Glocks
- Thread starter Hattrick
- Start date
If I’m standing with a random group of shooters, and their muzzles are swinging by my eyeballs, neck and crotch, you can be damn sure that someone is getting ready to get their lights punched out.
I don't mind a thumb safety. If a pistol (VP9, for example) doesn't have it I don't cry about it. However, if it's a standard option I'm 100% okay with it provided it's large enough to manipulate. I carried a P30sk for a couple years and it had a thumb safety (as if the DA trigger pull wasn't enough, lol).
I'm totally on board that the only way the no-thumb-safety pistols will fire is if the inner trigger flippy is pressed and the trigger is pulled... Your finger isn't the only thing in the world that can do that, though.
I'm totally on board that the only way the no-thumb-safety pistols will fire is if the inner trigger flippy is pressed and the trigger is pulled... Your finger isn't the only thing in the world that can do that, though.
There is stored energy but not enough to set off primers. The striker is partially cocked when the sear reengages and the slide goes into battery.
Other than that minor detail, everything else is correct.
now that you mention it, isnt the glock considered a "double action" because the trigger cocks the firing pin while pulling the trigger?
Just acquired a new 34 Gen5. My first Glock. Figured I needed to stray from Beretta at some point. The Beretta PX4 Storm and the 92 just mesh with my hand and feel natural. The Glock is taking some more conscious "strain" to get pointed for me. I put a Leupold DeltaPoint (nice glass, horrible design) and it's been accurate as hell, though. When I got to fire a 34 Gen4, the stock trigger felt "different". Wouldn't say objectively worse but... different. I like the Gen5's mag release. I love how easy it is to rack the slide on the Glock (striker) vs. the Berettas (hammer) but dry fire practice on a striker gun is a PITA.
The difference between Glock generations in the real world seems to be what they write in the brochure. Not to mention, there's so much in the aftermarket you can turn your Glock into a vibrator that does your dishes so... wouldn't worry about it too much.
The difference between Glock generations in the real world seems to be what they write in the brochure. Not to mention, there's so much in the aftermarket you can turn your Glock into a vibrator that does your dishes so... wouldn't worry about it too much.
Yes, no matter what any strikerfag says it IS double action. There is one Walther that was a true SA.
It's probably closer to the Beretta PX4 type C and the old S&W Third Generation DAO semi autos where the hammer is partially cocked by the slide and the trigger finishes cocking it all the way and releasing it.
In fact, the PX4 Type C is a "DAO" pistol that does not have a second strike capability, just like Glocks.
The Glock firing pin is also blocked. Making it impossible for it to move towards the primer until the trigger is pulled and it is fully cocked.
The trigger is a “double trigger” which makes it all but impossible to actuate the trigger with a side friction motion. Such as the trigger brushing against something.
I own and occasionally carry a 1911. There is a damn good reason that gun has a manual safety as well as the grip safety. Having said that, I am very safe with this gun because I’m used to carrying Glocks, so I never treat it like it has the safety on.
It also has a titanium firing pin instead of a new fangled firing pin block. Purportedly it is too light to have enough inertial power to ignite the primer in a drop situation.
The trigger is a “double trigger” which makes it all but impossible to actuate the trigger with a side friction motion. Such as the trigger brushing against something.
I own and occasionally carry a 1911. There is a damn good reason that gun has a manual safety as well as the grip safety. Having said that, I am very safe with this gun because I’m used to carrying Glocks, so I never treat it like it has the safety on.
It also has a titanium firing pin instead of a new fangled firing pin block. Purportedly it is too light to have enough inertial power to ignite the primer in a drop situation.
FWIW I don’t think anybody actually had a 1911 drop fire I just think lawyers decided it could happen. An extra power firing pin spri g is more than enough. On a 1911 the firing pin spring resists the pin coming forward.
On the 1911, the Swartz safety makes sense - adds a substantial measure of drop safety, and doesn't adversely affect trigger pull like the Series 80 safety. (The wisdom of the grip safety in general for defense applications is another argument altogether, but if we're going to have one, we might as well maximize its utility in keeping the gun from going bang when we don't want). Unfortunately, Kimber seems to have salted the earth by fucking up the implementation as Kimber does so well, and so I'm guessing this post won't go over well.
