1911 cocked-and-locked, anyone ever forgets the safety?

Status
Not open for further replies.
RX-79G said:
From what I've seen, it is generally that people get the timing off when they are in a rush and try to push the safety down when they are already pulling the trigger. I doubt they are seriously unable to perform these actions under normal circumstances, but throw in the excitement of a competition or the stress of a real shooting and things don't go as planned....
It makes the case for avoiding systems that require sequential actions to fire.
Click to expand...

Huh. I think any defensive use of a gun requires sequential actions, regardless of the controls of the firearm in question. You have to get a grip on the gun, then draw it from the holster (or other starting place), then point it at the target, then pull the trigger (or not, depending on what has happened to the perceived threat while you were doing the foregoing). If being under stress means sequential actions are impossible to manage, then the anti-gunners are right, and there's no point carrying a gun at all... you're just doomed to shoot yourself or some innocent bystander.

In reality, stress poses problems. But for someone who is a regular user of frame-mounted, down-to-fire safeties, stress doesn't interfere with that aspect of things. The safety comes off as part of the normal grip on the gun. No conscious thought is required. No remembering is required. No active sequencing is required - the safety is off long before the finger should even touch the trigger.
 
ATLDave said:
Huh. I think any defensive use of a gun requires sequential actions, regardless of the controls of the firearm in question. You have to get a grip on the gun, then draw it from the holster (or other starting place), then point it at the target, then pull the trigger (or not, depending on what has happened to the perceived threat while you were doing the foregoing). If being under stress means sequential actions are impossible to manage, then the anti-gunners are right, and there's no point carrying a gun at all... you're just doomed to shoot yourself or some innocent bystander.

In reality, stress poses problems. But for someone who is a regular user of frame-mounted, down-to-fire safeties, stress doesn't interfere with that aspect of things. The safety comes off as part of the normal grip on the gun. No conscious thought is required. No remembering is required. No active sequencing is required - the safety is off long before the finger should even touch the trigger.
Click to expand...
You misunderstood. You can get certain actions out of order and get the gun to fire anyway. I'm talking about actions that if they get out of order requires you to stop and go back.

I am not talking about actions that you can't get out of order because it is not possible. You can't fire a gun in the holster because the trigger is covered.
 
RX-79G said:
You misunderstood. You can get certain actions out of order and get the gun to fire anyway. I'm talking about actions that if they get out of order requires you to stop and go back.

I am not talking about actions that you can't get out of order because it is not possible. You can't fire a gun in the holster because the trigger is covered.
Click to expand...

You can absolutely fire a gun before it is on the target. You can put a round in your leg or foot on the draw, or throw one into the background where innocent people are standing. If you do that, you would wish for the ability to "stop and go back."

Defensive gun use requires events to happen in a certain sequence, or BIG PROBLEM. There's no way around that. If that's a problem, it's a problem with revolvers and 1911's alike.
 
ATLDave said:
You can absolutely fire a gun before it is on the target. You can put a round in your leg or foot on the draw, or throw one into the background where innocent people are standing. If you do that, you would wish for the ability to "stop and go back."

Defensive gun use requires events to happen in a certain sequence, or BIG PROBLEM. There's no way around that. If that's a problem, it's a problem with revolvers and 1911's alike.
Click to expand...
You've just proved my point. Even if you don't have the gun on target, it will still fire, cycle and be immediately ready to fire again. The order of your actions doesn't prevent the gun from working and continuing to work. You can even shoot your thigh first and continue to fire - wishes to the contrary or not.

Or in the case of a SAA, you can hold the trigger down, draw back the hammer and the gun will fire. Nothing binds up, causing you to be surprised by the gun not working and having to figure it out.

It is really clear in competitions when someone with a 1911 does this. It is like watching a passenger and driver trying to get a car door unlocked while yanking on the door handle. It is usually at least 2 seconds of being perplexed why the gun won't fire or the safety won't move until the shooter stops fighting themselves and gets the safety off.

It sounds like some 1911s will come off safe under trigger pressure, but I would not expect most to do so. My personal Taurus PT92 will come off safe if the trigger is held down, and I think that is a very good thing.
 
RX-79G said:
You've just proved my point. Even if you don't have the gun on target, it will still fire, cycle and be immediately ready to fire again. The order of your actions doesn't prevent the gun from working and continuing to work. You can even shoot your thigh first and continue to fire - wishes to the contrary or not.
Click to expand...

