Parts of a Glock 17

It's called the slide.

By the way, if you're not familiar with guns, you might want to have someone who is read that part of whatever story you're working on. Any kind of mistake involving a gun is one of those things that people love to pounce on (I think often just to show their own supposed expertise). Most of the time you don't really have to go in to that much details about a gun unless it's important to the story.

Glock 17 doesn't have a safety! Nor does it have a hammer, unlike most other automatics.

Yes, as alleycat said, you pull back the slide, and release it. Please don't make the mistake of having a character pull it back, then ride it forward, like you see so often in the movies.

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]YouTube video showing inner workings of a Glock, complete with technical data, labeled parts:[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vdBmsC4VCc&feature=related[/FONT]

frankiebrown said:

Are there any slang names for it?

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"Racking the slide."

Drachen Jager said:

Glock 17 doesn't have a safety! Nor does it have a hammer, unlike most other automatics.

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In one of my books, I have a character who at one point cocks the hammer of his S&W automatic.

Later, in final revisions, I decided to change the gun to a Glock, as more appropriate. Easy -- search and replace, and it was done.

You don't think I heard about that?

Very embarrassing -- esp since I actually own a Glock.

I agree with alleycat that you should have a shooter check the parts of your book that deal with guns for accuracy. I'm not trying to be rude, if you don't know what a "slide" is, you likely wouldn't catch any other mistakes in terminology, how guns work, or how people use them.

As far as other terms for "chambering a round" two common ones are:

"racking the slide" (as was mentioned)
"working the action" (not as common, but used sometimes)

Both can be past tense as well. "I grabbed my Glock out of the safe and racked the slide to load a round"

Btw, "worked the action" will also work when talking about rifles or shotguns that have a different mechanism than pistols and don't have a slide.

I've always gone with "chamber a round" or "rack the slide" for pretty much every semi-auto. Only occasional variation would be "check the chamber" but that really only makes sense in certain situations.

And, if I can hijack this thread with a related question , what would the term be for the action on a semi-auto or full-auto rifle?

Chamber a round is obviously an option but I've also used "did something with bolt" (either racked or worked).

In some cases that seems okay (say, AK-style where you're actually touching the bolt) to my uninformed ears but others, less so. Particularly AR-family rifles and others where chambering a round doesn't actually involve human contact with the bolt itself. Charging handle & bolt release respectively are the two terms I've heard most often but I'm woefully under-informed on the terminology of what the entire loading procedure is called.

The Glock 17 does have a safety. It's that little lever on the trigger. It also has two internal safeties designed to prevent unintentional discharge.

And if you get one from Germany, it will probably have a thumb safety, as well.

Some European countries carry without a round chambered. Most carry with a round chambered, and there is no racking the slide before you use it. The last thing you want to do is have to rack the slide when trouble starts. It takes two hands to do this, and in real life situations, there's a good chance one hand isn't going to be available.

Contrary to what you see on TV, anything except a double action, such as a Sig, is carried cocked and locked, or combat ready. A 1911 does have an external hammer, but you carry it with hammer cocked and thumb safety on.

The XD and XDMs are much like the Glock, and are rapidly become even more popular in many circles.

Jamesaritchie said:

The Glock 17 does have a safety. It's that little lever on the trigger. It also has two internal safeties designed to prevent unintentional discharge.

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Not a typical safety, not in the sense that a writer has to worry about a safety in their story, you wouldn't write "I disengaged the safety." or anything like that. Simply pulling the trigger disengages the safety. The OP is not a firearms person, so I was trying to keep it simple.

And while you're being nitpicky, Glocks have two internal safeties, both of which are disengaged by a normal trigger pull, and are simply designed to prevent a misfire if the trigger is depressed accidentally, and it also (since 2003) has a key-lock mechanism as an option, which freezes the entire action of the pistol and prevents disassembly as well.