves. My favorite: bird-like head movements masquerading as scanning for threats. What’s your pet peeve when it comes to operators operating operationally?

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117 COMMENTS

  1. Yea I imagine that racking method only works consistently in the most ideal conditions and only if you have good slide serrations. Too much risk of “having your wife open your ketchup bottles for the rest of your life” when youre trying to rush.

    There is a vid of some “instructor” doing some epic ninja moves in his truck and shooting upside down. Operating so operationally I almost needed an operation.
    Just found it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bm3GgDxPOM

      • Hey, man!

        That video: The epitome of ‘Bravo Foxtrot Sierra’.

        3:25 of my life I will never get back…

    • No guys, he’s doing it right. He said his purpose was to put TARGETS on ROUNDS. Looks like a solid maneuver if that’s your intended goal.

      • Man Id almost forgotten about this, too funny, they even went the extra mile and used a Toyota.

        “La De Da Making my way downtown… CONTACT!”

      • Wow, that second video is both loving homage and deadly satire.
        Reminds me of the Art of The Mag Flip videos on Youtube.

    • That first guy is awesome. Now he just needs to get the local criminal element to watch the criminal training video that tells them to stand still in the open so he can take those nice slow, inaccurate shots he was demonstrating.
      And I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to get some armored plates in his doors, because any standard handgun round is going to rip right through those and nail him.

    • Also…with the targets that close, and the driver starting out in the driver’s seat, doesn’t the truck qualify as the best available weapon?

    • I’ve said this before, but for more of you infrequent readers of TTAG, I never served in the military or on any police force and I am very new to joining the armed citizenry. Thanks Obama! That being said, because I have no training, I have no “training scars”. I look at something and apply common sense to it. When the operator in the above video explained what he was going to do, I naturally thought that he was going to enter the back seat from inside the cab. Did he not just say that there was a threat to his left? So he jumps out the left side and does not engage that threat, exposes his whole body for a few seconds and leaves the doors open to expose himself the whole time. And if he is so concerned about taking a round through the windshield, why does the door not concern him? Why not get on the floor behind the engine block and do his little hanging trick from the front passenger door?

    • I feel sorry for the folks that took or take classes from this knucklehead.

      This is a prime example of what happens when the market becomes flooded with ‘instructors’. They end up trying to make up sh|t to impress and set themselves apart and as we can see, its a train wreck.

      The best instruction I have received was from guys like Travis Haley, Chris Costa and others who work the fundamentals from start to finish and explain why things are done, then tell you to use what works best.

      🙂

  2. His gun, his money, his hand.

    What gives us ordinary Joes the right to critique another shooters’ equipment, technique, or ‘operational’ approach on a youtube video? File this under “None of Our F**#ing Business.”

  3. “What’s your pet peeve when it comes to operators operating operationally?”

    When they do that, all of that, any of that, ever

      • Welcome back PTM!
        I was going to mention Yeager because he says a lot of things that make perfect sense. Take the underhanded slide rack in this video. The excuse was that a round went off in someone’s hand who tried to catch the ejected slow burn round. Yeager addressed this stupidity years ago. “Never catch an ejected round. Let that shit hit the floor”. Also “1911’s suck”. In the above video, there was a failure to slide lock. Fix your gun dude! Don’t do a stupid rack technique to compensate for other bad technique. Who, in a gunfight, would want to catch the round you just ejected? Yeager would get all over this clowns ass and he should.

    • Well he hasnt died yet haha, either way I dont imagine the student with the bad flinch gets to stand next to the camera man.

  5. People who freak out over rifle technique. Like, somehow the idiosyncratic way you wield your gun is the true dictator of winning a fight. Instead of sound tactics and violence of action.

  6. My peeve? Anyone who calls himself an operator who isn’t a member of Headquarters US Army Special Operations Command, Operational Detatchment D or US Navy Special Warfare Developement Group. (Or the UK’s Special Air Service or Special Boat Squadron.)

      • If it’ll make you feel any better WB you can be an operator also.

        Just repeat after me. “1 ringy-dingy, 2 ringy dingy……”

        • That would actually be a productive job, as opposed to the government murderers who suck up taxpayer money to screw up the world on behalf of politicians.

