Is Your Semi-Auto Designed to Fail When You Need It Most?

Semi-automatic handguns have been around for well over a hundred years.  They were able to store and deliver more rounds of ammunition than the well-established revolvers at the time.  Revolvers typically store between 5 and 8 cartridges in a rotary magazine, called a cylinder.  The shooter’s finger provides the power necessary to advance the next round into position for firing.  With semi-automatic pistols, the cartridge itself provides the power necessary to advance the next round into firing position.

The mechanism that allows semi-autos to function properly relies on a simple law of physics that we were all taught in school. Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion is summed up as “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. This is not a suggestion, nor a hypothesis, nor a theory.  It’s a law.  It works for everything in the universe, all the time, from paper clips, to planets, to pistols.

The engineers that designed your semi-auto happen to know about Newton’s Third Law.  They know that the action, the bullet flying out the barrel, will produce a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the rest of the pistol.   This means the entire gun wants to fly backwards at the moment the bullet is launched.

If the gun can be prevented from flying backwards, perhaps by the mass of a shooter standing behind the gun, then that means the opposite and equal force can be applied to a moveable slide.  There must be enough of that opposite and equal force to move the slide back to its rearward-most position in order to properly eject the spent cartridge and load a new one into the chamber.  The rearward movement of the slide is opposed by a recoil spring.  That spring stores the energy of the rearward-moving slide, and releases that energy by forcing the slide forward again.

So, here’s the catch: Many things can happen during the firing process that can take energy away from the slide and spring, especially in a true self-defense application, where the firearm may be discharged in a hurried and panicked manner.  If the shooter inadvertently absorbs some of the recoil energy by not holding the firearm solidly, or by shooting with bent elbows, or by limp-wristing the firearm, or many other possibilities, then the energy meant for the slide and the spring may fall short.  The gun goes click and not bang. The shooter is then confronted with conducting a clearing drill, while panicked and trying to fend off an attacker. That’s a scenario very unlikely to work out well for the shooter.

A revolver can successfully be fired repeatedly even if the shooter absorbs much of the recoil energy.  There is no reliance upon an “opposite and equal reaction” to fire additional rounds.  If a revolver goes click, the shooter can just keep pressing the trigger.  Physics doesn’t lie.  If your life actually depends on a firearm going bang every time the trigger is pulled, then physics dictates the most reliable style of firing mechanism available.