It's really hard to time in comparison to a series 80 when dealing with a very high, or sub optimal (under pressure) grip. Better to just disable the damn thing.
I think the most dangerous part of handgun handling is likely holstering the pistol. Especially if the shirt gets into the way. But you see most people going slow and taking care. You might want to be fast getting the pistol out, but no hurry putting it back away.
A smart dude once said something like "no one ever won an award in a speed reholstering contest".
That's a good question. I had to stop for a second. Just what was I trying to say? Hmmmm…
I slept on it.
Turns out it is intuitive and very obvious, and not so at the same time. At least to me.
Edit: I’ve cleaned this thing up a bit for clarity (you can see the older versions in people’s responses to this post). I’m discussing firearm safeties, specifically a typical manual safety on a Rem 700. But these thoughts can apply towards any safety on any gun. I think.
TL;DR:
A) It is very probable that NO ONE is 100% firearm safe 100% of the time, and random events happen. B) Thus everyone should use a safety. If A & B, then it follows that using a safety is indeed relying on the safety to be safe.
Failing to realize this may help make you over-confident in your firearm handling safety abilities.
The Long Version
As to how I got to this unsurprising place, below are the sort of statements that I'm critiquing. Sorry if it feels like I'm picking on you, @Max. It's not personal and statements like the ones below are pretty common.
Why I bothered to do this at all is that I'm not a genius; I had to separate the swirling arguments about different safety types from the semi-boastful statements about how people handle their firearms. It's common sense to use a safety, I mean, c'mon, but how do I get there logically? What, exactly, bugs me when people say they don’t rely upon their gun’s safety?
I carry a Rem 700 for hunting. It is not unusual to find that the safety has been erroneously knocked to the off position. You can bet while hunting with my hunting buddy, I “stumble” get “surprised” and very “tired”.
Fortunately for my hunting partner, none of the above issues impacts his safety. I do NOT rely on the safety to keep him safe. I doubt he would hunt with me if that were the case. “Oh it’s ok, my safety is on”……..
The logic in the above two quotes goes like this (first the implied [or not] premise followed by evidence):
- I never make firearm safety mistakes
- "Fortunately for my hunting partner, none of the above issues impacts his safety. I do NOT rely on the safety to keep him safe."
- I do make other mistakes
- I stumble
- Manual safeties are not required for people like me to be safe
- "Anyone who requires a manual safely to be safe with a firearm, needs to meet up [with the] 'oh don’t worry, it’s unloaded' crew and take their guns to the local Sheriff’s dept and turn them in, for everyone’s safety."
- I exist in this world
- I get tired
- Random events & accidents do happen to me
- I get surprised
- "It is not unusual to find that the safety has been erroneously knocked to the off position."
Now, I'm no trained formal logician (should be obvious), but on its face, the above logic chain makes no sense.
I trust people can see how bullet point #1, to put it mildly, is improbable.
Don't believe me? Ok, I'll set improbability aside and damn the torpedos! Let's take the logic chain above to its ludicrous extreme: if this human exists, he needs not a safety at all.… it just drags him down.
@308pirate remember your statement about manual safeties vs Glock safeties? That manual safeties just add "one more link that needs to work right in the sequence of events to fire" a gun? Well, a manual safety to @308pirate is like ANY safety to this idealized firearm owner; just dead weight, just yet another mechanical item to fail.
And finally, to kick it up a notch, let's pretend this ideal firearm owner does indeed exist. But surely he exists in a world of dumbasses, rando Joe Bob's that, via the Dunning Kruger effect, think that they are also 100% firearm safe and don't "rely on their safety" while they muzzle you!
My point is yes, you do indeed rely on your safety.
