Opinions on external safety

[Bucky]

This ^. And I’d add that if you carry a gun with a safety, don’t mix and match with others that don’t. I carried a 1911 for work for a number of years, and truly love them. When I carried them, the only non 1911 I carried was a J-frame backup.

I’ve shot 1911s pretty exclusively my first 10 years of shooting. My thumb comes down on the “safety” on every gun I shoot, even if it doesn’t exist. Starting on another platform, perhaps it wouldn’t be so instinctive.

[Sherman A. House DDS]

I have twice seen officers' lives saved when an engaged manual safety prevented a pistol lost from their control from firing...

I’ve always wondered why Glock, with their huge foothold on the domestic LE market, doesn’t offer a manual safety (a la M&P or 1911 type) as an option. I’m sure it’d be necessary to revise the training required to operate it, but at least it’d be out there, available.


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[ST911]

Am mindful of anecdotes about manual and magazine safety saves. Still, they are outliers and I have no use or interest in an external safety on a DA/DAO service or CCW pistol. For an LCD, the downside may outweigh the benefits.

I’ve always wondered why Glock, with their huge foothold on the domestic LE market, doesn’t offer a manual safety (a la M&P or 1911 type) as an option. I’m sure it’d be necessary to revise the training required to operate it, but at least it’d be out there, available.

CONUS LE demand is likely too low to measure, probably the same on the commercial side as well. In a striker fired safety-less world, many curriculums don't even discuss safety manipulation. Instructor competencies in teaching safety lever management are fading. Heck, some can barely teach a decocking lever.

Glocks with manual safeties exist. I suspect that if any agency of enough note wanted them they'd have them.

[lwt16]

I’ve always wondered why Glock, with their huge foothold on the domestic LE market, doesn’t offer a manual safety (a la M&P or 1911 type) as an option. I’m sure it’d be necessary to revise the training required to operate it, but at least it’d be out there, available.

A good number of officers I work with don't even have their hoods up on their Safariland duty holsters as they never train to draw with the hood properly engaged. They simply rely on just the thumb lever to access the pistol.

Adding a 1911 style safety would blow their collective minds. We do less and less "gun" training as the years go by.

Hilarity ensues at Simunition training when detectives and line level officers can't defeat their holster retention features in man on man shootouts. They tug and tug at their sim gun and after getting shot four or five times simply sigh, shrug, and give up.

It's depressing to watch.

Regards.

[Robinson]

I look at this from the aspect of which pistol I shoot most proficiently, that is shoot with confidence and accuracy. If it has a safety I incorporate that into the training for that pistol. I also look at a safety as something that I can use or not. Sort of like a weapon mounted light, it's there and I decided if and when to use it. If we are talking about a safety on a duty pistol, then SOP might regulate it's usage.

Magazine disconnects can also spark a lively debate!

I may be missing your meaning here, but I would argue that if a gun is equipped with a safety mechanism it should always be used. Maybe there are exceptions, but when it comes to single action pistols such as the 1911 or AR-pattern rifles it seems to me that using the safety and training that way are essential -- not optional.

I guess the exception I would make is a lever gun with the traditional half-cock notch as well as a safety. Adding a safety to those guns was just dumb because the half-cock position works just fine.

[SAWBONES]

And I’d add that if you carry a gun with a safety, don’t mix and match with others that don’t. I carried a 1911 for work for a number of years, and truly love them. When I carried them, the only non 1911 I carried was a J-frame backup.

I'll echo the opinion that (even though John Browning didn't include such in his original 1911 design) a single action pistol carried cocked, as it should be for best readiness, requires an active safety.

And as LSP552 said, a J-frame, or other long-pull revolver trigger, is sufficiently different from a 1911 or other SA semiautomatic trigger, and the "feel" of the revolver in hand too is sufficiently distinct from that of a 1911, that probably no confusion about trigger/safety operation should occur under stress, if one should carry both types of gun.

[Sherman A. House DDS]

A good number of officers I work with don't even have their hoods up on their Safariland duty holsters as they never train to draw with the hood properly engaged. They simply rely on just the thumb lever to access the pistol.

Adding a 1911 style safety would blow their collective minds. We do less and less "gun" training as the years go by.

Hilarity ensues at Simunition training when detectives and line level officers can't defeat their holster retention features in man on man shootouts. They tug and tug at their sim gun and after getting shot four or five times simply sigh, shrug, and give up.

It's depressing to watch.

Regards.

Agreed. I have seen guys I work with doing the same thing. It’s weird, because for me, having come from an SSIII or thumb break type holster, the draw stroke on the 6360 series holsters are so ergonomic and easy to use whilst getting a FFG.


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[sharps54]

I posted this somewhere on this site before.

I was in a Kyle Defoor class where Kyle demonstrated some contact shots on a target with a Glock. Kyle put just under the amount of pressure required to force the Glock out of battery on the muzzle of the gun. Kyle then went on to say the 1911 was an archaic gun because it was not capable of doing what he did. Seeing as I was shooting a 1911 in his class I begged to differ.

I proceeded to grab the target with one hand and jam my 1911 into it with the other. I'm talking about significantly more force than Kyle was using as the target was deformed by the pressure from my gun's muzzle. I then proceeded to easily put a contact round into the target. I explained to Kyle the 1911's Safety locks the slide in battery. If I need to make a contact shot I could put all my weight into the gun if required and still fire a shot. The technique is finger depressing the trigger. Disengaging the Safety fires the pistol. That was something his Glock can not do! He learned something.

I remember hearing that at one point in the ‘90’s Tacoma PD had a trainer that taught officers to hold suspects at gunpoint that way with their Kimbers, finger on trigger thumb safety on. I can’t confirm that myself it is just something I heard from an officer with a different department.

[JAH 3rd]

The original post reads that one has a pistol on one's person, hopefully in a holster. The use of a safety depends on the pistol. The 1911 in condition 1 is cocked and locked, which is the way I would carry one. However, some may carry that 1911 with a round in the chamber with the hammer lowered to the rest position. That negates the use of a thumb safety. The Beretta 92 that I have has a safety/decocker lever. With this pistol, one has the option of engaging the safety or not when the hammer is in the rest position. My response was specifically for the question the original poster asked, the use of a safety on a pistol. To be clear, if one's pistol is in SA mode, engage the safety. If the hammer is at rest, that's where the option to engage or not comes in.

Now when one introduces a long gun with a safety, I am all for an engaged safety. The specific AR example for instance needs the safety engaged when a live round is chambered.

[rjohnson4405]

I'm DA or guns with an external safety only, even added a Cominolli (sp?) to my Glock 19.

Ernest Langdon and Darryl Bolke have both made good points as to why and frankly, I enjoy those types of guns more. It also makes new shooters MUCH more comfortable, whether or not that's a good reason is another discussion.

Pretty much the only reason I have for not going Glock Gen 5 route.