Hammer Fire vs Striker Fire...

[ATLDave]

Might be an issue on a slow, deliberate, range day or in competition

You can generally tell people who’ve never shot competitively because they imagine that competitors don’t get adrenaline dumps, tachypsychia, sweaty palms, shakes, etc. If they take competition seriously, they’ve definitely experienced those things.

Moreover, the performance benefits of good triggers aren’t limited to how they subjectively feel. The more force you have to apply to a trigger, the more any misdirection of that force from straight back will alter the direction of the muzzle.

Competition measures shooting performance very well. It doesn’t measure things like tactics or descalation or physical courage or threat discrimination. But if something improves shooting performance in some dimension in competition, there is no reason not to expect a similar improvement in other contexts.

There may be other, countervailing reasons to not do some performance-maximizing thing. I can deliver a better shooting performance using my USPSA open-division gun, but I can’t really carry it around in regular life. So I make a conscious performance compromise.

 

[lysanderxiii]

You forgot some of the older ones.

The 1899 FN automatic pistol.


And of course one of the first, if not the first, automatic pistol was a striker fired design:

Slow down.

Striker fired handguns have been around as long as there have been semi-automatic pistols.

Savage model 1907 made in 1913
View attachment 898903

Colt VP model 1908 made in 1919
View attachment 898904

FN VP model 1906 made in 1913-1914
View attachment 898905

Ortgies made in 1924
View attachment 898906

Walther Model 9 made in 1926
View attachment 898907

Mauser 1914 made in 1928
View attachment 898908

 

[Demi-human]

And of course one of the first, if not the first, automatic pistol was a striker fired design:

This ugly little duckling is one of the most beautiful pistols I have ever seen.

What is it?

 

[jar]

You forgot some of the older ones.

The 1899 FN automatic pistol.
View attachment 899279

And of course one of the first, if not the first, automatic pistol was a striker fired design:

View attachment 899280

Yeah, but I only included the ones I actually have and use these days. I realize I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived.

My daddy beats my mommy, My mommy clobbers me. My grandpa is a commie, My grandma pushes tea. My sister wears a mustache, My brother wears a dress. Goodness gracious, that's why I'm a mess!​

 

[kemikos]

Well, considering I have several recently-designed hammer-fired pistols, and just purchased a striker-fired revolver,

This ugly little duckling is one of the most beautiful pistols I have ever seen.

What is it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borchardt_C-93

Direct progenitor of the Luger. Hugo Borchardt designed it, Georg Luger tweaked it for production and got it built. When the Swiss Army wanted changes made after their field tests, Borchardt refused, because he believed the gun was perfect. DWM (the manufacturer at the time) tasked Luger with making the necessary changes to get the Swiss contract and the rest is history.

 

[Kevin Rohrer]

Is the day of hammer fired pistols over? Seems to me 75% of the market is all about new striker fired pistols. What are your thoughts!?!

Only because of low price and even less class. Pass.

 

[Plan2Live]

Is the day of the hammer fired pistol over? Yes, manufacturers are responding to the market and have dumbed down the operating platform to match the skill level of the average shooter today.

 

[barnetmill]

You can generally tell people who’ve never shot competitively because they imagine that competitors don’t get adrenaline dumps, tachypsychia, sweaty palms, shakes, etc. If they take competition seriously, they’ve definitely experienced those things.

Moreover, the performance benefits of good triggers aren’t limited to how they subjectively feel. The more force you have to apply to a trigger, the more any misdirection of that force from straight back will alter the direction of the muzzle.

Competition measures shooting performance very well. It doesn’t measure things like tactics or descalation or physical courage or threat discrimination. But if something improves shooting performance in some dimension in competition, there is no reason not to expect a similar improvement in other contexts.

There may be other, countervailing reasons to not do some performance-maximizing thing. I can deliver a better shooting performance using my USPSA open-division gun, but I can’t really carry it around in regular life. So I make a conscious performance compromise.