Ok, whew. Where does this leave us? If I'm honest with myself, I think:
- I exist in a world in which unpredictability abounds
- Then, it is overwhelmingly probable that I, too, can act in an unpredictable manner
- i.e. I am a fallible human being; I can sometimes make mistakes and create accidents
- ergo, It is improbable that I can be 100% firearm safe if I exist in this world
- Thus, to guard against firearm accidents, the best I can do is to try to construct a fault-tolerant firearm safety system by:
- training to the firearm safety rules like these (but not only these)
- avoiding people that are not safe with their guns
- training with my firearm to get competent
- using my firearm's safety and encouraging its use by others
realizing that the act of just using my safety inevitably means I am relying upon it. Otherwise, why use it? Tradition? Superstition? Allahu Akbar? SpongeBob?
Because not owning up to the fact that you do indeed rely upon your safety may actually make one more unsafe by feeding into a potential "competence" complex, whereby you feel like you do not make mistakes.
Of course, one may get a dose of humility by realizing that even if you do all of these “safe” things, accidents may happen nonetheless.
Finally, @308pirate, for your choice of a defensive pistol I think you've made a decent tradeoff with a Glock. You're an expert, you practice, you prioritize high speed and fewer discrete actions. Especially in a stressful situation, there's very little to remember when firing a Glock, and that, for a trained expert, can be a very good thing.
And @Max, despite all my word-spewing, you're probably way safer than me.
Dear reader, If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!
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That's a good question. I had to stop for a second. Just what was I trying to say? Hmmmm…
I slept on it.
Turns out it is intuitive and very obvious, and not so at the same time. At least to me.
TL;DR:
A) It is very probable that NO ONE is 100% firearm safe 100% of the time, and random events happen. B) Thus everyone should use a safety. If A & B, then it follows that using a safety is relying on the safety to be safe.
As to how I got to this unsurprising place, below are the sort of statements that I'm critiquing. Sorry if it feels like I'm picking on you, @Max. It's not personal and statements like the ones below are pretty common.
Why I bothered to do this at all is that I'm not a genius; I had to separate the swirling arguments about different safety types with the semi-boastful statements about how people handle their firearms. Is X safety better than Y safety, and in whose hands? Do training and situational awareness always trump the importance of a safety's use? I knew that it's common sense to use a safety, I mean, c'mon, but how do I get there logically?
The logic in the above two quotes goes like this:
- I never make firearm safety mistakes
- "Fortunately for my hunting partner, none of the above issues impacts his safety. I do NOT rely on the safety to keep him safe."
- I do make other mistakes
- I stumble
- Manual safeties are not required for people like me to be safe
- "Anyone who requires a manual safely to be safe with a firearm, needs to meet up [with the] 'oh don’t worry, it’s unloaded' crew and take their guns to the local Sheriff’s dept and turn them in, for everyone’s safety."
- I exist in this world
- I get tired
- Random events & accidents do happen to me
- I get surprised
- "It is not unusual to find that the safety has been erroneously knocked to the off position."
Now, I'm no trained formal logician (should be obvious), but on its face, the above logic chain makes no sense.
I trust people can see how bullet point #1, to put it mildly, is improbable.
Don't believe me? Ok, I'll set improbability aside and damn the torpedos! Let's take the logic chain above to its ludicrous extreme: if this human exists, he needs not a safety at all.… it just drags him down.
@308pirate remember your statement about manual safeties vs Glock safeties? That they add "one more link that needs to work right in the sequence of events to fire" a gun? Well, a manual safety to @308pirate is like ANY safety to this idealized firearm owner; just dead weight, just yet another mechanical item to fail.
And finally, to kick it up a notch, let's pretend this ideal firearm owner does indeed exist. But surely he exists in a world of dumbasses, rando Joe Bob's that, via the Dunning Kruger effect, think that they are also 100% firearm safe and don't "rely on their safety" while they muzzle you!
My point is yes, you do indeed rely on your safety.
Ok, whew. Where does this leave us? If I'm honest with myself, I think:
Why is that very last bullet so very important?
