Thumb Safety Discussion

[Yute]

Looks more usable than the M17 safety.

[HeavyDuty]

Looks more usable than the M17 safety.

I have a MS equipped M18, and I’m finding the safety to be agreeable. I’m hoping it will slick up a little more with use, but even now it’s fine.

[Bergeron]

I am curious to see how the broad base of M17/M18 users find the safeties.

I really wanted both a thumb safety and a hammer/SCD.

[JHC]

The M&P is ambi, which I like better than the single-side that I have. Other than that, the shapes and locations feel pretty similar. Maybe for the M&P .45, it's the frame size as well as the safeties. My understanding is that Ernest Langdon played an important role in the M&P .45 thumb safety design.

For using the Glocks in class, the safeties were nothing I had to really consciously think about manipulating. They went off as I built my grip, and on as I broke my grip. Holstering a thumb safety Glock with a SCD is nice.

I love a good thumb safety also. I never tried an M&P 45 with one, but I did not like the M&P Compact 9mm Gen 2 thumb safety dimensions and position at all.

This is really neat. I too wish Glock had such an OEM offering. I'd vote they model it after the EGW overbuilt beast I just had Derr Precision fit to my LW Operator. I love that thing and may convert others to it.

[Bergeron]

Yeah, I've never shot a thumb safety on a M&P 9 or 40, and I've only ever even held the full-size M&P guns.

A positive thing about ambi stuff that I only really first noticed when I had an outing with a M&P .45 was that my straight, high trigger finger helped on-safe the gun, and made manipulating the safety super slick. Same thing dropping the slide, I could keep my grip, and with a "pinching" sort of motion, get the slide stop with both thumb and index finger. Nothing like that for these Glocks, but I'm still happy.

I've never gotten into the guts of a M&P, but considering S&W's old "SD" semi-glock clones, I would think (hope!) that some sort of M&P-ish solution would work for Glock safeties. Maybe not, though, because Glock's thumb safety solution for the MHS solicitation did not appear to the have the sort of robust engineering that I was hoping to see, and it looks like Glock got dinged for that on the evaluation of their submission.

EGW and Mr. Derr are both top-of-the-line, compliments on your fine taste!

[APS-PF]

I find the M&P 2.0 thumb safety to have a limp action. Also for my hands, riding the safety puts my thumb base joint right at the corner of the frame and it's painful within a few rounds.
The P320 safety has a firm action and I don't have any issues riding the safety. Unfortunately, it's attached to a P320.

[Hot Sauce]

I find the M&P 2.0 thumb safety to have a limp action. Also for my hands, riding the safety puts my thumb base joint right at the corner of the frame and it's painful within a few rounds.
The P320 safety has a firm action and I don't have any issues riding the safety. Unfortunately, it's attached to a P320.

Because of tolerance variations I've seen in a variety of thumb safety guns, I made it a policy to generally always get hands on at the FFL, go through several examples they stock, and pick out the one with the best tolerances.

I had the same model M&P once where one example had the safety be super positive and clicky, and the other example had no holding power and would go to unsafe if you sneezed on it. That's how I learned that lesson.

If you choose to, you can also carefully deepen the engagement notch on the M&P safety with a small file.

[TheNewbie]

If the M&P had a thumb safety like the one on the 92x, I would be all in on the M&P.


The Ruger American thumb safety looks pretty decent.....but it’s a Ruger American. No idea if they are great guns or not, but I doubt there are a lot of high round count ones out there to give us some data.

[APS-PF]

If you choose to, you can also carefully deepen the engagement notch on the M&P safety with a small file.

Yes I did work on this a bit but stopped after I considered the long term affects of thousands and thousands of rounds beating up my thumb joint. Ultimately I gave up on the thumb safety quest and am back to Glock/SCD.

[Hot Sauce]

Yes I did work on this a bit but stopped after I considered the long term affects of thousands and thousands of rounds beating up my thumb joint. Ultimately I gave up on the thumb safety quest and am back to Glock/SCD.

Understandable. In the end of it all, our hand size/shape is a constant and the gun is a variable. Just like some hands fit Glocks well and others don't, M&Ps/1911s/etc are not immune to this either.