          But I wouldn’t expect a lifelong government parasite to understand that. 🙂

        • Who you trying to scam, WB? I’ll bet every check you’ve drawn since you were 18 is from the system. I carry “special snowflakes” like you every day in my post retirement job as a driver for a transit company that specialises in folks needing help from the .gov.

          You may con some of these others into thinking you’re a productive member of society. But I know better.

        • You sound mad. It must be because you know your moral betters (i.e. people in the private economy) pay your for your vile parasitism.

          Do you realize the irony of a lifelong government parasite accusing others of living on the dole? 😉

          “I’ll bet every check you’ve drawn since you were 18 is from the system”

          Says the guy who has done exactly that. LOL!

        • Not mad, bro. Just calling them as I see them. You are not in the private sector. The internet, like alcohol, brings out the real man. The real you, unless it requires a paper hat, is no more capable of being a productive member of society than the birds in my garden right now. 🙂

        • “Just calling them as I see them”

          What, the government parasite callings others leeches? The irony of this is apparently not penetrating your government-thickened skull. 🙂

          Also don’t diss the birds, they perform valuable services in the ecosystem. Unlike you, who has known nothing besides doing the murderous bidding of politicians.

        • oops, brah. Now you got a ginormous knot in your panties. Nailed you down, didn’t I. On the dole, mad at the world cause nobody listens to your ravings at the bus stop. All you got is to lie and call men that served their country honestly murderers. And parasites. Rich coming from a guy that has never done a thing.

          How many countries around the world have been invaded, had their cities besieged and laid waste in the last 100 years? Russia. China. France. Hell the list goes on and on.

          But not the US. Why? Because men of higher moral caliber than you step up and serve. Men that you, in your ravings, compare to the SS.

          Have a nice day, bro. 🙂

        • “served their country”

          It takes a special kind of stupid to believe that. You served the will of politicians, as cannon fodder and pawns of their foreign policy.

          “But not the US. Why? Because men of higher moral caliber than you step up and serve. Men that you, in your ravings, compare to the SS.”

          Actually the real reason is because of oceans on both sides. As always, government animals are uneducated buffoons.

          A better question is, how many countries have your “men of higher moral caliber” raped and pillaged on behalf of US politicians in the last century? Smedley Butler was one of the few people who honestly talked about the racket he served. You, on the other hand, lack the basic intelligence and moral fiber to face the truth.

          At least the SS faced some justice for their crimes. Today’s American war criminals feel no remorse, they revel and bask in their own criminality.

        • Oceans. Ships. Heard of those haven’t you? And airplanes? Facts speak for themselves. How many generations has it been since the US suffered invasion? Facts. Harsh, ain’t they.

          Now, jihad jane, before RF decides to cut this thread I’m ending my side in it. You have a nice night and remember. If you value your freedom, thank a vet. 🙂

        • This is great! The US hasn’t been invaded because of the massive military-industrial complex we have. Let’s review:

          – From 1815 to 1941, the US had no standing army to speak of. Number of times invaded: 0
          – From 1941, the birth of the US government world mass murder tour. Number of times invaded: 0

          Never mind the US military hasn’t done anything to defend the nation over half a century at the very least (the last two world wars being of dubious defensive value).

          But forget history and forget the facts, JWM the government animal prefers to parrot mindless militarist soundbites, because that’s all he has left to spew. A dumb government animal can hardly be expected to make intelligent discourse.

    • I never took an arrow to the knee, but Gunny said we were his Special Forces, then he told us that we ride the short bus, wear a helmet and lick the window.

      We all got “Window Licker” tabs at the Haji shop.

    • GROM, Spetnaz and JTF2 are like WTF, yo? We be no operators?

      I think that list can be expanded considerably.

    • Rather than ad hominem attacks on Yeager, how about you answer the question of the day and show an example of a technique he teaches that is a bad tactical move. And the photographer down range is not a tactical move he teaches. Surely you can find one. He has a bozillian videos so it shouldn’t be hard. I found one. See if we agree.