- I exist in a world in which unpredictability abounds
- Then, it is overwhelmingly probable that I, too, can act in an unpredictable manner
- i.e. I am a fallible human being; I can sometimes make mistakes and create accidents
- ergo, It is improbable that I can be 100% firearm safe if I exist in this world
- Thus, to guard against firearm accidents, the best I can do is to try to construct a fault-tolerant firearm safety system by:
- training to the firearm safety rules like these (but not only these)
- avoiding people that are not safe with their guns
- training with my firearm to get competent
- using my firearm's safety and encouraging its use by others
Because not owning up to the fact that you do indeed rely upon your safety may actually make one more unsafe by feeding into a potential "competence" complex, whereby you feel like you do not make mistakes.
Of course, I get a dose of humility by realizing that even if I do all of these “safe” things, accidents may happen nonetheless.
Finally, @308pirate, for your choice of a defensive pistol I think you've made a decent tradeoff with a Glock. You're an expert, you practice, you prioritize high speed and fewer discrete actions. Especially in a stressful situation, there's very little to remember when firing a Glock, and that, for a trained expert, can be a very good thing.
And @Max, despite all my word-spewing, you're probably way safer than me.
Dear reader, If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!
Jesus christ dude. Are you hearing voices? Is your neighbor’s dog talking to you???
That's a good question. I had to stop for a second. Just what was I trying to say? Hmmmm…
I slept on it.
Turns out it is intuitive and very obvious, and not so at the same time. At least to me.
TL;DR:
A) It is very probable that NO ONE is 100% firearm safe 100% of the time, and random events happen. B) Thus everyone should use a safety. If A & B, then it follows that using a safety is relying on the safety to be safe.
As to how I got to this unsurprising place, below are the sort of statements that I'm critiquing. Sorry if it feels like I'm picking on you, @Max. It's not personal and statements like the ones below are pretty common.
Why I bothered to do this at all is that I'm not a genius; I had to separate the swirling arguments about different safety types with the semi-boastful statements about how people handle their firearms. Is X safety better than Y safety, and in whose hands? Do training and situational awareness always trump the importance of a safety's use? I knew that it's common sense to use a safety, I mean, c'mon, but how do I get there logically?
The logic in the above two quotes goes like this:
- I never make firearm safety mistakes
- "Fortunately for my hunting partner, none of the above issues impacts his safety. I do NOT rely on the safety to keep him safe."
- I do make other mistakes
- I stumble
- Manual safeties are not required for people like me to be safe
- "Anyone who requires a manual safely to be safe with a firearm, needs to meet up [with the] 'oh don’t worry, it’s unloaded' crew and take their guns to the local Sheriff’s dept and turn them in, for everyone’s safety."
- I exist in this world
- I get tired
- Random events & accidents do happen to me
- I get surprised
- "It is not unusual to find that the safety has been erroneously knocked to the off position."
Now, I'm no trained formal logician (should be obvious), but on its face, the above logic chain makes no sense.
I trust people can see how bullet point #1, to put it mildly, is improbable.
Don't believe me? Ok, I'll set improbability aside and damn the torpedos! Let's take the logic chain above to its ludicrous extreme: if this human exists, he needs not a safety at all.… it just drags him down.
@308pirate remember your statement about manual safeties vs Glock safeties? That they add "one more link that needs to work right in the sequence of events to fire" a gun? Well, a manual safety to @308pirate is like ANY safety to this idealized firearm owner; just dead weight, just yet another mechanical item to fail.
And finally, to kick it up a notch, let's pretend this ideal firearm owner does indeed exist. But surely he exists in a world of dumbasses, rando Joe Bob's that, via the Dunning Kruger effect, think that they are also 100% firearm safe and don't "rely on their safety" while they muzzle you!
My point is yes, you do indeed rely on your safety.
Ok, whew. Where does this leave us? If I'm honest with myself, I think:
Why is that very last bullet so very important?
- I exist in a world in which unpredictability abounds
- Then, it is overwhelmingly probable that I, too, can act in an unpredictable manner
- i.e. I am a fallible human being; I can sometimes make mistakes and create accidents
- ergo, It is improbable that I can be 100% firearm safe if I exist in this world
- Thus, to guard against firearm accidents, the best I can do is to try to construct a fault-tolerant firearm safety system by:
- training to the firearm safety rules like these (but not only these)
- avoiding people that are not safe with their guns
- training with my firearm to get competent
- using my firearm's safety and encouraging its use by others
Because not owning up to the fact that you do indeed rely upon your safety may actually make one more unsafe by feeding into a potential "competence" complex, whereby you feel like you do not make mistakes.
