Would you and 2hard drive please tell me what “limp wristing” is.
Is this not holding the weapon firmly enough? Can you hold it firmly enough with just one hand or do you always have to use both hands?
Thanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limp_wristing
“Limp wristing is a term used to describe a phenomenon commonly encountered by semiautomatic pistol shooters, where the shooter’s grip is not firm enough to hold the frame of the pistol steady while the bolt or slide of the pistol cycles. This condition often results in a failure to complete the operating cycle, called a jam. Rifles and shotguns, if fired without the stock in the shoulder, may also be prone to limp wristing.”
You can one-hand a semiauto, but you need to lock your wrist so that your hand and arm (and therefore the firearm) ride up under recoil as a unit - this gets more important the lighter the pistol and the heavier the caliber. Two hands is better.
If you allow your hands or wrist to absorb too much of the recoil, you can have this problem. You can shoot with one hand if you keep a firm grip and wrist. You’ll have the most problem with your non-dominant hand. You should always practice two and one-handed shooting....right and left. You never know when it may be necessary.
Limpwristing is just as it sounds, not having a firm grip and a locked wrist...poor technique.
Limp wristing [written in non-technical terms]:
When the handgun fires, the slide uses the explosion from the gunpowder to move backwards, and as the slide moves backwards, the spent casing is ejected from the barrel. The slide then moves forwards to pick up a new round from the magazine and lift it up and forward into the barrel.
If the grip is not stiff, then the movement of the slide back and forwards is not crisp, causing the slide to have problems carrying out its two main functions [ejecting spent casing; inserting new round].
I have never had a problem with one hand shooting; and one hand shooting is very common among target shooters. One just needs to have a firm, not crazy tight, just firm, grip.
Ever shake hands with someone who has a limp grip? That’s the type of grip that will cause problems.
Most semiauto handguns eject by the recoil pushing the slide back, separating it from the firmly-held frame. If the frame is not firmly held, the frame moves back too and the two parts do not sufficiently separate. A stiff wrist makes this work correctly. A limp wrist will not work - either not ejecting at all, or just enough for the shell to get stuck between frame and slide, open end up (stovepipe).
You've probably had several answers to your question by now but I thought I'd throw my two cents in too. Most (but not all) semiautomatic pistols use Newtons third law of motion ( for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) and allow the slide to move reward and eject the recently fired cartridge case. This reward motion compresses the "recoil" spring which returns the slide back to its original (battery) position while stripping a fresh cartridge from the magazine and pushing it into the just emptied chamber. With hammer fired pistols the slide also re-cocks the hammer readying the pistol for the next shot.
If the pistol is not held firmly the "opposite reaction force" moves the entire pistol backward which absorbs some of the energy that would have normally driven the slide all the way back. Thus the slide only moves far enough back to strip the fired case and begin to eject it when the slide starts forward prematurely, trapping the case in the ejection port. It usually sticks out at a right angle and looking rather like a "stovepipe", hence the name.
Notice I said most but not all pistols use recoil energy to power the cyclic action of the slide. I can think of at least one gas operated semi-automatic pistol. Gas operation taps some of the expanding gas behind the projectile through a port in the barrel and applies it to a piston to work the action independent of recoil forces. It is most commonly employed for semi/fully automatic rifles.
The one example was the original Automag pistol in .44 Magnum. I do not own one and wish I could find one for sale. I have an Automag III in .30 M1 Carbine which is recoil operated and a totally revised design compared to the original Automag .44.
Anyone else know examples of a gas operated pistol?
Regards,
GtG