Handgun safety styles - Discuss pros and cons.

[Plato]

...In every AD/ND that I have read about, at least one of the four rules was disregarded. The only safety that will prevent that AD/ND from happening is the one between your ears.

Amen

The overwhelming majority of so called Accidental Discharges involve a Negligent disregard of the 3rd Rule of Firearms Safety, namely -keep the trigger finger straight and out of the trigger guard until you're on target ready to fire.

This 3rd rule should be set into one's muscle memory which is best achieved through a good intense training course working from the holster. Most folks who fear the gun's safeties or lack thereof -are simply in need of training. Put it this way -you don't know what you need to know until you know it

[Excaliber]

Magazine Safety – this is a device that prevents the pistol from firing if a magazine is not in place. Standard Browning Hi-Powers and many Smith and Wesson automatics have them. The idea behind this device is that we fallible human beings, in one of our dimmer moments may assume the pistol is unloaded if the magazine is removed. We all know, or should know, that there could still be one in the chamber. There is some merit in such a safety and I feel confident that it has prevented some injuries or deaths. The down sides are only two. One is that it affects the trigger pull (not true in all models) and that during a tactical reload, it leaves you with a gun that will not shoot until you get the fresh magazine inserted. If you know how to properly perform a tactical reload, this time period would be less than a second so I don’t see that as a big issue. The benefit of a magazine safety is that the pistol remains non-functioning until a magazine is inserted. This allows you, in a struggle, to pop the magazine out so that your weapon cannot be used against you. This also allows you to store the pistol in one place and the magazine in another, but still in close enough to make the pistol fully operational in a matter of seconds. For instance the pistol could be on a closet shelf, but the magazine in a certain coat pocket. You would be betting that the magazine safety does work, and that no one will find where you stashed the magazine. I know one person, who when he has to leave his pistol in his vehicle, takes out the magazine and puts it in his pocket so that if they vehicle was stolen, the crook would not immediately have a functioning firearm.

This magazine "safety" is the one that requires you to have a magazine in the weapon during tear-down so that you can drop the hammer after clearing the weapon. I have a 22-45 Ruger that has this type of "safety" on it, and IMHO all it does is force a violation of the rules of gun safety. I'm a believer in not having ammunition and feeding devices (aka magazines) on hand for cleaning handguns. The magazine "safety" requires that I violate this guideline as well as Rule 3. I would agree with you that it may have its place, but I don't think handguns are the right place.

As to the other types of safeties, I would generally agree that your analysis is on target. I would encourage anyone who hesitates to leave one in the pipe to load their weapon, engage the safety (or safeties), and place that weapon on a flat surface that will remain undisturbed and see how long it takes for the safety to disangage and for the handgun to fire. I suspect you'll be waiting an exceedingly long time.

In every AD/ND that I have read about, at least one of the four rules was disregarded. The only safety that will prevent that AD/ND from happening is the one between your ears.

If you read the ND accounts carefully (and I haven't seen any AD's - they're ALL ND's) , you'll likely find that in virtually all such cases at least two rules were violated - usually 2 and 3. There are probably others that involve just rule 3 (keep the finger out of the trigger guard until the gun is aligned with a verified target and a decision has been made to fire), but unless Rule 2 (never point the muzzle at anything you're not willing to destroy) is also violated, the damage usually consists mainly of embarrassment and that doesn't make the news.

[CompVest]

Trigger Face Safety – this is a device that prevent the trigger from moving back unless the bar or hinge on the face of the trigger has been depressed. If a pistol with such a safety were dropped, something would have to hit just the right spot on the trigger to make the gun discharge. I don’t think they work all that well. The ones on a Glock or XD are pretty good, but the one on the Smith and Wesson M&P and Sigma are a joke. On these, if anything caught the lower half of the trigger the piece will fire. I feel most pistols don’t need them, but as long as they don’t affect the trigger pull, I suppose they are a benefit.

I have found the M&P trigger to be every bit a safe as any safe action gun. I have not found any evidence to support that the M&P design is any less effective or safe then the Glock. It performs exactly the same function as the Glock just with a different design.

[TEX]

I can understand a concern about having to put a magazine in the gun during cleaning to get the hammer released, but I have never had to do this with several guns I have owned that had magazine safeties. I have always been able to push in the required lever or button with a tool to drop the hammer if I wanted to, but the hammer does not always have to be down on all models to dissemble them.