Of course, I get a dose of humility by realizing that even if I do all of these “safe” things, accidents may happen nonetheless.
Finally, @308pirate, for your choice of a defensive pistol I think you've made a decent tradeoff with a Glock. You're an expert, you practice, you prioritize high speed and fewer discrete actions. Especially in a stressful situation, there's very little to remember when firing a Glock, and that, for a trained expert, can be a very good thing.
And @Max, despite all my word-spewing, you're probably way safer than me.
Dear reader, If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!
The non-sequitur started on your very first paragraph
Your entire stream of consciousness is invalid because you have argued that only handguns with manual safeties are safe. That is demonstrably false.
BTW I don't carry a Glock.
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A Metaphysical Treatise On The Nature Of The Firearm Safety, or an Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning.
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So speaking of accidents right, obviously this means the gun going off when we don’t want it to.
Let me be clear, there is nothing “random” or “unpredictable” about shooting accidents by probably 99% of the people here on the hide. You have to break two of the commonly accepted safety rules to “accidentally shoot someone”.
And operating a safety selector on a quality firearm has nothing to do with it.
Let me be clear, there is nothing “random” or “unpredictable” about shooting accidents by probably 99% of the people here on the hide. You have to break two of the commonly accepted safety rules to “accidentally shoot someone”.
And operating a safety selector on a quality firearm has nothing to do with it.
Hmmm…I wasn’t arguing that. I don’t believe handguns with manual safeties are safer. The whole, uh, essay is about Max’s Rem 700 and how over-estimating one’s own firearm safety adherence can itself negatively affect one’s safety.
That, and…ah forget it. Move along, nothing to see here.
And sorry that I mistakenly thought you carry a Glock. My bad.
Ah, the places one’s mind wanders when one is stuck at home on vacation and the rest of the family isn’t…and you are left in the company of your crazy mother-in-law lol…
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What is meant by the word “accident”, exactly? Has there even ever been such a thing? Do random events happen, or is life already pre-determined? Do randomness and order exist in patterns at different scales? Is it possible to accidentally do anything? Like, for instance, to accidentally break a firearm rule? Can random events occur within your thought processes, which then cause accidents outside of your head? Is Schrödinger's cat dead or alive? Or neither? Or both? Spooky action at a distance & nonlocal entanglement, or something else mumbo jumbo? Etc.
Sounds like an episode of The Twilight Zone.Yet here we are.
A wise girlfriend once said to me, “All arguments eventually boil down to the definitions of words.”
With regards to the most recent turn this conversation has taken, let's put on my Systems Safety Engineer hat (second time this happened on the Hide just this week alone 
) and look at it through the lens of functional safety (for the uninformed, that's the study of achieving acceptable risk when dealing with things that cannot be made intrinsically safe).
A gun generally has a single basic function: go bang when the operator intends to discharge the firearm. It can thereby fail this task in two ways:
1) Goes bang when unintended (negligent discharge)
2) Doesn't go bang when intended (failure to fire)
When we do a Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA), we look at three factors to assess the overall risk of a given failure: severity, exposure, and controllability.
Both failures have roughly the same severity - serious injury or death. The frequency of exposure to scenarios in which the two situations can occur is dramatically different; #1 can occur any time the gun is loaded
(basically daily for someone who regularly carries), where as #2 occurs extremely infrequently. For the typical civilian, you're looking at about 4 assault per 1000 people per year, or about a 1-in-4 chance over an adult lifetime (and generally even less frequently than for people who avoids doing stupid things with stupid people in stupid places at stupid times). The controllability of the two scenarios may also differ; there is no calling back the bullet in scenario #1 so it's not at all controllable, where as there is a possibility (albeit not a certainty) of controlling scenario #2 via remedial action.
