A step-by-step guide to safely unloading a semi-automatic handgun. Turn your body 90 degrees, remove the magazine with your thumb on the release, then engage the slide lock by lifting it with your right thumb while pulling the slide back with your left hand. A common mistake is forcing the slide back while the lock is engaged, which can pinch your hand and cause injury.
Okay. All right, so you're done shooting, or ceasefire has been called, and you need to unload your gun. Left hand comes off, take a step so you're 90 degrees. What does this do, and why are we doing this? Because the most common thing that you'll see is people breaking the always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction, and they'll go like this to look at their gun. If I simply take this half step, I'm working with my body to keep the ergonomics so I'm not wrestling as much. If I'm going to unload my gun, I'm going to take the magazine out first. So I want to get my index finger away from the trigger area. I did that by holding onto the bottom with my left hand so my hand can move, my right hand can move easily. I got my thumb to the magazine release. I'm going to push the magazine release so I can take this out. Always put it behind you, like to your hip or something. It doesn't matter, just don't reach in front of the gun to put your magazine down. So come here because you want to see this. So now this is my slide lock, and it's going to go up towards my slide. I need to get my right thumb under it and figure out where I have some leverage. So now if you come over this side and kind of that way. I'm going to put my left hand here. I'm going to pull this all the way back. I push this up, and notice it's not in sp— in its right place until I let go. Um, one of the most important things is if you're out here and it doesn't work, just let go, because if you try to go back with the slide this way, there's this horrible hole right here that will pinch your hand. And that's how I have that black mark on my hand, because that's a blood blister from getting pinched in there showing someone what not to do. So that is slide lock.