      • Rather than ad hominem attacks on Yeager, how about you answer the question of the day and show an example of a technique he teaches that is a bad tactical move. And the photographer down range is not a tactical move he teaches. Surely you can find one. He has a bozillian videos so it shouldn’t be hard. I found one. See if we agree.

        That is not traditional McCain and definitely not how McCain rolls. McCain doesn’t teach – he only criticizes and insults. The best way to get along with McCain is to agree with whatever he says. His “teaching” is not logic based – it is shame based. Agree with McCain or get shamed.

        • Well if he says “1911’s don’t suck”, we can debate that. But if he says “Yeager is a douchebag”, then we are talking about personality conflicts when we should be discussing tactics that are designed to save your life.
          Unlike the operator hanging from the truck door shooting one handed upside down, Yeager doesn’t make shit up or take credit for his method. He routinely cites other instructors whom he calls his mentors and refers them for instruction. His other rants are based on experience. You don’t have to like or agree with Yeager but he isn’t just pulling opinions out of his ass.

  8. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. I don’t think this is an either/or situation because I would prefer to grab the slide from the rear. The only potential problem with this underslide method is if you reach too far forward. I would not like my hand to be in front of the muzzle — ever.

  9. Yes, well, the one club I visit for IDPA had an incident last summer when a round went off in the shooter’s hand. The shooter had just finished the stage and was given the unload and show clear command when he covered the ejection port with his hand, to catch the round, when the slide slipped forward and the ejector hit the primer causing out an out of battery detonation. While he wasn’t hurt seriously, his hand was bleeding and now the club requires a show clear with the slide locked and the round hitting the ground.

    • I’ve always worried about that with my marlin model 60. The gun feeds really poorly, and sometimes rounds get stuck and nosedive back into the feed tube, when that happens the bolt slams forward on the primer. If you get one that has a bad primer it could cook off a few seconds later and hang fire. I could definitely see how that could happen on a pistol if a centerfire round gets fed in wrong. I haven’t seen one get hit hard enough to detonate yet, but I have seen it happen where there have been nice big dents in the primers.

    • As it should be. Catching the ejected round is stupid for several reasons, most of them directly related to safety.

  10. The absurd-bordering-on-insane excuses made by people who insist that concealing is better than not, in any way, ever…

    • I like to go drop-leg if at all, or “Don Johnson” (cross-draw shoulder-holster with two mags on opposite side) myself. Access/Movement beats concealed (?) won’t know ’til I know.

  11. My favorite are the guys who go full tactical retard, with all the classes and training and equipment, but are still rockin’ out 100+ pounds overweight. I’m not saying you have to be built like an action-movie hero (God knows I’m not), but if you have dreams of being a super-tactical operator, maybe you shouldn’t get winded going up a flight of stairs. All the tactical gear in the world won’t be worth much if your heart explodes at the first sign of stress.

    • Bingo!

      If you’re overweight, you’re not a ninja. Heart attacks and diabetes are going to shorten a lot of “operator” lives. It’s unlikely a burglar will ever darken my door, but high blood pressure and a ridiculous cholesterol levels can’t be stopped with a .45 ACP.

      While I’m being honest, there are quite a few of my cop buddies who are flat out overweight. It looks terrible in uniform. One of our guys wheezes constantly. A 50 yard walk makes him out of breath. We have a pretty decent gym and treadmill at our office – more people need to use it.

      I got “lucky” and just lost about 9 pounds with a flu. I was nauseous for 3 days and had diarrhea for another 2. Unfortunately, I lost some muscle, too.

      Abundant health cannot exist without a good diet and exercise.

      • Yep, absolutely true.

        And it becomes harder to maintain that level of physical conditioning as you get older. If I’m not in the gym for a week, I lose muscle strength much more quickly now than when I was 30. Cardio endurance isn’t lost quite as quickly, but it takes lots of cardio to keep your wind capacity up. Training at elevation helps me, I’ve found.

        As we get older, we all will find that physical exercise is necessary every single day to stay in shape, especially strength training, to prevent loss of muscle mass.

        Diet: I’ve now found that ditching as many complex carbs as possible makes keeping weight off much easier than anything else. Fish, chicken and lean meat are now a large component of my diet.

