To lock open or not....?

[David M]

On a ISSF pistol do you want it to lock open on last shot or not ?
What do you think.....

[william]

NOT. Do you care why?

[BobGee]

Yes William, very interested. I'd prefer lock open. How the gun behaves after the last shot has exited the barrel seems to me to be immaterial.

Bob

[william]

Actually 2 reasons:
1. "How the gun behaves after the last shot" has no bearing on where the bullet lands, but there is something to be said for having every shot feel the same.

B. Die Schadenfreude knowing that somebody somewhere is damaging his breech face and possibly firing pin by squeezing off a nonexistent sixth shot. Euro pistols must be at lesser risk because I remember Rapid-Fire shooters, wanting every shot to feel exactly the same, shooting empty pistols (which didn't lock back) at imaginary 6th targets.

[David Levene]

I prefer it not to lock open, Standard/Rapid Fire, so that I can fire a "sixth" shot.

[rmca]

Not lock open:

- Same feel every shot.
- Same follow through on every shot.
- Less moving parts on the pistol = more reliability = less stuff that can go wrong
- Ability to fire a "sixth" shot (rapid/standard)
- Lock open is only necessary if you have to reload on the clock. You don´t reload on ISSF pistol.

Hope this helps

[eugene]

Lock open is useful when you need to flag/show safe after each string. Perhaps not that much a concern with ISSF but nice to have when you use the gun for other events where you have to.

[william]

Lock open is useful when you need to flag/show safe after each string. Perhaps not that much a concern with ISSF but nice to have when you use the gun for other events where you have to.

You can still lock it open manually after a string to "show safe." It's no great burden.

[eugene]

You can still lock it open manually after a string to "show safe." It's no great burden.

It's certainly not impossible (even on my Margolin that has no slide lock). Just not as handy.

On my part it's not something to choose the gun over though.

[atomicgale]

. . . so that I can fire a "sixth" shot.

[jliston48]

Yes William, very interested. I'd prefer lock open. How the gun behaves after the last shot has exited the barrel seems to me to be immaterial.

Bob

---except for trying to "call the shot" on the last shot of the 5-shot series. The recoil/overall feel after the last shot is very different when it locks open - and therefore makes calling the fall of shot on the target a difficult task.

[BobGee]

Yes William, very interested. I'd prefer lock open. How the gun behaves after the last shot has exited the barrel seems to me to be immaterial.

Bob

---except for trying to "call the shot" on the last shot of the 5-shot series. The recoil/overall feel after the last shot is very different when it locks open - and therefore makes calling the fall of shot on the target a difficult task.

Good point!

Bob