Any way to make the slide less stiff to operate? Wife has arthritis and she has trouble with the slide. It is a new 1911.

With a 1911 pattern pistol the truthful answer is no. You could put in a lighter recoil spring but you would have to use reduced loads. The easiest slide that I have experienced is the Beretta 92, but it has to be held correctly or it will jam ( no limp wristing). If it was my wife I would get her a .22 revolver. Good luck

Cock the hammer first. There is no reason in normal operation that the hammer on a 1911 ever need be uncocked. The slide will operate MUCH easier if the hammer is already cocked.

In addition, the original design by John M. Browning incorporated a short recoil spring guide rod and a bushing, which by design, allows the cavalry soldier to cock the weapon one handed by running the slide. Replace that silly full length guide rod with a standard GI version and then the slide can be operated to cock the hammer by pushing the slide forward against a hard surface using the space under the barrel.

This is one answer to this problem. Another is to get her a 9mm 1911 pattern pistol. The reduced energy produced by a 9mm means that a lighter recoil spring will function just fine.

The final part of the solution is proper technique, which is the Overhand Squeeze Method. See the following web site for a description on this. Unfortunately no videos but with a bit of reading and referring to the pics you should be able to figure it out.

http://www.corneredcat.com/article/r...ack-the-slide/

BTW, it's not just women who suffer the effects of Arthritis. I have it in both thumbs with my right hand being the worst. Most days I can't even contemplate using a pinch grip on any of my semi's but using the overhand squeeze is dead simple and totally painless.

I see I forgot to paste up the web site, that's been corrected.

Scooter123, I found this, is it what you meant.
Women how to cock handgun - YouTube

If it slides--grease it.
If it rotates--oil it.
As said before--cock the hammer first.
Good luck with the new pistol.

To an extent yes. However I hold the pistol a bit higher and use my fingertips and the heel of my hand to grasp the slide. Then it's a simple matter of scissoring the 2 hands in sort of a squeezing process. Since no thumb is involved with gripping the slide it's been totally painless for me.