My point is that if you can't manage seriality/sequence under pressure, a gun is not going to help you.

RX-79G said:
It is really clear in competitions when someone with a 1911 does this. It is like watching a passenger and driver trying to get a car door unlocked while yanking on the door handle. It is usually at least 2 seconds of being perplexed why the gun won't fire or the safety won't move until the shooter stops fighting themselves and gets the safety off.
Click to expand...

If this is a common sight in the competitions you attend, you must be blessed with a very high number of competitors coming to the 1911 system after lots of time with safety-less designs. I've RO'd literally thousands of competitor runs in the last 3 years alone in USPSA matches, and I've never seen anyone but folks new to 1911's/2011's have problems with the thumb safety.
 
ATLDave said:
My point is that if you can't manage seriality/sequence under pressure, a gun is not going to help you.
Click to expand...
You seem to be making some sort of philosophical point. I'm making a very simple mechanical point - that if you have a 1, 2 sequence that go in very rapid succession, you can easily get them on top of each other. So it is better to not REQUIRE that they go in sequence.

I cannot imagine how a forced sequence system is ever going to prevent something bad that a non-sequence safety would not. People shoot themselves in the leg with 1911s all the time, but no one fails to fire an SAA or a Glock.

ATLDave said:
If this is a common sight in the competitions you attend, you must be blessed with a very high number of competitors coming to the 1911 system after lots of time with safety-less designs. I've RO'd literally thousands of competitor runs in the last 3 years alone in USPSA matches, and I've never seen anyone but folks new to 1911's/2011's have problems with the thumb safety.
Click to expand...
Generally, it isn't new shooters, it's older guys shooting 1911s that don't look like they are new or new to them.

This is also the same group of people that show up with handloads that won't chamber or are loaded too light to cycle reliably. Not that everyone over 55 is in this group, but very few younger people seem to go for 1911s and not be fairly well practiced.

You can call this a training problem - and it certainly is. It just isn't a training problem that matters with other platforms, nor is there a benefit to the design that makes it worth the extra training necessity.
 
So here is a question and I honestly don't know the answer. You hear a pretty good bump in the night. You grab your 1911 and go to investigate, safety on or off? You no longer have your trained draw reflex because the gun is in your hand.
 
RX-79G said:
You seem to be making some sort of philosophical point. I'm making a very simple mechanical point - that if you have a 1, 2 sequence that go in very rapid succession, you can easily get them on top of each other. So it is better to not REQUIRE that they go in sequence.
Click to expand...

This is essentially the same "fine motor control is bad under stress" argument that is often made by anti-safety advocates, but with seriality in place of fine motor control. And the response is the same. Shooting requires fine motor control and seriality. If fine motor control/seriality degrades so badly under stress that a safety is a problem, other aspects of shooting will be fatally (metaphorically and perhaps literally) compromised as well. Either you can manage enough seriality/fine motor control to sort out a safety, or you're too incompetent to use a gun in that situation anyway.

RX-79G said:
Generally, it isn't new shooters, it's older guys shooting 1911s that don't look like they are new or new to them.
Click to expand...

Then their younger family members need to help them understand that they are now too incompetent to be trusted with firearms (and probably with driving). Time for assisted living and lots of Wheel of Fortune. And I'm not joking about this. If an experienced 1911 shooter reaches the point where they are so befuddled they are trying to pull the trigger prematurely and thereby lock up the safety, then they are a danger... and removing the safety from the equation only results in a dangerous AD/ND.
 
JohnBiltz said:
So here is a question and I honestly don't know the answer. You hear a pretty good bump in the night. You grab your 1911 and go to investigate, safety on or off? You no longer have your trained draw reflex because the gun is in your hand.
Click to expand...

Even if someone intentionally left the safety on, if they have a sensible 1911 grip (thumb atop safety, very firm grip), when they increase their grip pressure in preparation for taking a shot, the safety will come off.
 
