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Thread: Striker Manual Safety: when to use?

  1. #1
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    Striker Manual Safety: when to use?

    I am a Glock user, and I have a problem. Mainly that I qual with the M17 in 3 weeks for the first time and need to figure out the manual safety. My question is for those that use manual safeties on a striker gun is when you are turning the safety on/off.

    On the M4 I'm one of those people that tries to use the safety whenever possible: that means in before executing a reload, during malfunctions (if the hammer isn't forward), and any sort of movement/level change.

    While I ride and can deactivate the M17 safety with my firing hand thumb without issue, it is pretty stiff and I find myself having to use my support hand to activate it consistently. A silky 1911 safety it is not.

    Per Table VI of the new Pistol Qual, you fire 10 rounds standing unsupported, reload, fire 10 rounds kneeling, reload, and then stand and move towards and engage the remaining 10 targets. This is all continuous unlike the prior qual. Per the TC we are expected to safe the weapon between level changes after the reload.

    For range qual that's fine, but off the range I'm inclined to disengage the safety once I get into a thumb-pectoral index and leave it off until it's time to reholster. What are other folks doing? Thanks!

  2. #2
    Site Supporter Maple Syrup Actual's Avatar
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    Personally, my basic rule is that once I hit the thumb/pectoral index, the safety is off until I come of target, but I consciously go on safe if I walk or talk. As soon as I'm doing a non-shooting task, I safe whatever I'm using. For a few years it was a different gun every month on account of the magazine I worked for and I just forced my hands to adapt.

    I don't know that this is the best way, but I found it pretty effective.
    This is a thread where I built a boat I designed and which I very occasionally update with accounts of using it, which is really fun as long as I'm not driving over logs and blowing up the outboard.
    https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ilding-a-skiff

  3. #3
    Probably run it like a striker-fired gun without a safety.

    Are not safeties superfluous on a handgun?

  4. #4
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    Having been brought up on 1911s, the safety is applied any time I'm moving and not shooting, when I'm finished engaging the target, and when holstering. I run my M&P 45s the same way. The 1911's safety can't be engaged when the slide is locked back (though the M&P's can), so I ignore it when loading.

  5. #5
    Site Supporter HeavyDuty's Avatar
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    Not very bright but does lack ambition
    Quote Originally Posted by Navin Johnson View Post
    Are not safeties superfluous on a handgun?
    No.
    Ken

    BBI: ...”you better not forget the safe word because shit's about to get weird”...
    revchuck38: ...”mo' ammo is mo' betta' unless you're swimming or on fire.”

  6. #6
    Site Supporter Rex G's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Navin Johnson View Post
    Probably run it like a striker-fired gun without a safety.
    The problem, with this method, is that a safety lever can be accidentally/incidentally bumped or brushed against something, and therefore be in an unexpected position, when one needs to fire. Better to manage that safety, at all times.

    This is not theoretical. It is real. I found a 1911 thumb safety, in the incorrect “off” position, more than once, with at least one of the 1911 pistols I used in the Eighties, to 1991. This bump/brushing occurred while the weapon was holstered. (I was then without any 1911, for a few years. I don’t remember this happening again, mid-Nineties to the present.)

    @Mas Ayoob has documented at least one incident, during which a Beretta safety lever was moved to the “safe” position during contact with pavement, or the ground, with a sad result for the defender when he regained control of the weapon.

    I believe that it is a best practice to actively manage any active safety device.

    I will not address the actual safety operation of a striker-fired weapon, any further than this, because my only weapons with thumb safety levers are hammer-fired, so there may be something I don’t know that I don’t know.
    Last edited by Rex G; 10-22-2020 at 07:42 AM.
    Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.

    Don’t tread on volcanos!

  7. #7
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    I carry a P365 w/manual safety AIWB. Flick safety on when holstering. Flick safety off when holstered.

  8. #8
    Member jd950's Avatar
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    My SFA experience is limited but I would consider the safety on an SFA as analogous to a 1911 or Hi Power. Generally, I have always been taught that safety comes off as you go on target or during active threat management, then back on when done firing, when the threat has sufficiently dissipated, when transitioning to something like a low ready, moving, holstering, etc.

    As suggested in other posts, this active management of the safety lever is important not only for the intended purpose of the lever, but to insure you have control over the readiness of the gun and do not inadvertently have the safety in the improper position for the situation at hand.

    I suspect some of the more "high-speed" folks around here have more sophisticated advice.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by HeavyDuty View Post
    No.
    Please understand my sarcasm......I wish there was a striker gun with a usable TS.

    I cringe when I see large deployment of 320/PPQ/ Type triggers because they are easier to "teach".

    20 years ago people would have shit themselves if someone holstered a 92 still cocked. I don't see the difference between that and a modern fully tensioned SF pistol. (Yes I know a cocked gun has internal safeties that are disabled but I'm making a point)

  10. #10
    Member Zincwarrior's Avatar
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    Excellent question young man! With a slide safety I always wondered how that was done myself, outside of a competition context with a 1911? I was always nervous about not activating it at the wrong moment (outside of a 1911).

    Quick question, can you ride the safety like on a 1911? Is that a factor also?

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