Effects of semi-automatic pistol slide pull device on law-enforcement racking process

• Published in: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Vol. 66; no. 1; pp. 903 - 907
• Main Authors: Stone, Richard, Kim, Joseph, Xu, Cong, Mgaedeh, Fatima, Fales, Colten, Westby, Braden
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.09.2022
• Subjects: pistol design; movement time; Law-enforcement officer; racking error; slide racking
• ISSN: 2169-5067; 1071-1813; 2169-5067
• DOI: 10.1177/1071181322661456

Under life-threatening circumstances, the interaction between law enforcement officers and pistol slides during the racking and reloading process is critical to survival. Nine expert law-enforcement officers were recruited to investigate the effects of slide pull devices on application time and performance using semi-automatic pistols. Participants were asked to manually rack both standard and augmented slide pull devices and then clean three magazines. Videos and times were recorded to compare the slide types. Using a Welch’s t-test, no racking time difference between standard and augmented (p=0.9756) was found, but there is a slightly statistically significant difference in error rate (p=0.0765), with the augmented slide causing fewer errors. Additionally, seven of the nine officers preferred the augmented to the standard slide. Despite the lack of statistical significance with an α-level of.05, the biomechanical differences between slides and user preferences may indicate that slide types can augment participants’ performances to be more precise.