ATLDave said:
This is essentially the same "fine motor control is bad under stress" argument that is often made by anti-safety advocates, but with seriality in place of fine motor control. And the response is the same. Shooting requires fine motor control and seriality. If fine motor control/seriality degrades so badly under stress that a safety is a problem, other aspects of shooting will be fatally (metaphorically and perhaps literally) compromised as well. Either you can manage enough seriality/fine motor control to sort out a safety, or you're too incompetent to use a gun in that situation anyway.
Click to expand...
No, it isn't. A top Glock competitor might be incredibly competent with a firearm, but could still screw up the safety sequence on a gun that requires it to be a sequence. Someone shooting a gun with a safety that is not sequential may also be incredible with that gun, but may occasionally overlap the trigger and safety - and it won't matter as long they are on target when they pull the trigger.

The whole "fine motor" thing is usually offered as an excuse for sling-shotting a gun that won't reliably work with the slide release, as designed.

ATLDave said:
Then their younger family members need to help them understand that they are now too incompetent to be trusted with firearms (and probably with driving). Time for assisted living and lots of Wheel of Fortune.
Click to expand...
This oft stated baloney that anyone who can't do a particular thing must obviously be a vegetable is really tired. It has more to do with who tends to have 1911s, what the training environment was like when they got into shooting and the (over)confidence they have in a skill they have been practicing for much of their adult life.
 
RX-79G said:
No, it isn't. A top Glock competitor might be incredibly competent with a firearm, but could still screw up the safety sequence on a gun that requires it to be a sequence.
Click to expand...

Right, because that is an unfamiliar sequence. I posted earlier in this thread that I had seen people who were new to safety-equipped guns have problems (though not generally seriality - simply forgetting that there is a safety to deal with). But we're talking about people who are familiar with safety-equipped guns.

RX-79G said:
The whole "fine motor" thing is usually offered as an excuse for sling-shotting a gun that won't reliably work with the slide release, as designed.
Click to expand...

I have seen it offered as an attack on safeties many, many times. And on slide releases. And on various other core competencies in firearm use.

RX-79G said:
This oft stated baloney that anyone who can't do a particular thing must obviously be a vegetable is really tired.
Click to expand...

You don't have to be a vegetable for lethal instruments to no longer be appropriate tools for you (just as, at the other end of life, you don't have to be developmentally disabled to be not ready for the responsibility of using a gun or driving a car). Guns, contrary to some views in the gun-o-sphere, aren't for everyone. They are potentially lethal machines that can be very unforgiving of mistakes. If a person who was previously able to manage taking off a safety is now so confounded by "first take off the safety, second make sure it is pointed at the target and not something you don't want to kill, and then third press the trigger," that they are locking up their gun at the buzzer, then their time in the gun games has come to an end. I have RO'd quite a few superannuated guys in their late 70's and early 80's running 1911/2011-type guns. I've seen them move more slowly, or forget a mandatory reload, or even FTE a semi-hidden target. I've seen them induce jams because their arthritic hands can't maintain a firm grip over longer courses of fire, and have extreme difficulty in clearing jams for the same reason. I've never seen them tie up their gun because they can't figure out whether the safety or the trigger gets pressure on it first. When/if I see that, I will be horrified. And will, as politely and discreetly and privately as possible, give them the word that maybe it's time to hang 'em up.
 
ATLDave said:
Right, because that is an unfamiliar sequence. I posted earlier in this thread that I had seen people who were new to safety-equipped guns have problems (though not generally seriality - simply forgetting that there is a safety to deal with). But we're talking about people who are familiar with safety-equipped guns.
Click to expand...
Then why did you ignore what I wrote?
RX-79G said:
Someone shooting a gun with a safety that is not sequential may also be incredible with that gun, but may occasionally overlap the trigger and safety - and it won't matter as long they are on target when they pull the trigger.
Click to expand...
 
RX-79G said:
Then why did you ignore what I wrote?
Click to expand...

I didn't. Your arguments/contentions regarding the challenges associated with a 1911 safety were not limited to those unfamiliar with it. In fact, you expressly claimed that you saw lots of old dudes who had been shooting 1911's for years have some sort of problem with safety/trigger sequencing.

Are you now saying your criticisms/concerns regarding a 1911-type safety are limited only to those unfamiliar with them?
 
ATLDave said:
I didn't. Your arguments/contentions regarding the challenges associated with a 1911 safety were not limited to those unfamiliar with it. In fact, you expressly claimed that you saw lots of old dudes who had been shooting 1911's for years have some sort of problem with safety/trigger sequencing.

Are you now saying your criticisms/concerns regarding a 1911-type safety are limited only to those unfamiliar with them?
Click to expand...
But you referred to "safety equipped guns", not 1911s.
 
