THISOriginally Posted by ToddG
not running thumb on top is not only a suboptimal grip... it is suicidal in a combat situation.
THIS
not running thumb on top is not only a suboptimal grip... it is suicidal in a combat situation.
On what are you basing this statement?
Thumbs forward, especially on the weak hand, allows for a much better wrist lock; I find the locked wrist, on the weak hand, to be critical for effective recoil control.
FWIW: Bill Rogers advocates a thumb down grip, for anatomical reasons, when shooting one handed.
I feel that the P30S has a nearly identical safety position. And, unlike the USPs and HK45, putting too much downwards pressure on it won't accidentally de-cock your pistol. My experience isn't as broad as many here, but having hand-ogled a zillion pistols in gun shops, I think that the P30S and the 1911 are the only pistols with a thumb safety where I felt that there were no negatives, other than those that are mandatory with a thumb safety (like, "there's a thumb safety there" or "I don't like thumb safeties"). On my P30S, I can get a thumb under the safety if I want (and my support hand seems to be able to locate the thumb there OK), but I do feel that above the safety makes more sense in terms of accidentally putting it back on safe, so that's where I've been training it.
J.Ja
Owner/President of Titanium Crowbar, LLC
I agree that the safety doesn't have to be disengaged every time the gun leaves the holster. However, by riding the safety lever, it means that when it is time for the safety to snick off, I'm in position already. The alternative is to move the thumb from below the safety to atop the safety, depress the safety, then move the thumb back below... which is a lot of movement (and time) for no benefit. It's also far less natural compared to "squeezing grip (and coincidentally forcing the safety down) as I present to shoot."
Based on some conversations I've had over the past couple of days -- one with a highly renowned BHP 'smith and another with a close friend of the late Stephen Camp -- I'm more convinced than ever that a BHP is an untenable choice for any kind of serious volume shooting.I was close to passing on this opportunity and going the Novaks BHP route but who knows when another Warren gun will be available.
Todd, I'm certainly conscious of their tendency to roll the recoil lug (I forget if the slide side or the barrel side is affected). Do they do anything else nasty over cycles?
Ignore Alien Orders
I don't remember all the details, but yes it was more than just the barrel lug. Unanimous consent was that expecting a BHP to work as a 50k gun was simply unrealistic.
Well, to each his own, I've given the gist as to why I use my preferred grip (it works with pretty much everything, etc.)...maybe someday if I start trying to make GM with a 1911 in IPSC or USPSA, I'll switch.
We can move on, too much other good info for this thread to get side-tracked on grip preferences.
Cheers
BOSS
Not to thread drift too much.....but do you know how they held up when they were the issued gun for HRT?
That certainly matches conversations I've had with folks like Bill Laughridge. Of course, durability is kind of moderate in significance -- only one's practice pistol needs to be durable, and when one is spending ~$10k on ammo it's not that big a deal if it takes one, two, or three $600 pistols to get there. It starts to matter a lot if your idea of a proper P35 is rooted in Heirloom Precision -- which was true for me until I spent a couple thousand rounds with an unmodified Izzy. It's not for me, but I do know some real fans of the platform, and if they wanted to carry an Heirloom and set a comparable stack of surplus guns in their safe for practice I wouldn't call them crazy. I haven't actually met a HP fan who was a high volume one-gun shooter, though. I don't think they'd be terribly interested in a 50k test.
I do think that an LWC's durability would be very interesting in direct contrast to a steel 5" gun, though.
Ignore Alien Orders
The P35 was a wonderfully designed, elegant, and sophisticated pistol in it's prime. And it's prime lasted a long, long time.
IIRC, most P35s crack their frames during extended use. The MkIIIs are much less prone to that problem though. Largely due to the alloy change that took place to accommodate the 40S&W version (the switch from forged frames to cast frames). P35 manufacturing didn't receive the updates in alloys that the 1911 did. For example, I seriously doubt a 1938 Colt NM would have fared as well as my CQB over 40 some thousand rounds. The P35 was never the competition gun the 1911 was, and thus the improvements were never made. If the SAS/HRT/whoever else went through a gun a year, no big deal. Peening the locking lugs is much less of an issue, and really only surfaces on "surplus" guns that the slide had questionable heat treat.
Another point should also be made, for perspective only, the only truly high round count G17s I've seen exhibit erosion (pitting) on the breech face. That is often the career ender for the Glocks. And that happens, typically, around the 50k mark too. This is because the Glock slide is deep case hardened. Not that there are that many 50k pistols out there. And, as has been noted, that represents about 10% of the ammo budget to get to that point anyway. And FWIW, I've never seen a cracked MkIII frame (non chrome). I've seen a cracked T series, I've seen a cracked chromed MkIII. But never a cracked MkIII.
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