A Safety Won't Get You Killed

[lovemachine]

You are actually right...they are much heavier, much more expensive, hold 1/2 as many rounds, and are drastically less reliable than a modern plastic fantastic (Glock, S&W, etc.). With what other firearm can you find so many threads about FTF and malfunctions, with custom work needed to get them to feed HP bullets...none. It is a great gun, I really like mine. But it is not a good carry piece for so many reasons, not to mention the safety issue.

 

[churchmouse]

Yeah, but it's a 1911... it's not unreasonable to assume it's malfunctioning.

In all the rounds you have seen mine send down range has any ever burped or farted...???

I only polish the ramps as an exercise to say it was done. They eat anything.

Now G***K's tend to eat me. True fact.

 

[hog slayer]

What I just read sounds like a bunch of people who don't train enough, who know they don't train enough, and who use failures and bad examples of people who don't train enough to justify their actions and in some cases completely ridiculous statements about things.

My 6 year old would say that such and such was bad and a crappy thing because she said so. Surely there's a higher standard for an invisible person posting on a forum!

Chesty puller was running thru the jungle shooting bad guys off a boat bobbing and swaying as it moved thru the water long before anyone had a thought that he had a crappy gun. Guess it was just luck.

 

[THE BIG SITT]

In all the rounds you have seen mine send down range has any ever burped or farted...???

I only polish the ramps as an exercise to say it was done. They eat anything.

Now G***K's tend to eat me. True fact.

Anyone know why GLOCK is censored, and/or how I can make it not be censored?

 

[lovemachine]

In all the rounds you have seen mine send down range has any ever burped or farted...???

I only polish the ramps as an exercise to say it was done. They eat anything.

Now G***K's tend to eat me. True fact.

Were your 1911's burping and/or farting before you did your personal mods to them?

 

[CraigAPS]

Anyone know why GLOCK is censored, and/or how I can make it not be censored?

It's a bad word and should not be used.

 

[rvb]

I don't know how many times I've seen it at ... steel plate challenge or some kind of a match that someone forgets to click off their safety.

I've RO'd many thousands of shooters at hundreds and hundreds of matches, and I've very, very seldom seen this issue. With the exception of one or two, those who did screw it up were very green to shooting. (Those one or two exceptions who weren't green, well, there's just no hope for some folks.) What I see more often is folks who don't know their 1911 enough to know they have to disengage the safety to work the slide and they struggle to clear the gun.

The safety never magically became engaged. ....The fear of the Beretta m9/92 having the safety engaged by accident was really not an issue.

I always competed with G models because the accidental safety was an issue for me.... unloaded gun starts, malfunctions, whatever, any time Ihad to work the slide there was a real chance I would bump the safety on. I had it happen on FS models enough to recognize the problem. Some safety designs like the 1911 just naturally work with a proper grip such that it's hard NOT to disengage the safety and almost no way to accidently bump it back on safe, some designs like the 92 don't. I love the 92s, but really only in a decocker-only setup.

Injure the shooter's hand, it's tougher. ....I've personally been in a fight that left my thumb broken to the point that I would not be able to deactivate a safety in the traditional way.

A perfect example of why it can be more than a training issue, and something folks need to consider when making their decisions.

-rvb

 

[rvb]

oh, and I've had way more issues/failures with glocks than 1911s. way more.

-rvb

 

[Leo]

With the 1911's being such bad pistols, and revolvers are pretty substandard also, there must have been carnage in the streets of America in the old days. Without good handguns you could not overcome the bad guys.

The history books must be wrong, the crime statistics show that violent gun crime in the streets has been growing since the mid 1980's. When did the magic glock start being seen in duty holsters ?.....the middle 80's. As a matter of fact over 50% of police agencies currently issue glocks and things are worse than ever. Coincidence?

 

[Leo]

I think some of this can be filed under:

"Buying a pistol does not make you a pistolero". and maybe " "buying a higher capability pistol is not what makes you a better pistolero".