The world of competitive pistol shooting is a much bigger than USPSA. Completely different from the action pistol shooting sports. Bullseye shooting certainly needs a good trigger. The most common pistols used are hammer fired with those being the 1911 for the center fire portions and the S&W 41 being the most common and for sure not the only rim fire in the line. The 41 with internal hammer does have an adjustment for trigger pull wt. part 55 is moved to change the trigger pull.

Below shows the hammer and strut

 

[jmohme]

No, the days of hammer fired pistols are far from over. They are still alive and still hold a valued place in many of our arsenals.

My primary EDC is striker fired.
My fun guns are mostly hammer fired.

I don't know that one is better than the other, but my Glock is simple, accurate, and effective. And to add to that, it is ugly enough that I don't care about holster wear. I just need it to do it's job if ever needed.

My CZ's, Contenders, and wheel guns are ultra accurate and are a lot of fun to shoot, but are not my choice for carry.

 

[barnetmill]

My thoughts on the various aspects of striker vs hammer fire are not finalized. both were around from the earliest days of successful autopistol design with the same designer going from one to the other. First successful Browning was striker fired, but the most successful brownings were all hammer fired with the exception of baby browning .25. The 1899 model of .32 was striker and the 1903 hammerless 32 was hammer fired.
I believe the hammer fired when properly designed better lends itself to have a better trigger pull than the striker fired. Below a picture a well known early hammer fired, the C96 mauser

Perhaps the future is electronic. A few now have electron triggers and for a while there was electronic ignition for rifles


Walther SSP-E (electronic trigger) Target Pistol i am not sure if it is striker or hammer fired

 

[FFGColorado]

Is the day of the hammer fired pistol over? Yes, manufacturers are responding to the market and have dumbed down the operating platform to match the skill level of the average shooter today.

And if the 'average shooter' is safe and involved, why is that a bad thing? If it encourages 'average people' to get into gun sports?
I think 'dumbed down' is not accurate. Making HGs safe and easy to use and shoot is more accurate.

 

[ttarp]

Strikers have their place, and hammers have theirs, neither one is necessarily superior. But for those of us too poor or lazy to get to the range as often as we should, having a hammer to thumb back for dry fire practice beats the hell out of racking a striker everytime.

 

[barnetmill]

Strikers have their place, and hammers have theirs, neither one is necessarily superior. But for those of us too poor or lazy to get to the range as often as we should, having a hammer to thumb back for dry fire practice beats the hell out of racking a striker everytime.

Good point and I seen this in the literature and likely need to buy one

The E-Trainer is a small device that attaches to the users own Glock and allows the user to dry fire their Glock without having to rack the slide between trigger pulls. To install the Glock E-Trainer lock the slide back to the rear and insert the device onto the underside of the back of the slide.

 

[tipoc]

We know that striker fired guns have been around for a very long time. In my opinion the striker has little to do, directly, with the popularity of polymer striker fired guns today. It is the least important thing about a Glock, for example. Their popularity is not due to the striker.

It's interesting to note, for those that were around back in the day, that when Glocks began to arrive in the U.S. their strikers were little noted on. The major debate within the gun world took the striker for granted. Striker vs. hammer was not the key issue. Early books on Glock don't dwell on that much.

Glock created a revolution. A revolution that is largely over with but that is still living well. In the late 1980s it cost Glock about $100. in total costs to manufacture a single pistol. The frame was a strong durable plastic. The internals modular and of inexpensive stamped parts.

In 1986, the year the 1911A1 was dropped for the M9 and M11, the most widely used hand guns in the holsters of leos across the U.S. were S&W semis, Sigs and the Berreta 92. Some revolvers, Colt and S&W were also still present. All with hammers, because hammers were reliable, simple and mostly easier and less expensive to work on than strikers, which were very rare in service caliber pistols in the U.S. In fact pretty much non existent, I can't think of one. Mostly for the reasons I just mentioned. All that changed in less than 10 years.