De-cocking levers on many guns, like Sigs, are not incorporated into the manual safety. Some like S&Ws are incorporated on some models. If I remember right the safety mounted on the slide was on safe when it was all the way up, in fire when it was in mid position or parallel with the barrel, and functioned as a spring loaded de-cocker when pushed all the way down. I think some Beretta and Taurus autos work this way also. They fell out favor I believe when it became common knowledge that double action to single action pistols could be carried safely without the manual safety engaged. In my opinion a gun that starts as double action really doesn’t need a manual safety. If this were true, then why aren’t they on revolvers?

As mentioned by someone else, the de-cocker doesn’t just let the hammer fall, but also limits the fall or puts a block in front of the hammer so it can’t actually touch the firing pin. I never have felt completely comfortable with de-cockers and always hold the hammer between by finger and thumb to let it down slowly when de-cocking. Probably completely unnecessary, but I did it that way anyway if the piece is still loaded. The difference between a safety and a decocker is that a manual safety prevents the hammer from falling at all, whereas the decocker forces the hammer to fall, but does so without letting the hammer contact the firing pin. I have only seen de-cockers on DA-2-SA autos.

There are also half cock notches that act somewhat like a safety as it keeps the hammer just off the firing pin so that a blow to the hammer will not transmit that force to the firing pin and possibly cause an AD. Modern drop safeties have pretty much eliminate the need for these, although 1911 do still have one that is designed to catch the hammer if in a very, very rare occasion the cocked hammer should be jarred off the notch.

Generally I am not in favor of slide mounted safeties because they are hard to reach and can be inadvertently placed on safe when manually cycling the slide either while loading or clearing a malfunction.

I like grip safeties, manual thumb safeties and drop safeties. Magazine safeties I can take or leave, but I can see where in some situations, they might be very desirable. I don’t know if I mentioned it earlier, but most drop safeties only disengage after the trigger has been moved a certain distance rearward, except for the Kimber in which I believe the drop safety is deactivated with the grip safety.

[TEX]

To CompVest,

I must respectfully disagree. No doubt the M&P trigger safety is more comfortable and ergonomic that either the Glock or XD (in my opinion), but I believe the latter ones to be superior, safety wise, in this regard. In order to move the trigger back on the Glock or XD a foreign object would have to hit the exact center line of the trigger or cross through it, were as on the M&P it only has to catch any part of the lower half. Has anyone accidently been shot because of this, I really doubt it, but I do think the design presents a slightly greater possibility for an AD. However, I would feel perfectly safe carrying an M&P if it were in a proper holster. On the XD, the trigger face safety is redundant if the grip safety is functioning properly - making the point is moot.

TEX

[Liberty]

As mentioned by someone else, the de-cocker doesn’t just let the hammer fall, but also limits the fall or puts a block in front of the hammer so it can’t actually touch the firing pin. I never have felt completely comfortable with de-cockers and always hold the hammer between by finger and thumb to let it down slowly when de-cocking. Probably completely unnecessary, but I did it that way anyway if the piece is still loaded. The difference between a safety and a decocker is that a manual safety prevents the hammer from falling at all, whereas the decocker forces the hammer to fall, but does so without letting the hammer contact the firing pin. I have only seen de-cockers on DA-2-SA autos.

There are many different types of guns and every ones experiance and exposure is different. My experience tells me that the hammer on my Beretta 92fs and Ruger P series will drop the hammer when the safety lever is toggled into the off position. These guns behave the same as their de-cocking brethren, except the decocker lever is spring loaded to return to the 'ready to fire' position.

[CompVest]

To CompVest,

I must respectfully disagree. No doubt the M&P trigger safety is more comfortable and ergonomic that either the Glock or XD (in my opinion), but I believe the latter ones to be superior, safety wise, in this regard. In order to move the trigger back on the Glock or XD a foreign object would have to hit the exact center line of the trigger or cross through it, were as on the M&P it only has to catch any part of the lower half. Has anyone accidently been shot because of this, I really doubt it, but I do think the design presents a slightly greater possibility for an AD. However, I would feel perfectly safe carrying an M&P if it were in a proper holster. On the XD, the trigger face safety is redundant if the grip safety is functioning properly - making the point is moot.

TEX

I appreciate your opinion but in your whole excellent post you chose to single out two specific guns as not having as efficient a safety as others. I thought that needed to be responded to as this was your opinion and not shared by all. As I stated I have yet to hear of anyone being injured with a ND by an M$P but there are several I could mention by Glocks.

So I believe your opinion that the M&P safety isn't as good as that used on the Glock or XD is at this time unfounded.