Thumb safety pros/cons (side conversation moved from 320 lawsuit thread)

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Originally Posted by RevolverRob

There is a lot to digest on these thoughts here, BBI (especially bolded). Thanks for them.

Since we have a sizeable number of ECQC Alumni here - anyone have thoughts to help us contextualize the deactivation of a pistol safety while grappling?

Seems like we could get some really good professional experience from @Cecil Burch, @SouthNarc, and @Paul Sharp - I know Paul has run safety equipped guns in the past, including things like a 2011.



So what are you thinking of as 'beginners' guns? Glock? DA revolvers? LEM?

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Yes, lots to digest. I think this has been a good evolution of the thumb safety thread.

Beginners guns: Glock, DAO auto or revolver seem like good choices. But without some basic safety procedures (and a quality holster), I would take the Glock off the list.

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Originally Posted by TGS

I strongly agree with Tokarev and RevolverRob.

The Beretta safety, and pretty much any slide mounted safety, is not desirable. If how your hand is built allows you to swipe it off with your thumb, good for you. That's not everyone. I can not swipe off a Beretta or S&W 3rd gen safety with my shooting hand thumb. No amount of statements on the internet about training will change that. I'm not an anatomical expert, but however my thumbs are built simply doesn't allow it. It's a stretch, at best, and certainly not reliable nor an intuitive motion. Thus, I needed to use my support hand thumb to disengage it. This may come as a surprise, but that was a practice taught in the USMC because of the wide range of shooters going through the programs and the inability of people to reliably manipulate the safety. Having been through the USMCs pistol training, as well as law enforcement and commercial market training, I have a hard time agreeing with the statement that the pistol training was "Criminally negligent". The quality was absolutely better than FLETCs program, as a point of comparison.

Taking the attitude that you can just swipe it off when establishing a grip only addresses a portion of the problem....what about when the gun is out of the holster, but you don't yet have a PID'd threat that you're actually drawing down on? That can cover a pretty significant amount of pistol use, especially among the people who carry 92FS pistols the most (military PMO and civilian LE). If the answer is, "Well just swipe the safety off when drawing it, even if you don't have an immediate PID'd threat you're drawing down on", then what is the point of the safety?

That whole idea is an admission that the safety is unergonomic, anyways. A safety should be easily manipulated by the broad range of shooters using it, and in such proscribed ready/carry positions that the pistol is reasonably used. 1911, M&P, yes.....Beretta, 3rd Gen S&W, not so much. Going back to what @RevolverRob insinuated, if the safety wasn't garbage then the G model wouldn't be as popular. Maybe your thumbs allow easy manipulation, but that doesn't mean everyone on the market has your thumbs, and the market trend is pretty clear evidence that the safety is suboptimal.

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Originally Posted by TGS

I think if you read my previous post, most of what you're trying to say here has already been addressed.

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What I said was indeed discussed in your post. I disagree with much of what you said. If you read my posts you may see why. Of course this is the internet and I won’t change your mind - you certainly won’t change mine. I’ve already devoted too much time to it.

The upside is that for now we still live in a country where we get to choose what guns we prefer.

Interesting conversation, it would be a pleasant one to have in person with like minded people and a wee dram of good bourbon, under the stars around a campfire.

In my case the 1911 safety has always been second nature. Despite carrying a striker gun these days, my Gunsite instructors of the late naughties and early double-oughts thoroughly embedded the instinctual use of the 1911 safety- to the point where I can go many months without touching ‘ol slabsides, and I still ride that lever like it is a part of my basketball-palming hand today.

And that’s why I shoot striker guns these days- been screwed one too many times by the GRIP safety due to aforementioned ginormous hands. (I used to pin them, back in my IDPA CDP MA days, but don’t tell anyone...)

Not to mention a constant plague of bloody railroad tracks across the web of my primary thumb.

Doctrine back in the day was “safety on if muzzle off” and vice-versa- to the point where one would get real thumb fatigue clearing a funhouse. You’d be clicking that Wilson lever on and off so many times you might as well be sending a high-speed telegraph message in Morse code to Mars.

