Basically, Officer Alstine ends up in a hand to hand ground fight with a suspect that is determined to kill him. The suspect is using a Glock 9mm pistol, and gets one shot into Alstine’s vest before they hit the ground. As they struggle, the suspect puts the Glock to Alstine’s head. Alstine acts quickly and manages to push the the slide of the Glock out of battery so that the suspect pulls the trigger and gets a “click”. The suspect is unable to charge the Glock to get the striker recocked, so he is out of action. Alstine puts his own pistol to the suspects head and gives him the celestial dirt nap.
I thought that this was an interesting example of why a 2nd strike ability can be a good thing.
In this particular scenario, once the slide went back into battery(usually from just the recoil spring power itself), a 2nd strike ability would get the gun back into action. The ammo was not the problem in this scenario, it was that the Glock was out of battery when the suspect pulled the trigger.
Thats amazing how he was able to retain rational thinking with his adrenaline peaking like that.
He showed some serious restraint as well, 52 seconds from first shot until his shot… Not to many men who would offer him the option to drop his gun after being shot and then drawing his own and having a tactical advantage.
This doesn’t really make sense. If it was pushed out of battery as soon as the slide went back into batter the gun would be ready to fire again as the striker would have been recharged. The click would have been the trigger, but again once the slide went back the gun would be ready to fire. The only thing that would have kept the gun from firing would be a bad round. MarkM already said, if it was a bad round second strike wouldn’t have done a thing.
It is odd that on such a pro glock website no one else has pointed this out.
Almost all pistol designs will release the hammer or striker if you make a contact shot on a target so that the barrel unlocks slightly. Usually, the barrel will come close to its full descent position before the slide is far enough rearward to prevent the trigger bar from engaging the sear. So, in that window the hammer/striker will fall and the firing pin is no longer lined up with the primer. I’ve been looking for the video, but someone demonstrated this on a Glock several years ago with only an empty casing and live primer.
Glocks are excellent firearms, and this is a rare scenario. However, it is a scenario which does highlight the benefit of a second strike ability. Whether you feel the need to factor it into your “likely” scenarios for defense is up to you.
What he was getting at, is that the Glock would be ready to fire once the slide goes back into battery, while not a second strike, it is a second chance. Second strike capability would not have helped the Glock to fire that round.
Negative. You guys are not understanding the malfunction.
There is a point between when the slide is closed and the pistol is able to fire…and a point when the slide has retracted far enough to the rear for the cut in the slide to push the trigger bar out of contact with the sear. Between these two points is a grey area. As the slide retracts the cutout in the slide is a ramp which gradually takes the trigger bar out of alignment with the sear. However, this is gradual and the barrel is often fully descended as it unlocks before the trigger bar is taken off line. Therefore, if you pull the trigger in this “grey area”, the trigger bar will still engage the sear and the hammer or striker will fall. However, because the barrel has descended from its closed position, the firing pin or striker will not impact the primer of the cartridge. Therefore, you get a misfire as a result of being out of battery. The only way to recover from this malfunction on a striker fired pistol is to fully charge the weapon again. A pistol with a second strike ability only needs to break contact with what is keeping it out of battery, and the operator only needs to pull the trigger again to resume shooting. This is usually more common with 9mm, .40S&W, and .357sig because of the small rifle primer. The .45acp with the large rifle primer is less prone to this due to a larger area for the firing pin to strike.
Officer Alstine was very lucky that the suspect’s Glock was out of battery in the right spot for this malfunction to occur.
That’s a very unique set of circumstances that would have to be done in an exact sequence to justify a second strike.
The vast majority of the time a second strike is a wasted action.
Sorry… I’m still not convinced second strike ability is anything special.
Hi. This is my first post, and by no means do I claim any expertise…
I have my Glock in-hand (unloaded, of course), and am finding the only point(s) where the striker is able to fall/trigger be pulled without resetting is at full lock-up, and the initial recoiling stage (where the barrel and slide are still locked up while the slide is moving back in firing). Any further (at any part of barrel unlocking) and the trigger bar will not drop the striker, and just reset when put back into battery.