1911's are a subset of safety-equipped guns. I have seen people new to safety-equipped guns (including, but not limited to, 1911/2011 types) forget to take the safety off.

Now, what was your point?
 
It sounds like some 1911s will come off safe under trigger pressure said:
I've never heard of this happening with a 1911. It's possible with I suppose, but it's like a car moving forward while still in park. Something is outrageously out of normal. You'd be speaking of something seriously mechanically damaged.

"I would not expect most to do so" , indicates an unfamiliarity with both the 1911 and the PT92. To think it is a "very good thing" that your PT92 malfunctions seems odd to me.

tipoc
Click to expand...
 
Tipoc,

I had already said that a 1911 will bind, but someone claimed theirs would not.

I don't see any reason that the trigger blocking safety on a PT92 would not rotate even under trigger pressure. There is less angle to bind it.
 
You said earlier...
"It sounds like some 1911s will come off safe under trigger pressure, but I would not expect most to do so. My personal Taurus PT92 will come off safe if the trigger is held down, and I think that is a very good thing."

Maybe I misunderstood but I assumed you were referring to a 1911, with the thumb safety engaged, firing when someone pulls the trigger while the thumb safety is engaged. If you were speaking of something else then it's unclear to me what.

I'm not familiar with all models and variations of the PT92 but if the safety is engaged then the piece should not fire nor rotate on it's own without the shooters activating it. If so it is a malfunction in need of repair.

tipoc
 
I think he's saying that if you hold down the trigger on his PT92 with the gun on safe, and then, without releasing the trigger, move the safety to fire, the hammer will drop and the gun will fire. I'm not sure that is a good thing, but I believe that's what he was saying.
 
ATLDave said:
I think he's saying that if you hold down the trigger on his PT92 with the gun on safe, and then, without releasing the trigger, move the safety to fire, the hammer will drop and the gun will fire. I'm not sure that is a good thing, but I believe that's what he was saying.
Click to expand...
Correct. A normal 1911 will bind the safety with trigger pressure, because the safety gets trapped by the sear. Other guns, like the 92, will not bind when trigger is pulled.

None of these guns will fire due to trigger pressure alone with the safety applied. The point is that some guns are more forgiving of getting the timing wrong than 1911s. I see no benefit in having the trigger trap the safety, but I can see some downsides.
 
RX-79G said:
A normal 1911 will bind the safety with trigger pressure, because the safety gets trapped by the sear. Other guns, like the 92, will not bind when trigger is pulled.
Click to expand...

The thumb safety is not "trapped by the sear" from trigger pressure on the Colt and Dan Wesson 1911s I have available to check.

The three actions necessary to pull the trigger while removing the safety are: pressing forward on the grip safety; pressing rearward on the trigger, and; pressing downward on the thumb safety. It is awkward, but possible, to engage in all three motions at the same time, with the result that the hammer drops immediately on the release of the thumb safety.
 
To draw AND fire a 1911 quickly AND safely requires some training and some discipline. I don't really agree with those who refer to the 1911 as "an expert's gun" but just like a motorcycle or an aircraft it can bite you in the butt if you get sloppy with the controls.
 
I've called it an expert's gun in a tongue in cheek way but I think anyone who reads many 1911 threads will agree that the devotees are a bit of a stuffy bunch. And when the mechanics of the thing come up it's obviously not a simple gun to properly modify and improve.
Some posts back someone pretty much nailed the whole SA Pistol thing when they were commenting on the void it filled between the DA Revolver and the DA/Striker Pistol.
Col. Cooper capitalized on that movement and raised it to the status it has today. It was his works and words that drove me to the SA Pistols I own and have owned and also has helped with any enlightenment that has brought me to where I am today.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

I
  • Locked
holster for cocked & locked 1911
Replies
18
Views
4K
GRIZ22
G
Armored farmer
  • Locked
does everyone carry their 1911 cocked and locked?
2 3 4
Replies
96
Views
6K
TimboKhan
TimboKhan
S
  • Locked
Carrying a 1911 cocked and NOT locked?
2 3 4
Replies
78
Views
5K
tipoc
tipoc
rdmercer
  • Locked
Ruger 1911 safety question
2
Replies
28
Views
1K
Kano383
Kano383
S
  • Locked
1911 grip safety an advantage compared to USP cocked and locked?
Replies
5
Views
324
CWL
C
Back
Top