I own and have carried 1911s, Glocks, and revolvers - but I am left handed, and with the exception of ambidextrous safety levers on my 1911s, none of these guns have (prior to Glock gen5, which I don’t own yet) offer fully left handed controls. You can reverse the mag release button on gen4 Glocks, but you’re still left with a right-handed slide lock/release lever. And to lock the slide back on an empty pistol without a mag in it, I have to transfer the gun to my off hand and do it "right-handed". The ONLY pistol I’ve ever owned that came fully ambidextrous out of the box is my full-sized M&P45 - and even its left handed slide release doesn’t have as positive of a feel as the one on the other side of the pistol.
On my 1911s, I was able to use my trigger finger to reach both the magazine release button and the slide release lever, but it wasn’t as strong a move as finally adopting the method on all of my semiautos of using my off hand to grab the slide over the top at the rear and release it that way. I’m sure that slows down a magazine swap by some fraction of a second with semiautos. And revolver reloads require that I actually transfer the gun to my off hand, push the cylinder open with that hand, reload the cylinder with my shooting hand, close the cylinder with my shooting hand, transfer the gun back to my shooting hand, and resume firing. It’s ridiculous and takes too long, and it’s the primary reason that I don’t EDC a revolver as a primary weapon. Im not complaining, that’s just the way things are if you’re left-handed, but most of you guys have it way too easy and don’t seem to appreciate the convenience you enjoy.
I am seriously considering trading in my gen4 G19 and G17 for their Gen5 equivalents, just so I can get some parity with what right-handed shooters take for granted.
Then maybe I can start whining about small potatoes too.
