Did a search, didn’t find anything:
By now, I think we’re all generally on the same page when it comes to the AR, that your safety stays engaged until you’re shouting, then once you’re done, it comes back on. Most domestic LE rifle programs use this philosophy, most all civilian tactical training I’ve seen use this philosophy, my understanding (never been military) is that outside of certain parts of NSW most military units run safety on all the time.
Personally, whether I’m on a barricade, or clearing a building, my rifle is on safe until I’m snapping it up and moving my finger to the trigger to start pressing. With a rifle, it’s an easy thing to put on the clock and see that there is no time penalty. With 4 points of contact, how delicately or violently my firing hand throws the safety then mashes on the trigger plays very little role into shot placement when we’re talking about room distance, out to high risk stop etc. distance.
Contrast this, it seems like there’s been a resurgence (or maybe some were just smart enough to never leave) of pistols with manual safeties. STI’s been killing it, so now the 2011 is cool amongst the tactical Instagram crowd, the 1911 goes up and down in being popular here, then we have guns like the M&P with a manual safety, some CZs, berettas, HKs etc.
When I’m running my 1911, if I don’t pay attention to where my support hand meat of my thumb lands, if I deactivate the thumb safety with a full two handed grip, I pinch the crap out of it. Same issue with gloves. So under my current mindset, if my gun is pointed in a direction I anticipate a threat may appear but hasn’t appeared yet, or pointed at something that doesn’t need to be shot right now, my safety is engaged, thumb on top, and my support hand is just a smidgeon loose/the gun is sucked in a little to give me room to drop that safety, punch out that smidgeon while fully seating my grip. Time wise, I don’t think this is costing me much, but I could be very wrong in my mindset on still keeping my safety always on with my pistol as well.
If I mash a 1911 safety and trigger like I can an AR, the shot goes to hell. If I’m delicate with the safety and trigger, my speed suffers.
So, if we run our safeties on all the time with rifles because of all the reasons we’ve heard repeatedly, should we run our pistols equipped with a manual safety the same way? Why or why not?
Thanks for feedback!