Long guns and drop safety

[Sherman A. House DDS]

I am going to try to be calm with this, as we have lost all sense of logical at this point with Sig defense syndrome.

How do guns get dropped? What happens when they do? Here is the issue in this discussion...nobody ever claimed these guns were drop safe. Nobody advertised this. So, how do most un modified long guns need to be dropped to discharge. Generally in straight vertical orientation and likely directly on the muzzle. It is really hard to get them to do this. Where is the muzzle if by some freakish chance you can get the gun into that orientation? The problem is many drop tests are set up for drops to test for the types of discharges these types of guns face, and not the reality of what actually happens.

Now, how do Handguns fall? How do they generally land when dropped? How will mass orient that gun falling? Based on most damage I have seen on a ton of dropped Handguns, it is often the rear slide area. Where is the muzzle oriented on impact? Is that dangerous? Is that dangerous if dropped in a typical training or professional environment?

To me the big gigantic fat hairy issue is that the SIG P320 seems to have an easily replicable issue when dropped in a common manner and a discharge of live ammunition into a direction that is extremely hazardous. Meanwhile, everyone is pointing to testing of dropping guns that tend to not be how they discharge because systems have been built to a test and not reality, and they discharge in a way in which the muzzle is usually in a direction not likely to strike anyone.

During my LE career at my agency we dealt with two dropped gun discharges that were both with SIG's. Because of SIG's factory armorers training where we were told the guns could not discharge when dropped, the officers were blamed for improper use of the decocking lever without any real proof other than "it is the only explanation" based on the training provided by SIG on their weapons systems. In this case I actually do think improper decocking was the issue. Now, in the same time period I saw exactly zero discharges of dropped long guns to include Remington 870's, 700's, AR's and M16's, Colt SMG's, and the entire HK line of roller locked guns in multiple varieties and calibers, and Benelli's. Never even heard of a case in a very large metropolitan area.

So, why the issue....basic common sense. The issue is not that the P320 will discharge in some obscure bizarre, weird, unlikely scenario, but that it will discharge in a very likely real life manner and in a way that is extremely dangerous.

Ok that's it...

I'm switching to a GP100 and a Chiappa 1892.


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[spinmove_]

Ok that's it...

I'm switching to a GP100 and a Chiappa 1892.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Old school is the best school?


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[Backspin]

I really appreciate the replies by all.

The reason I brought up the question is because a lot of officers at my agency, including the senior firearms instructor, have bought 320's as off duty guns. Furthermore, I've been adamantly told by a co-worker that no gun is completely drop safe and he uses that as justification to continue carrying his 320. Said co-worker is otherwise fairly knowledgeable on firearms and a lot of people go to him for firearms advice.

I wanted to make sure I have logical arguments in hand to explain why the drop safe issue of the 320 is unsat.

Regarding long guns firing when dropped, my agency supposedly had one a long time ago from a tipped over 870. Legend has it the officer leaned the 870 against a fence during a yard search to he could climb over the fence and then retrieve the shotgun. In the process the shotgun fell over and discharged. That's the only one I've heard of around here.

[Dagga Boy]

I really appreciate the replies by all.

The reason I brought up the question is because a lot of officers at my agency, including the senior firearms instructor, have bought 320's as off duty guns. Furthermore, I've been adamantly told by a co-worker that no gun is completely drop safe and he uses that as justification to continue carrying his 320. Said co-worker is otherwise fairly knowledgeable on firearms and a lot of people go to him for firearms advice.

I wanted to make sure I have logical arguments in hand to explain why the drop safe issue of the 320 is unsat.

Regarding long guns firing when dropped, my agency supposedly had one a long time ago from a tipped over 870. Legend has it the officer leaned the 870 against a fence during a yard search to he could climb over the fence and then retrieve the shotgun. In the process the shotgun fell over and discharged. That's the only one I've heard of around here.

And here lies the cop world urban legend problem. I can pretty much 100% guarantee that an 870 falling over sideways from leaned against a fence won't be going off (or a 320 for that matter). What I can guarantee is that when an officer is trying to retriev a gun through a fence and gets a finger in a trigger with out the safety on and it goes bang, that is totally normal. If the officer is beloved and on the Chief's Christmas card list, the "it just fell and went off" will go in the no harm, no foul "broken gun" file. I am highly critical of most cop legend stories seeing how much stories differed from facts on cases I worked first hand. I will be honest, it is hard proving your co workers wrong on the "I don't know what happened, it just went off" story that is actually the "I don't remember being on the trigger" story.
Many of the bad incidents over the years can be replicated during a good investigation. Most of the "just went off" incidents that actually did not involve a finger on the trigger are found to have involved something in the trigger, often attached to or part of clothing.

Again, I cannot make this more simple.....this is either a hazard or it isn't. If you subscribe to current SIG defense syndrome philosophy of "don't drop it and if you do only in the way it is done in a manner prescribed in minimum government mandated tests", or you want something that is more likely to not discharge during the kind of incidents of dropped guns we usually see. So, if you feel good with This never happening...by all means, continue.

