Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Buffalo Bore on the Mountain Gun

I have never owned one the mountain guns but a friend of mine has one in 45 colt. I have shot it and made a handload for it so he could carry it in bear country. It is a nice carry piece.

That guy is kinda hard for me to track, noticed that when watching a previous video of his.

So I have what I’m sure is a dumb question. I’ve owned revolvers for 50 years, but never a semi-auto and best I can remember have only fired one 3 times in my life. But here goes.

Tim talks about a Glock misfiring when someone held the muzzle against the hide of the bear. I can understand why that would prevent it from cycling, but why would it keep the cartridge in the chamber from firing?

Pushes the slide out of battery. Just holding the gun against the bear would not do that. It would take a little force jamming the gun tightly to the bear to make that happen.

Pushing the slide out of battery - does that mean causing a misalignment between the slide and frame?

Thanks!

Empty Glock 19 for example. First picture if the work...empty gun pressed against my palm. Slide is far enough out of battery it will not go off. Note the difference in the rear of the slide in the two pictures. With a Glock it doesn't take much since the barrel protrudes slightly out of the slide.

Ah, got it thanks. Is that something specific to Glocks are other pistols as well?

Glock pistols use a connector ("disconnector" according to others), which basically connects the trigger to the striker only when the slide is in battery. Move the slide and the connector moves out of a groove and no longer connects the trigger/striker - the pistol won't fire. That's every modern semi auto, not just Glock. The parts might have different names and configurations in other pistols, but the result is the same.

Pretty much any modern auto will do it.

Agree. I've done that with a Glock 42 making contact with a water jug, and it fired and blew up the jug due to the blast. The gun even ejected the fired case and chambered the next round.

In addition, some guns are built with a "stand off" feature to lessen the chance of an out-of-battery failure to fire on a contact shot. For example, the Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 2.0 has a guide rod that protrudes a slight bit beyond the frame and slide. If pressed squarely against a solid object the gun will not go out of battery. The gun can still be pressed out of battery, but it requires either the gun to be at an angle to the object or the object against which it is pressed to be of a shape that allows it.

Simple knowledge of the fact that a semi-auto can go out of battery on a contact shot can allow one to modify tactics very slightly to preclude this. Worst case you can press your thumb against the back of the slide and force the slide forward to get a single shot, but pulling the gun back a bit is easier.

Another problem with a semi-auto that can occur is if the rearward traveling slide is short-blocked enough not to allow full rearward travel. I know a deputy sheriff that got jumped by three meth heads one night and ended up on his back with one of the bad guys sitting on top of him punching him in the face while the other two chitheads stood and kicked him from each side. The deputy managed to get his Glock .40 out of the holster and around between him and the guy sitting over him and fired a shot which connected with the bad guy's chest. The shot meth head lunged off to the side and the other two backed off, though still threatening the deputy. The deputy held them at gunpoint until help arrived. Later at some point, he turned his attention to his gun he realized the gun had failed to eject the fired case and chamber a new round. The gun had been held so closely to his chest that when he fired the slide came back, hit him in the chest short of the travel stroke needed to fully eject the case, and went forward rechambering the fired case. It "short-stroked" because the slide couldn't go back far enough to complete its normal firing cycle. Something to be aware of.

As it pertains to bears in many cases you just don't get an opportunity to mag dump a semi auto. Bear attacks happen very fast and your lucky to get the gun in play and a few rounds off.

And that don’t happen with revolvers! A good argument to bring back revolvers for police use and keep them in the bear woods.

https://darkhourdefense.com/collections/STAND-OFF-DEVICES

Then there is this, The Stand Off Device.

You can disable a revolver by merely grabbing the cylinder, preventing rotation. You can't even make it fire with a two hand trigger depress.

There have also been situations of tying up guns with a gap behind the trigger with a finger, one advantage of a 1911.
But yes, the slide out of battery messes them up too.

It's a terrible argument for equipping police with revolvers. How many cops have been killed because their guns were out of battery on contact shots. It's a simple training issue, and any cop who is worried about it can carry a J frame backup.

The same rationale applies to bears. Training issue. I carry a semi-auto.

I’m a revolver guy that loves revolvers. Carried both professionally for decades & was in charge of training for professionals on both.

But the vast majority of pro revolver arguments I see are silly and stupid.

The only real advantage to them in general is power potential for similar sized weapons. Everything else I see brought up a lot is either remote & hypothetical or just plain wrong.

The revolver is not ammo dependant for function.

Thats another real advantage beyond power potential.

Some of the best bullet shapes are limited to function in an auto and any improvement in output is negated by a magazine or increased pressures when seating deeper to function in a magazine.

Bullet weight limits is another revolver advantage that ties in with the above.

The auto is ogive dependent to a degree the revolver is not.

I love revolvers just as much as anyone. However I had a flake of unburned power lock up a security 6.

Throw a revolver in the sand or Glock and see which one works.