Farnham had a H-on for HK. I think at one point he banned P7s.I also recall John Farnham banning the practice in his classes. Bad things could certainly happen if you trigger a firearm when you are not supposed to. Now I have guns where I can reach the controls, so it is a non-issue for me, but when I did do it I was able to stay out of trouble easily enough.
23 years with HK on duty, 17 as an instructor and I've seen some interesting stuff (from shooters) but never an issue with ND's and the paddle release.
Worth remembering the reasoning behind the paddles was a german service pistol requirement because officers who worked crowds would find their pistols without mags after being bumped, etc. To me, mag security is very comforting and everything has it's tradeoffs, no pistol is totally safe in most every way.
It is also very handy for topping off mags without removing the pistol from the holster. Forgot to add, great discussion. Duty gun is HK45 with light LEM. I carry a P2000 light LEM 9mm off duty. The reset on the 9mm used to catch me sometimes, so I put the Gray Guns part in. Now they feel the same to me, highly recommended. I have a back up P2000 that is tempting me to put an RDO on.
Shot VP9s almost exclusively from 2015 until earlier this year, to the tune of approximately 75,852 rounds, and habitually used my trigger finger to dump the magazine. Never an issue. I understand the concern about using the trigger finger for something other than pressing the trigger, but I've not experienced any issues in real life.
Pressing the paddle involves pushing down, not back.
The paddle is behind the trigger, not in front of it.
Excepting "tactical" reloads or administratively unloading the gun, the gun is usually empty (or has experienced a stoppage) when I am pressing the paddle. I'm generally not performing tac reloads or unloading under stress or at such speed that I'm going to fat-finger my way onto the trigger when I don't intend to.
Perhaps different hand sizes or levels of dexterity face challenges, and obviously @GJM's anecdote shows that it is possible, but it seems like a rare occurrence.
Granted, I'm also ok with using my trigger finger to activate a WML (again, sweeping down, not back)... I'm just not of the belief that my trigger finger can only be trusted to do one thing when there's a gun involved.
I read one article that said Homeland Security placed a 65,000 pistol order with HK. I think the date was 2004. Are there data showing how these weapons performed from a reliability standpoint? I assume HK delivered them.
It was an order for up to 65k pistols. Not sure how many were ultimately delivered, but I would assume that the bulk of them were the P2000 in .40 S&W issued to CBP. Haven't heard much by way of complaints about them, AFAIK, in terms of reliability.Originally Posted by willie
I don't think that HK designed their paddle with 1 second IPSC-style in-battery reloads in mind, and for slide lock reloads the trigger finger concern is less relevant.
Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.
Pretty sure there are some BP guys on here that carried them. I can relate that the earlier 155 round in 40 they used to issue was shock and awe stuff, and it probably did have some play on longevity before they switched to 180's. They also shot it for training when I shot with them. Trigger return springs were one to watch.
Absolutely not, it's there to keep it covered by the holster so it cannot be accident bumped and result in lost magazine which may go unnoticed for quite some time or just happen at the worst possible moment to begin with like wrestling around with someone. Life is a tradeoff, tools are no different.
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