Glocks were and are strong and durable guns. Law enforcement accurate. Lighter in weight even with a large capacity that matched the M9 and other guns. They were modular. They could be repaired without the need for a gunsmith. Before this a police gunsmith was a trained craftsman and was paid accordingly. They worked on a variety of pistols and revolvers, rifle and shotguns. A Glock Armorer learned to swap out parts in an 8 hour course with drop in parts. Much less expensive to maintain. Fewer and less expensive parts.

These things brought about a revolution. S&W jettisoned an entire line of their pistols (due to the competition they were forced to) and went to polymer. The guns worked, less expensive to buy, easy and less expensive to maintain, especially for a police dept or an army. In over 30 years they have proved that. So manufacturers have gone to that in droves. Less expensive to produce means a higher profit.

Every single gun trainer, police instructor and guru who had been preaching the absolute superiority of dao or da/sa pistols for police work over any other design switched their opinion. Especially those, like Mas Ayoob, who had denounced the Glock trigger as unsafe, but was won over to Glock after being hired by them as an instructor for Glock to police departments.

That's the revolution. Strikers were not the key to that only a piece.

tipoc

 

[TonyAngel]

You can generally tell people who’ve never shot competitively because they imagine that competitors don’t get adrenaline dumps, tachypsychia, sweaty palms, shakes, etc. If they take competition seriously, they’ve definitely experienced those things.

Moreover, the performance benefits of good triggers aren’t limited to how they subjectively feel. The more force you have to apply to a trigger, the more any misdirection of that force from straight back will alter the direction of the muzzle.

Competition measures shooting performance very well. It doesn’t measure things like tactics or descalation or physical courage or threat discrimination. But if something improves shooting performance in some dimension in competition, there is no reason not to expect a similar improvement in other contexts.

There may be other, countervailing reasons to not do some performance-maximizing thing. I can deliver a better shooting performance using my USPSA open-division gun, but I can’t really carry it around in regular life. So I make a conscious performance compromise.

I agree with this, but for me, every time a buzzer goes off my heart is hammering, adrenaline is pumping, singlemindedness kicks in and I have a kung fu grip on my gun. At that point I don’t know that a single action trigger does me any good.

I once had an occurrence where I showed up at a match and forgot the mags for my wide body enterprise 40 at home. A guy at the match graciously loaned me his back up rig, which was a smith m&p 9. My times weren’t that far off. Probably because the 9 was easier to handle, but the point is that I really didn’t miss my trigger. Hardly noticed it.

I suppose that due to the nature of each trigger, the hammer fired will be more forgiving than the striker fired and this will affect different shooters differently.

Still, like I said early on, I don’t think hammer fired guns are going anywhere as long as there is a demand for them. I guess we’ll see what the next 20 years will bring. Personally, I’m waiting for the type II phaser to hit the market with the mind controlled trigger. Now that would be smooth.

 

[ATLDave]

That's the revolution. Strikers were not the key to that only a piece.

Yep. The real elements were:
1) Knocking $100 off the price of a duty-grade gun and $100 off the cost of any fix;
2) Persuading people that there's no such thing as an unsafe design so long as the gun only fires when the trigger is pulled; and
3) Persuading people that very light frame was a feature, not a bug.

Glocks had a good solid design at a low cost and a great marketing department that was able to help shape tastes. A real business case to study.

 

[5-SHOTS]

I prefere DA/SA hammer fired pistols mainly for one reason: second strike capability.
That's why I like my Walther P99 AS...
Just kidding.

 

[fastbolt]

It seems like more than 75%.

However, here's a Traditional Double Action fan, Ernest Langdon explaining his preference for the TDA guns

None of his observations and thoughts are "new", but have been expressed by instructors since the late 80's. Sure, many aficionados of the "modern technique" for 1911's have often expressed disdain for the TDA guns. That doesn't mean they aren't a fine service weapon.

Striker-fired plastic designs are inexpensive to produce (even if they don't sell for budget prices to the commercial buyers), and will likely remain adequate for the lowest common denominator shooters. (Highly skilled shooters still ought to be able to run them with accuracy, of course.)