So much simpler with a good striker trigger... so long as you holster v-e-r-y r-e-l-u-c-t-a-n-t-l-y.

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Originally Posted by Clusterfrack

For those of you who don’t go off safety during the draw: is your grip fully formed with safety off, or do you have to adjust grip tension after safety off?

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No change in tension. I try to flip it off no earlier than after a complete two handed grip is established and gun is being pushed at the target. Grip and tension are fully formed before, just like any normal gun. Since I came into competition from a tactimmy side, I started to do it after taking a class from McNamara. I later saw a video of Robbie Leatham talking about how he does the same, and it sealed the deal. I find that size and shape of thumb safety itself is hugely helpful in allowing you to do whatever you want to do. My SS 1911 has a huge competition safety and that one I sometimes flip off inadvertently too soon. My carry 1911s have profiled-down thumb safeties that are awesome in helping me not flip them off too early.

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Originally Posted by cheby

JJ told me during the class that he engages the safety every time he moves.

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That dude barely ever takes his left hand off the gun when he goes through stages. He shoots everything on the move and barely ever stops moving. I dunno that he ever has a time gap to put the safety on.
Anyway, I am intrigued by that statement. I am trying to find his videos that show him doing it and can't get anything of a good resolution.



I can't stand thumb safeties, or grip safeties for that matter, on modern polymer handguns. I think that there are legit reasons for them (AIWB holstering, kids at home, off body no holster carry) and I am sure I could make one work if I had to. I am glad I don't have to.

@YVK
@Clusterfrack

I think safety off when pressing out and on target is probably the most acceptable and safest way of doing it.

Can I run my procedure by you guys and why I settled on it?

I currently run a TSO with ambi wide safety in competition from 3 o'clock OWB AlphaX holster.
I currently carry a P365 with standard manual safety AIWB.

For competition, the wide safety ledge is a thumbrest for my crush grip so I get the grip as I come down onto the holster and the safety comes off as I establish grip in the holster. My thought is... the OWB race holster isn't pointed at my leg and doesn't sweep my body on drawing and I try and have good finger discipline at all times. In my mind, it's no different than running around a course with the safety off with just one hand on the gun (as long as the draw doesn't sweep the body).

For carry, I do a similar thing.
When I get my grip in the holster for the P365 the safety automatically comes off as the gun comes out of the holster.
My thought being that I don't want the process to be any different from any other CCW gun or draw and I don't want to "add" a step to the press out.
People draw regular P365s without safeties all the time and if I disengage the safety in the holster, then I'm basically drawing a non-safety gun which I'm comfortable with.

It also lets me change between safety and non-safety type guns seamlessly.
It also removes a failure point if my OODA loop is interrupted during the press out.
If I flicked off safety during press out, what would happen if you got hit or tackled before you could press out? Or if you couldn't press out and had to shoot from retention or non-standard shooting position. It might be enough cognitive overload that you could fail to disengage the safety when you really needed it.

So for me, if the gun comes out of the holster it's live and ready to fire. Just like any other gun.
I basically only use the safety to reduce chance of discharge when it's in the holster as extra redundancy or in case the gun accidentally comes out a little from the holster (I don't like super tight retention in my holsters, but if I were to carry a non-safety gun I'd increase the retention on the holster.

Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by Bucky

Add me to the list of people who cannot swipe off the safety of a Beretta without awkwardly contorting my grip.




One of my favorite carry guns when I first got my CCW permit was a 92 Compact. It had a sweet trigger and Trijicon night sights (with the fixed front). I found on a couple of occasions the safety was on. Didn’t think much of it. Then I lost a state IDPA championship when my 96F was on safe (partially due to a distraction by an unreasonable SO - MD sided in my favor). It cost me 3 seconds to figure out why my trigger was dead (lost high SSP by a second). That 3 seconds felt like 20.

After that incident, I picked up a Cougar L and sold the 92 Compact. It would be many years before Beretta would offer the G conversions. I don’t think anyone was doing the true G slide conversions at the time, or at least I didn’t know about it.

