diff --git a/requests/core.py b/requests/core.py
index c7726c22d6..ee5162dce2 100644
--- a/requests/core.py
+++ b/requests/core.py
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ def _get_opener(self):
                 cookie_handler = urllib2.HTTPCookieProcessor(cookiejar)
                 _handlers.append(cookie_handler)
 
-            _handlers += get_handlers()
+            _handlers.extend(get_handlers())
             opener = urllib2.build_opener(*_handlers)
             return opener.open