One thing to keep in mind is that even a heavy and long initial DA shot doesn't prevent shooter-error and a ND. I've seen video of an officer unintentionally triggering a shot from a hammer-fired DAO duty pistol, and I personally knew a cop who experienced some hand/finger confusion and acknowledged unintentionally firing a DA shot from a TDA pistol during a search warrant. (He was pushing the button of a flashlight in his offhand, and the same finger on his gun hand pressed the DA trigger.)

As a longtime 1911 and revolver shooter I grew to appreciate the virtues of the modern TDA pistol for a "working" gun. I added the striker-fired guns to my skillset (because they were becoming increasingly common in my early years as an instructor).

I also happen to like what's called the AS (Anti-Stress) sear action in the excellent Walther P99 series, although the ones I own are the licensed S&W SW99's (since I could order them at a significant discount as an armorer). I also carried an issued SW9940 for a few years. Decocking the hammer of the AS action 99's makes the first shot a DA trigger press, and then reverts to SA for subsequent shots (until again decocked).

 

[tipoc]

Both striker and hammer fired guns are remarkably stable and reliable designs depending of course on how they are built for a particular model. Most common sources of unreliability do not relate to whether the firing system of the gun is hammer or striker. Very rarely in fact.

It's been mentioned that bolt action rifles are striker fired. That's true. But they are and have been called bolt action rifles because that, the rotating bolt and locking of the repeating, magazine fed rifle, that are the most significant features of the rifle and not the simple reliable striker in the bolt. A simple robust design more so than the striker in pistols.

That most shotguns, both pump and semi automatic shots guns (from the Auto 5 to the Bennilli M4) are hammer fired. That's not the most important thing about them though.

We can also mention that revolvers, both single action and da, continue to be sold and made and will continue for generations to come.

Hammer fired guns are in no way on the way out.

 

[lysanderxiii]

This ugly little duckling is one of the most beautiful pistols I have ever seen.

What is it?

Borchardt Model 1893

 

[Electricmo]

I'm a hammer fired Person myself. I just overall feel like they are a safer design. I know a lot of rifles are striker fired but most of them have manual safeties. Striker fired guns are generally plastic and they have no soul at least to me. Hammer guns are like the manual transmissions in automobiles and strikers are the automatics.. Millinials just aren't quite sure how to manually shift anymore hence the rise of the striker.

 

[JR24]

I'm a hammer fired Person myself. I just overall feel like they are a safer design. I know a lot of rifles are striker fired but most of them have manual safeties. Striker fired guns are generally plastic and they have no soul at least to me. Hammer guns are like the manual transmissions in automobiles and strikers are the automatics.. Millinials just aren't quite sure how to manually shift anymore hence the rise of the striker.

Psh, I'm a millennial (though on the top end) and I prefer hammers and manual transmissions.

 

[film495]

I like hammers on pistols, the mechanism is similar and reminds me of some old Winchester rifles I have and I can see how the whole mechanism works. I prefer this, but get that in an close struggle in an real world incident, someone grabbing a handgun revolver or autoloader, they could get in the way of that hammer and it might not go bang if/as needed. I also prefer manual transmissions.

 

[SSN Vet]

While striker fired pistols dominate the inexpensive, plastic, carry gun market.... I think you'll find that hammer fired pistols are greatly preferred in most all forms of competition.

Which circle of consumers do you think knows more about, has more experience with, and expects more from their firearms?

 

[barnetmill]

While striker fired pistols dominate the inexpensive, plastic, carry gun market.... I think you'll find that hammer fired pistols are greatly preferred in most all forms of competition.

Which circle of consumers do you think knows more about, has more experience with, and expects more from their firearms?

Competitors have a lot knowledge and experience using guns to get high points in their competition. That does not always translate perfectly into being efficient at killing foes that are effectively armed and prepared and also shooting back. They wcertainly will do better in combat than for someone that does nothing except to occasionally fire their gun. To some extent this also applies to their equipment. I would pay more attention to what works well in military combat and for certain specialized police groups.
I suggest not becoming a legend in your own minds. Both systems if they are enclosed inside the frame or slide are fine. If they are significantly exposed, they can be liability under dirty and debris type conditions.