Many potential handgun owners are deterred by inexperience. They suffer fear of embarrassment because they are not even sure how to load or fire the gun. Fear not my friends, because it is not as complicated as you may think. With that, here is a simple guide to teach you how to load and operate a pistol.

HOW TO: Loading and Operating a Pistol

Once you’re ready and on the range, load up a magazine. The first thing we will do is look at two ways of loading and chambering a round. First, we will work a “slide closed” position. When you are ready, hold your pistol in your dominant hand firmly and the magazine in the other. Hold the magazine firmly with your index finger touching the tip of the bullet that is on top. We do this because it is a secondary method of making sure the magazine has rounds in it. Laugh if you will, but once you get up to speed and start training, you may grab an empty mag from your pouch that you inadvertently put in there.

Now, have the gun in front of your chest at a comfortable distance (your “workspace”), and tilt the mag well towards the hand that has the magazine. Move your magazine towards the mag well of the pistol and guide it in with your index finger. Once it’s going into the mag well, move your index and firmly push the magazine into the pistol. You will feel and hear a click once the magazine is seated. Next up is to rack the slide and chamber the first round. Hold the grip with your dominant hand and cup the slide near the rear firmly. At the same time, push the grip forward and pull the slide back. Once the slide comes all the way back, release the slide and your pistol is now ready to fire.

Loading a Pistol From Slide-Lock

Now we will look at loading the gun from slide-lock. This is when the slide is either manually put into lock, or locked by itself because you ended up with an empty magazine. All of the steps are going to be identical except for the final one. Here I will give you two options for getting the slide forward. Load the mag into the gun just as we previously stated. Once the mag is seated, you can do one of two things.

First, you can just rack the slide as we did above. It works on every single semi-auto pistol. Our second option is to use the slide lock lever. To close the slide this way, we simply use either thumb and depress the slide lock lever. This will release the slide and it will allow the slide to run forward and put the gun in battery. This is a faster technique but may not work if you have very small hands or a pistol with a slide lock that is very firm or placed far forward.

Getting on the Trigger

Now that we have round in the gun, it’s time to do some shooting. Today we will just look at the mechanics. Later we will discuss the finer details of accuracy. A majority of modern pistols do not have an external safety on them. However, your chosen gun may indeed have one. It is purely a personal choice of which style you choose. Let’s start with guns without an obvious mechanical safety. These guns still have safeties, but they are built into the blade of the trigger. Get your good grip on the gun. For more details on this, visit an earlier article where we talked about it in depth.

Now point the pistol at your target and move your trigger finger onto the trigger. With a smooth continuous motion, press the trigger to the rear. The gun will now fire and automatically cycle, loading another round. For guns that have a safety, we just add one small step. As you raise the pistol to your target, use your strong-side thumb to press the safety down and deactivate it. Now we press the trigger in the same fashion.

Unloading the Pistol

Now we are loaded and shooting, but unfortunately, we will need to eventually unload the gun as well. To accomplish this, we bring the pistol back into our workspace and use our strong-side thumb to press the magazine release. Use your support hand to catch the mag and stow it. Now we are going to use generally the same motion on the side that we used to load it. Grip it firmly and rack the slide at least three times. You will see the cambered round eject and fall to the floor. Now pull the slide all the way to the rear and visually inspect the chamber. Make absolutely sure there is no round in the gun.

Now look down the mag well to make certain there is no magazine in the gun. Once you have accomplished this, let the slide go forward. The gun is now unloaded. Just a reminder, however, to always treat every firearm as if it is loaded. This will help you to avoid a potentially tragic event.

If we follow a good process and focus on safety, operating a handgun is simple. Ultimately if you are uncomfortable, I encourage you to seek professional training. In time it will become second nature and you can begin to focus on the finer details of shooting.