        • Yeah, I was hiking around Vedauwoo last week and got a real reminder that I’m not 30 anymore. . .

      • Wrong! FBI requirements are 12-18″ If you have 18 inches of chest fat the bullets will expand and stop within the chest fat and cannot pierce vital organs. Being morbidly obese is super tactical. Liquid-gelatinous body armor. Just need to find tactical load bearing vests that will actually fit.

      • Yeah but when me and tubby are buggin out in the Appellations in the middle of January for a month, I will succumb to hypothermia and he will be going strong.

    • But wait, you’re ignoring the tactical advantage of being so fat that bullets cannot penetrate through all your blubber and reach your internal organs…

      • True story! Happened some 30 years ago in Raritan township,NJ when a 400 plus pound guy was shot by multiple officers an surrendered when his own gun ran empty. None of his multiple gun shot wounds were fatal as he had over 12″ of belly fat.

    • Yep, I know I’m a bit guilty of this myself. I’m not really into the tacticool/mall ninja side of things, but I do carry everyday and shoot regularly. I’d do more for my personal safety by losing some pounds and getting fitter than putting more practice rounds downrange.

  12. I don’t have a pet peeve when it comes to operators operating operationally. Silly stuff doesn’t tick me off. I don’t like violations of the Four Rules, but as far as the other stuff is concerned, I don’t really care.

    • +1 in the land of the free it’s none of my business unless you are shooting at me, or I’m paying to tell you how to do it, or we have each other’s back. None of that applies to me and this dude.

      That all said, in the words of ENDO; would not operate with.

  13. Seen a lot of things on TV that are ignorant, but there is one person who I describe as a galactic douche, and that’s Segal. There’s a scene where he is pushing the slide back at or near the tip of the gun or some douchie thing. He rates down in the bottom on an outhouse along with that other knob, Jesse James.

    • Segal apparently picked up the idea somewhere that operators use that technique to determine if there is a round chambered. Since operators only operate 1911’s with no chambered round flag this appears to be a necessary step before operating.

      IMO, it makes about as much sense as opening the cylinder on a revolver to see if you remembered to load it, or partially racking the slid on a shotgun. Sorry, if you don’t remember whether or not you actually loaded your weapon you are NOT an operator.

  14. The out of battery ignition thing happens mostly with 2011s in .40. My understanding is that somehow the primer hits on the extractor or something like that as the guy is trying to unload and show clear while retaining the round with his hand over/near the breach.

    If someone understands this better than I do, feel free to chime in and explain the physics at work here.

  15. At a shoot I saw a 1911 user at the end of each stage he would drop the magazine hit the slide release and pull the trigger with the gun pointed down…then holster… One time he must have missed the mag release button and there must have been a fail to feed on his last round as he put a slug in the gravel a few inches from his right foot… The RO and MD ejected him from not only the match but from the range. I later learned they required some changes in how they defined the “Show Clear” part of their rules… He was ejected under a different rule for having a round impact the dirt within 5 feet of the fireing line
    But his “malfunction”counts as my most recent personal observation of IGOTD

  17. I used to shoot at a free range until I saw a group of guys tactically drinking beer while muzzling people. Decided to join the local Isaak Walton League after that.

    • How would you like to be the responding officer to the 911 report of that guy walking down the street yelling to himself.
      That’s an “oh great” moment.

  19. And I could hardly believe my eyes-future Darwin award(and I don’t believe in macro-evolution)…and don’t try this in slippery weatherLOL…

  21. Do you think anyone took that guy aside and helped him learn how to use his firearm properly?

  22. Dumbest thing I saw ( IMHO). I was watching a show that pitted ancient and/ or famed soldiers or warriors against other warriors through a comp sim. I forget the name of the show, anyways this one particular episode had spetsnaz pitted against rangers ( could’ve been s.f). The spetsnaz was demonstrating their shotgun techniques and was rolling and flipping his way thru the range set up. It looked neat, but there can’t be any advantage to turning your back on an enemy.

