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10-17-2012, 12:27 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck Jones
Dave: Did you come up with your Extended Slide Serration Concept out of the blue or were you influenced by something you had seen in the past? I'm not wanting to take anything away from what you did here but something about it does seem a bit familiar. It was a great idea; too bad it wasn't picked up by the factory at some point. Although I guess we can be grateful, for as you point out, at least some of the Performance Center's attempts to move things in that direction in other ways and in later years have trickled down into S&W's line in general these days.
The sad thing there, I suppose, is that while the factory has, as you say, employed those Performance Center-originating fish scale-like surfaces at the rear of their Enhanced series of 1911's, they have also taken the "belt & suspenders" approach by still including the (now trendy) additional ones at the front! Nothing like attempting to solve one problem while possibly contributing to another.
in general I object to front slide serrations for 2 reasons
a) they chew up and/or stick in good holsters
b) as an instructor I hate encouraging hands to be that close to the muzzle
/c
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Chuck:
Did I wake up one morning and think this up all on my own? No, I’m not that bright.
I saw a definite need for it (the need to keep people’s hands away from the muzzle and to give them a better working surface at the rear of the gun when they were rushed and other things were going on around them) but I have always tried to keep my eyes open for good ideas and inspiration from elsewhere. My father, my father-in-law, the man who broke me in on the job, and a handful of other really good teachers and mentors in my life all taught me the importance of things like that. Whether it was tracking down and arresting someone who would otherwise gotten away or having the good fortune to patent something that the USPTO felt “novel” enough to award its originality with a number, I’m sure that most everything I’ve done was as a result of seeing a “problem”, studying it and being aware of other attempts to solve it or things like it. That and a lot of good luck.
Having shot and sold several Browning Medalists when I was in the business, I always thought that somebody at that company was paying attention to the shooter’s needs by employing a coarser (not cruder) serration pattern that completely covered both sides of the slides (bolts?) of those guns. Obviously not a combat handgun but one that was used in competition, I would like to think that its maker knew the last thing they wanted to encourage was someone fumbling with their pistol in an effort to either open the slide, close it, or somehow clear the gun when they were either nervous or affected by the pressures and time constraints of a match.
Those guns were still being made when I first got serious about all of this stuff and I do remember when they were actually introduced and made popular. But I wasn’t old enough when they first came out to really appreciate (or now, even remember) how they were initially advertised or presented so I don’t know if they made a big deal out of this feature or not. With the way the original grips come up so high and are so full (wide) across the area just below this component, I think that somebody must have seen that there would be at least some issues with thicker-fingered people accessing it even under field conditions. But to be honest, I don’t know if they ever called the fully serrated slide (bolt) to people’s attention within the factory materials.
It should be noted that the same approach was also taken with the original Browning Challengers and Nomads of that period. So that raises the question of whether it was done for a functional/user-benefitting reason (as I would like to think) or, just as likely, for manufacturing (same or similar parts; or similar manufacturing methods) or marketing (“it just looks cool” or “because it’s unique, everybody will know it’s a Browning”) reasons instead. All three options are possible but I am also cynical enough to think that it could have been just a whim of the designer, with the end user benefiting merely by luck and not good intentions. Who knows!
In the case of our guns at Smith, we were still using a conventional (traditional) short, rear-position serration pattern on our pistols when I tried out this approach. People were already beginning to teach front gripping techniques to manually cycle the slides (and some custom gunsmiths, not the S&W factory) were beginning to add serrations at the front of the slide to facilitate and even encourage this and it concerned me a great deal. So that’s why I was experimenting with different approaches that I thought would be safe and still help out.
Hell, even John Browning and Colt thought about this at the beginning of the 20th Century when their long barreled (long slide) 1900 Model appeared on the scene as I believe the second batch saw the rear serrations moved to the front so that there was less chance of user interference with the rear sight safety found on those guns. Things got even more interesting with the also very long-slided Model 1902 (Military?) where some of the earliest versions actually have checkered frontal areas instead of serrations to make them more effective! It’s a knowledge (or at least an awareness) of stuff like that, that has always been helpful to me in my work.
Furthermore, while concerns over covering the ejection port with the hand during such manual operation are the main reason for an illustrated article in Issue #14 of the Smith & Wesson Academy Training Newsletter from December of 1989, it also touches on the front grasping method for such things and carries an “All Caps” emphasized warning about using it. So it is pretty obvious that employing this technique (and being concerned about it) was something that was being recognized in other portions of the company as well.
It is also interesting to note that same article illustrates a rear grasping method that is not only effective in general (in controlling the slide, keeping the palm and fingers away from the port, and keeping any slide-mounted levers in the position they started out in) but is a procedure that would have benefitted greatly from this rear-of-the-slide-face to the rear-of-the-port serration pattern seen on my experiment from the roughly the same time.
As to seeing things in other parts of this industry that I thought should have crossed over into better and extended applications of their original use that was, and still is, something that intrigues me. Maybe someday, I’ll post something in The Lounge section of this site about how when I was involved in the rifle sling business pretty seriously, I always thought there was a lot to learn from Biathlon shooters. For while everybody (including me in those days) was working feverishly to improve things for the Tactical Community, I figured that hunters (especially those in the western and mountain states where I lived at one time) could have benefitted a great deal from the hands-free, out-of-the-way but extremely-fast-to-employ slings used in those Olympic events. Such a design would have allowed the more energetic users to climb around a lot more with the gun basically tight, but comfortable across their back. Yet it would have been just as fast for them to employ as it was for those people who race to a stop, jump into position and shoot against the clock.
I’d still like to give that another look if I ever get the time. For the experiments we ran back then were pretty interesting.
Anyway, I hope I answered your question and I want you to know that having been in the holster business for as long as I was, I fully agree with you in regard to front slide serrations being an issue in regard to either holster wear or undesirable holster contact and adhesion. For with some models, they can actually affect both the draw and reholstering of the gun under stress. That’s another reason I really don’t like them.
You take care.
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