Obviously, this objective analysis favors avoiding an ND over avoiding a failure to fire. How one achieves that balance I will leave as an exercise for the reader.
Note that absolutely none of the above is intended as a comprehensive analysis of the actual risks, failures, and faults of any actual scenario, and is only an illustrative scenario of how one may achieve acceptable risks.
) and look at it through the lens of functional safety (for the uninformed, that's the study of achieving acceptable risk when dealing with things that cannot be made intrinsically safe).A gun generally has a single basic function: go bang when the operator intends to discharge the firearm. It can thereby fail this task in two ways:
1) Goes bang when unintended (negligent discharge)
2) Doesn't go bang when intended (failure to fire)
When we do a Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA), we look at three factors to assess the overall risk of a given failure: severity, exposure, and controllability.
Both failures have roughly the same severity - serious injury or death. The frequency of exposure to scenarios in which the two situations can occur is dramatically different; #1 can occur any time the gun is loaded
(basically daily for someone who regularly carries), where as #2 occurs extremely infrequently. For the typical civilian, you're looking at about 4 assault per 1000 people per year, or about a 1-in-4 chance over an adult lifetime (and generally even less frequently than for people who avoids doing stupid things with stupid people in stupid places at stupid times). The controllability of the two scenarios may also differ; there is no calling back the bullet in scenario #1 so it's not at all controllable, where as there is a possibility (albeit not a certainty) of controlling scenario #2 via remedial action.
Obviously, this objective analysis favors avoiding an ND over avoiding a failure to fire. How one achieves that balance I will leave as an exercise for the reader.
Note that absolutely none of the above is intended as a comprehensive analysis of the actual risks, failures, and faults of any actual scenario, and is only an illustrative scenario of how one may achieve acceptable risks.
It doesn't matter as long as you train it.
I don't mind a thumb safety, but I have to be careful because if I disengage it before my support hand goes on, my support hand doesn't fit nearly as well as if I disengage it after. So I train it, because when I learned to shoot it didn't matter because people didn't hold the gun as high as they do now.
I don't particularly like grip safeties. I don't like disabling them, but I file mine down to where even my worst grip easily disengages. A lot of rack grade 1911s make you depress it 3.4 of the way to fire, which is terrible.
I have carried a glock for years. Condition 1. In a good holster that covers the trigger. No issue. There is nothing i would do different with a gun that has a manual saftey vs not. Some poeople feel comfortable with a manual saftey. Ok.
I prefer no external safety
I have carried several other brands. I do have a pocket Ruger EC9 with external safety for carry in the summer
When I carried a Ruger SR40C with safety I would train to disengage safety when shooting. However the safety was so small and tight to the gun that on occasion I would miss it completely when drawing. With gloves it was nearly impossible. I found several times I’d pull and fire a dead weapon. Which steered me away from that
My 1911 has a much more pronounced safety (as any 1911 does) and is much easier to disengage. I actually carried that for a short period of time on duty. Again tho I would draw and come up with a safety on. Wether I forgot to take it off under stress or missed it due to gloves.
This was from a LE standpoint and you had to be able to draw with gloves. I live in upper Michigan so you did have gloves on during winter or while conducting searches many times
Our issued glock 22’s and Sig 229’s had no safety. For “safe” measures the sigs had a double action only feature. So instead of the first shot being double action and the rest single it was double all the time.
I came to train with and prefer a gun that when drawn only required my mind to pull the trigger. That is what I’m comfortable with and that is my preference
Agree 1000%.. I've been a SIG guy for a LONG time. Almost all of my SIG have full custom shop work done to them.. Short reset, match trigger package, 11 degree target crown, yada yada. I have never had a single issue with any of my sigs
Glocks....I resisted for so long...I now have 4 or 5... a Gen3 RMR cut G19, Gen4 G19 another G19, G43... they just don't feel comfortable compared to my SIG...I don't shoot them as accurately, I've had a few feeding issues with certain carry ammo (124 vs 147)...slide bite..
Idk I just don't put them in the same league as my sigs... I carry the g43 a bunch in warmer months .the g19's all sit in the safe
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