  23. Experienced first hand North Idaho’s Finest in CD’A ID police dept and County SO. No less than 9 marked and unmarked units along uniformed and plain clothe LEO’s atleast 12-14 LEOs decide to try and converge on a suspect vehicle with unknown number of perps and weapons. Wrong time wrong place. No less than 20 little league children plus parents,siblings and friends in bleachers along the sidewalk with Atleast 3 other vehicles that were moving along road all pinned in by there wagon wheel approach. There were rifles, pistols and shotguns converging from 360• and no where for atleast 50 plus innocents to go. One vehicle learch or the suspects deciding it might be a good day to die would have put us in a behind vehicle plus all the others in the vicinity F//ked!! This was want to be Operators at there finest and the stupidly of that when and where takedown was the most ignorant thing I’ve ever witnessed by LEO’s Anywhere!!! CD’A ID is home of NIC and its police training college courses sure seemed like they took the whole last years Failing class and Badged them up to try for multi million dollar lawsuit. Needless to say after witnessing this cluster F//k and being in the middle of all those drawn weapons. Idaho was in the rear view mirror within the weeks end. This was a number of years ago but not so long ago that there are still many of those NIC products still on that Force. This is still a head shaker to this day!!

  24. Failure to fire = Don’t eject the round or point the gun anywhere, but down for at least 1-2 minutes. This was nature’s way of telling that man he was being more competitive than safe. This is also why I rack from the back, not the front.

    • Yeah if you are just target shooting. But we are talking “tactical” here. So you need to get your gun back online immediately. You hear “click” you tap rack. The problem was the idiot trying to catch the round. Just clear the gun and go back to shooting. If a live round goes off on the ground or in mid air, the case will fly off and won’t severely hurt anyone. Look up the fire departments tests on fighting fires in an ammo storage building.

    • Really? Because I scan all the time. I mean before I get into a fight. I scan in the Walmart parking lot. I scan at restaurants and bars. I scan when driving. When you get to a four way stop you scan for safety so why not after shooting a gang banger. They have friends too. After I park my car and before I get out, I scan. I would say scanning is just as important as moving.

  27. I don’t get the whole deal against scanning. Some people go full Yeager and do the ballet twirl, which is silly, but there are quite a few advantages to scanning. The biggest is probably searching for cover, with the second main advantage being scanning for more threats.

  28. Stupidest thing I have ever seen, and I’ve seen it more than once, is so called trained police officers standing behind their patrol car with their weapon in hand over the roof of their car.This use of the car puts 2 sheets of glass between their torsos and the bad guys. I realize it isn’t like the window glass in my house, and might even stop a .38 round nose lead slug or 2, but glass should be pretty far down the list of things to use for cover.

  29. Shooting a gamed up 2011 (or 1911), you kind of have to be pretty safe due to parts compatibility concerns and the fact that they are usually set up on the razors edge of refined operation and breaking.

  30. Love the bird head threat scan thingy. Especially when folks pay big money to be taught to do this while blasting away at cardboard baddies at 25yds or less. My next favorite tactical move is running from shooting position to shooting position with a pistol pointing approximately 45 degrees skyward instead of straight out in front of you where in a real tactical situation (read life or death) you might be able to get the gun on target faster than the bad guy.

  32. You can over the top or slingshot without covering the ejection slot.

    Also, dat flinch!
    #learn2shoot

  33. Of all the “tactical maneuvers” I’ve seen, I can only think of the head scan the most where after shooting they’ll scan right-behind, left-behind, and then right again with the extreme head movements.

    I guess I can see some practical use to it but then again…

    • Besides the funny herky jerky movement after the shots, I think learning to fight while carrying a gun is a great idea. You’re not going to get that training down at Adventure Outdoors however.

  37. “Supposedly another competitive shooter had a fail to fire and racked his slide with his hand covering the ejection port to capture the round. The round went off in his hand when he extracted it.”

    Logical fallacy: Misleading vividness.

    Misleading Vividness is a fallacy in which a very small number of particularly dramatic events are taken to outweigh a significant amount of statistical evidence. This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

    1. Dramatic or vivid event X occurs (and is not in accord with the majority of the statistical evidence) .
    2. Therefore events of type X are likely to occur.

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