 

[Woobie]

I just think the Glock slogan didn't get translated correctly. It isn't "Perfection", it's "Potential". It isn't hopeless, like a Hi-Point. But it needs to be overhauled right out of the box. After all, why all the aftermarket support for a perfect machine?

 

[SSGSAD]

I'll just say this .....

NEITHER, will a mag disconnect .....

NO diff, in running dry, slide lock open,

or a mag disconnect .....

JMHO, YMMV .....

 

[cedartop]

For those of you saying it is a training issue, you are correct. The huge problem with that is that most people don't train (or compete) on a regular basis. Now I realize that doesn't apply here, we are all a bunch of bad mothers who dry fire everyday, live fire twice a week, take 6-8 classes a year or compete multiple times a year. Believe it or not though, that is not how it works for the vast majority of people. They buy a gun, run a box or two through it and say they are now prepared for anything short of doomsday. Do these people train enough to make the safety manipulation on a 1911 or Beretta second nature? Or maybe they don't deserve to even own a gun to defend themselves if they don't have the time or inclination to train?

 

[chezuki]

With the 1911's being such bad pistols, and revolvers are pretty substandard also, there must have been carnage in the streets of America in the old days. Without good handguns you could not overcome the bad guys

1. The bad guys had the same unreliable guns.
2. With the exception of CM, everyone from that era is long dead... I can only assume due to carrying unreliable guns.

 

[Wild Deuce]

*

 

[chezuki]

I knew I could count on Cedartop to make the smartest post in the thread.

You must have missed my posts...

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Everything is a "training issue", including the need to have a manual safety. If we were flawless robots, we could run a 1 lb/1mm travel trigger with no safety concerns, shoot a 15-lb trigger with laser accuracy, etc. It's ALL a trade off and it's ALL a training issue. For me, I no longer recommend a thumb safety equipped pistol for fighting. I recognize that people can do it with a high level of proficiency. Those people don't need my recommendation. Since there's some neat assumptions up thread, I have used a manual safety equipped firearm "for real" and operated the safety subconsciously. As stated, I've also been injured to the point that would not have been possible.

I always find it vaguely amusing that the DA/SA gun is so difficult to master and DAO revolvers are useless, but "training issue" doesn't usually pop up in that scenario. You *can* train to use any weapon system effectively. It depends on how you want to spend your time/treasure/talent. Glocks are simple, they let you concentrate on shooting the gun instead of prepping the gun. Revolvers are dead nuts simple until it's time to reload. DA/SA is simple until it's time to holster up and you have to remember to decock.

My *personal* choice remains DA/SA or DAO, followed by striker fired. Other people may have a different answer. What I find is everyone assumes they can run their equipment just fine...then sometimes things go sideways and they find out they weren't as ready and as good as they thought they were. This includes both shooting oneself accidentally, failing to shoot when wanting to, etc.

 

[churchmouse]

Were your 1911's burping and/or farting before you did your personal mods to them?

I never did much to the feed ramps beyond a good polish and it was not really needed. I did it just to put a check by that one in the to do column. Any related issues were mainly cheap magazines.
My mods are all (mostly) in the ignition controls which have zero effect on feed.
For years and years before I got silly deep into the platform mods most every 1911 I owned ran just fine and that is a hell of a lot of 1911's.
1 cheap Thompson gave me trouble feeding HP's. It also had a serious case of hammer follow that resulted in a hole in the work bench. That was the last round that one ever ran. It was fed to the band saw. I hated that one.
If that had happened in the last 5 years I would have known what to do as a fix.

 

[cedartop]

You must have missed my posts...

HEY! Watch your filthy mouth. You are speaking to a clearly intelligent individual with very discerning taste.

 

[Thor]

I fired many abused 1911's in the military, no issues to feed or fire and always hit where I was aiming (at the target or not). I fired expert every year from '75 to '03 even with what I considered to be the POS Beretta. I own some Beretta's but not THAT one.

As for the safety, I carry many versions of the 1911 and the safety is unconscious. It would never hinder my engagement but obviously training is a factor.