At the mentioned initial recoiling stage, after I dry-fired it and opened the action, it looks like the striker still falls all the way. I’m not saying that there’s no possibility of malfunction (as I have no experience with this very particular scenario), but if it was some firearm-related problem, I don’t think it’s some sort of misaligned primer/striker deal.
I suspect, if there is any problems associated in this stage, it’s the possibility of a light primer strike. The dropping the striker while the gun is held in that initial recoiling stage results in the gun being forced into battery. If Officer Van Alstine was holding the suspect’s gun in that stage, the striker may have lost enough momentum from putting the gun back into battery (under the drag/counter-force of the officer’s hand) that it could not sufficiently impact the primer. However, I’m not too sure of my hypothesis since it’s dependent on how much force it takes to plastically deform the primer, which are specifics I’m ignorant to. As an additional note, gripping the slide very strongly prevents the slide from returning to battery when the striker falls, so maybe it would fire in that instance.
Alstine acts quickly and manages to push the the slide of the Glock out of battery so that the suspect pulls the trigger and gets a “click”. [COLOR=“Olive”]The suspect is unable to charge the Glock to get the striker recocked, so he is out of action. [/COLOR]
This (in green) is bullshit. Yes if you push the slide back it will be out of battery and the trigger will not squeeze and the striker will not impact the primer. But once you push it out of battery and release it, the striker is reset to impact the primer. I tried numerous times to replicate the above mentioned failure and it is impossible for the gun to fail, no matter how many times, it fires each time. The only explanation is that after the bad guy fired the gun it failed to reset the striker to begin with.
I pushed the slide back just enough to take it out of battery, to all the way as far as it will go. I have to add that I do have a Glock 3.5 connector and NY1 spring. I could not replicate this failure, period. Maybe someone with a stock Glock can try as well.
I for one am happy the officer is alive. The story does not match the facts about the way the Glock pistol operates.
I just tried this with a half dozen Glocks, all OEM components, standard connectors, standard coil trigger springs or NY trigger springs. The striker would not release when the gun was OOB, but when the gun returned to battery the gun would fire.
I also tried contact shots on surfaces of different compositions. I released the striker prior to the contact attempt. On contact, I couldn’t get the slide OOB enough to reset the striker unless I deliberately maneuvered and angled the gun in a way that only the slide was in contact with the surface. Otherwise, the dustcover prevented sufficient movement.
Engineered second strike capability may have potential value, but it’s in pretty exceptional circumstances. Failures to fire are primarily caused by missing or unseated magazines, not bad ammo or out of battery slides. The former can only be corrected by a clearance drill. The latter might be correctable by either, but create a decision point and divergent methodology.
It’s not even possible to theorize what actually happened with the pistol unless Jim was able to hold it out of battery until he shot the perp.
He told the story as he remembered it,and it needs to be emphasized that in a fight such as this what actually may have occured may not be EXACTLY what was remembered. The Force Science Institute’s recent newsletters have been covering this phenomena in about 4 or 5 of the last publications. There’s a lot to be learned from their research and everyone would be doing themselves a favor by subscribing to the newsletter. It’s FREE!
There is no second guessing the officer here,we were not there and we are not qualified to make any judgements.
It could even be that GOD had a hand in it,as much as that might PO some people. The fact is the officer was in survival mode and did survive,and the perp went to Hell. That’s all that matters.
This was a fight first and then a gunfight,and that’s the way it usually happens in many,many cases. I am personally thankful that it turned out the way it did,and I will not even begin to try to analyze,theorize,or lose sleep at night trying to figure out what happened with the pistol.It would be an exercise in futility.
I’ve had rounds fire on second strike. this was in an IDPA match and I just pulled the trigger again and it went. my other hand was already moving to my belt for a reload so I don’t see that I lost any time or stand there just clicking the trigger.
these were my 357SIG reloads that I fashioned out of .40 cases and there was a problem with OAL as the round headspaces on the case mouth. it also uses the shoulder and I think the second strike was enough to ignite the primer. I’ve never had a problem with factory ammo and is the reason I bought a .40 barrel which I reload pretty well for IDPA and stopped reloading 357SIG.
I don’t think second strike is a big deal one way or the other but it’s one of those things it’s nice if you got it…