[PNWTO]

I have seen ar 15s dropped from unop of vehicles, buildings, and ran over. None discharged. I hve also been behind two MATVs that were hit by 80-120 lb IEDs, none of their rifles discharged from the pressure or being banged around. One rifle was basically destroyed from being thrown but it didn't fire.

Hope that helps.

Yep, we pulled some crazy rally shit in 7-Ton's and MRAPs and not one rifle barked itself off. A few safeties came off, but no bangs.

[Backspin]

DB thank you for taking the time to lay this all out. If you don't mind, I'd like to email your responses in this thread to my boss who is the agency range master.

To be clear, I'm not defending Sig or the P320, but I work with many people who do. I want to make sure I give them the best info in the most logical way possible. I've seen people get defensive when one points out their equipment choices (which they spent hard earned money on) are not good.

[RevolverRob]

It's not only about safety, it's also about likelihood.

Long-guns have slings, are handled with two hands, and when fired are usually in 3-points of contact with the body. Even most of the manipulations of long-guns that we teach currently, often involve having the gun supported by multiple points of contact. If the gun is slung over the body the risk of falling and discharging by falling is essentially 0.

Handguns, by contrast, are handled frequently with one hand, with mediocre grips, and are subject to considerable manipulation that may cause them to be more likely to fall from the users hand. I've seen people drop semi-autos onto the ground or firing bench reloading from slide-lock, because they were not expecting the momentum caused by the slide slamming forward and had a weak grip. I've seen this happen probably a dozen times with less experienced individuals. Then we add in people who might be running/jumping/climbing/fighting with a handgun in their hand? And we're increasing the likelihood of dropping it.

One thought - This might be partly mitigated by increased use of pistol lanyards, as basically equivalents to long-gun slings.

Two thoughts - I've dropped revolvers a few times and never once worried about them going bang. Not enough weight in the firing pin to set off a DA revolver (or for that matter a DAO/TDA semi-auto) via momentum only. At least not at full decock, can't guarantee what might happen at half-cock. But half-cock notches were designed to make cocked single-action guns safe to decock not to be used as a position for any type of carry or usage (in other words, I've never seen a revolver or DA auto incidentally placed at half-cock through standard manipulations, except when lowering a cocked hammer).

PS: My favorite way "trick" to load a Benelli M1 Super 90 is to drop the gun on its stock, the inertia drive system can run the bolt and load a chamber if you do it right. No unintentional bangs. (Note: I do not condone beating your Benelli up and/or performing this trick).

[Lester Polfus]

I think this is a variant of the binary "safe" or "not safe" thinking. Guns are not either "drop safe" or "not drop safe." Some are simply much more drop safe than others. If you pick your favorite platform that has been declared "drop safe" and drop a billion different examples a billion times in a billion different ways, I bet it would fire at least once, because eventually something will give. That's different than a pistol that reliably fires itself when dropped from four feet and lands on the back of the slide.

[BehindBlueI's]

Furthermore, I've been adamantly told by a co-worker that no gun is completely drop safe...

How many un-tinkered with Glocks have discharged upon being dropped?

[Dagga Boy]

DB thank you for taking the time to lay this all out. If you don't mind, I'd like to email your responses in this thread to my boss who is the agency range master.

To be clear, I'm not defending Sig or the P320, but I work with many people who do. I want to make sure I give them the best info in the most logical way possible. I've seen people get defensive when one points out their equipment choices (which they spent hard earned money on) are not good.

Let me add a bit of context for your co-workers based on personal experience. So, a long time ago I worked at SIG's West Coast LE distributor in the mid 80's. Actually sold the P-226's that went to the West Coast SEAL Team guys before the Navy bought them. I went to my agency with a SIG order I sold to them for the SWAT Team. Shot SIG's almost exclusively. Won the county top gun shoot with one, been in a OIS that worked well with one, and multiple Armorer class graduated. Total Koop Aid drinking SIG is awesome Glock sucks drinker. Then it happened...Old SIG became the beginnings of today's SIG. So we get an order of 22 or 23 guns from SIG. Armorer checking he guns in calls me and says half don't work. I go to the armory and sure as heck, 11 guns will not fire a round. Nothing. Simply are incapable of firing a single round. Thankfully we checked them as standard SOP before issuing them. So, I call SIG. Now as a total SIG guy I gave them the total benefit of the doubt that it was some problem they would jump right on and we would be good to go. What I got was a total lack of one bit of concern and basically a "so what". When you ship an LE order and 50% of the guns will not fire, a couple things come to mind. They obviously were not Test fired. I was told that some engineering changes were made and the system was "improved". I did not see "no go bang" as an improvement. There was not one bit of concern. No particular fix other than "we can look at them if you send them back". So....we boxed the guns up for a straight return to SIG and refused the order. I went directly to the Chief of Police via my chain of command, told him what happened, dumped my favorite gun company that I was heavily invested in and we became a HK/Glock agency that day. Sometimes, lines get crossed and you see things for what is best for your organization and in this business, competition is good and blind loyalty is how companies get away with pulling crap.

I wanted to share hat as a bit of experience as to how I learned that blind loyalty makes you a pawn in a very serious game.