Fast forward to today, and my main carries are a Wilson / Beretta 92 G Compact or EDC X9. See, I don’t have problems with safeties, but the 92 slide mounted safety is a no go for me.

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The same sort of thing happened to me in a long ago IDPA match, 92 compact too. But I trained to off safe after decock and then holster so it was ready to go after the beep. That was my downfall. After that I trained to carry and holster on safe, nudging it off safe with the tip of the thumb when I acquired my grip when drawing the pistol. Never had a problem after that.

Training with the AR15 has taught me to on safe when transitioning from position to position, I do this now with any pistol I use and all of mine have a safety [excluding the revos of course.].

@JCN

- If I were to run the 365, I would likely use the thumb safety only to holster the gun safely and then disengage it after the gun is holstered. The gun is small, safety lever is small, I just don't want to futz around with it during a defensive draw. So, from that angle, I think disengaging it early is fine and 365 trigger is not a 1911 trigger. At least on my sample of 365XL there was a decent pretravel.

- For your gaming draw, I would look at your stage runs videos. I myself muzzle my lower leg if I draw out of a strong side holster while taking a wide lateral step, and GSWs to lower leg are not unheard of at USPSA matches. I wouldn't say that muzzling happens with everyone in such circumstances but I think it happens regularly. I specifically prefer looking at match videos rather than practice videos for this purpose. Maybe take a look, see what you find, and decide how to proceed from there.

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Originally Posted by JCN

@YVK
@Clusterfrack

I think safety off when pressing out and on target is probably the most acceptable and safest way of doing it.


It also removes a failure point if my OODA loop is interrupted during the press out.
If I flicked off safety during press out, what would happen if you got hit or tackled before you could press out? Or if you couldn't press out and had to shoot from retention or non-standard shooting position. It might be enough cognitive overload that you could fail to disengage the safety when you really needed it.



Thoughts?

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My first thought is that in the event of that I would not want an off safe single action pistol in my hand. It may or may not be a time for shooting, it depends. The muzzles direction may or may not be in my control at that point. There could be other entanglement problems to solve before I want bullets coming out the muzzle. ;)

Re the other, shooting from retention etc is something that is trained for also as with other types of pistols or revolvers.

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Training with the AR15 has taught me to on safe when transitioning from position to position, I do this now with any pistol I use and all of mine have a safety [excluding the revos of course.].

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Going back to just the pistol and if we are talking matches, in most you have already seen a clear set of firing positions and can plan to go off safe as you arrive at the position, in da street (pardon me), you may not know when you need the gun to be off safe as you move. If you are surprised, do you need to have that extra step which stress may cause you to forget or screw up. In my FOF experience as a FOG, sometimes the opponent was a surprise.

Also, the difference between a single action gun of 4 lbs pull and a striker of 5.5 lb pull - is that a real difference? The human factors studies of trigger on the finger NDs (not really as being in a study, so not a real ND), show that the common causes of the pull and the force generated clearly outweigh that difference and can reach enough to pull a DA revolver at 12 lbs.

Do folks really go on safe and off safe with pistols and rifles when in da street or real world when faced with unknown opponents. In the NTI, we had dummies just pop out, surprise.

This thread has me feeling nostalgic as my first interaction with TLG came out of a notorious thread on M4C back when folks still argued about things like slide stop vs. overhand rack for reloading.....ah the old days. I was overseas at the time and looking for better answers on manipulating the M9 than I was getting from cadre. TLG was such a good guy. He never balked at my endless dumb questions over PM and email.

Anyway, in a lot of cases organizations issue weapons and the operator doesn’t have a choice. His guidance to me at the time was stop worrying about hardware. Develop a robust set of manipulations (which he helped me with) and dry fire the hell out of them. Like everything else, training is key. Even after moving to a unit where the M9 was carried safety off and training was better, I never really stopped drawing it the way he told me as a way to verify the safety hadn’t been engaged accidentally while working around vehicles etc. They may not win any matches but I’ve seen plenty of people with all hand sizes run the M9 effectively from a start with the safety engaged.

I wouldn’t choose an M9 in today’s world of options, especially as a civilian, but if one was issued to me or it was all I had I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.