Semi-Auto Triggers: market trends, choices, and consequences

[JustOneGun]

Ok, how many UDs in that 5 years?

Sorry I don't have the data. Just the trends...If you want some hard numbers it would be better to agree to disagree. I don't think any numbers would make you happy. Not only can I not give them, I also admitted that if I had the raw numbers I wouldn't give them to you. It's not only bad for me but raw numbers can be easily manipulated by misusing stats in the same way you and I disagree on how to interpret how changing a physical construct of a trigger can make something better or worse.

To be fair to departments that not only will not keep the stats but they usually keep just enough to see the trend and move on. Why? Because our disagreement that we have here isn't an interwebs disagreement. That's just something silly that people say on the internet. Our disagreement is the same argument that has to be won by officers and trainers during every lawsuit around the country. Ultimately the numbers then becomes an interpretation. There are plenty of people who interpret them incorrectly. If you're an activist or lawyer there are plenty of classes at university that will teach how to lie using them. They make them show something that logically they can't show. Ultimately what we've been talking about is the same thing. Break it down to the geek level, think about it, make your choice and move on. As I think Tom Givens said (or close to it), "You make your choices and take your chances". I add, "Choose wisely." For instructors I add, "Make sure you're correct because you're not screwing yourself up. You're screwing the very people that need you the most, the below average."

[GardoneVT]

Hard numbers on human error are difficult to acquire ; for obvious reasons people are not incentivized to report their own mistakes honestly. Further ,clean data is impossible to obtain- who among us is willing to have their carry pistol wired for data as it's used over a period of years? Data which might be used as evidence in a defensive incident?

Few would participate,and who'd blame them?

[Mjolnir]

Could it accurately be said that a traditional double action is MORE FORGIVING and a short travel, striker fired action be LESS FORGIVING of human error?

I came off of 1911s, fell in love with the P226 Navy, tried the P30 LEM, heavily invested in the VP9 and about one month ago purchased the CZ P10C and ordered a Cajun Gun Works P-07 that same week. I'm also purchasing a second P2000 LEM from a forum member (because two is better than one).

My background: Mech Engr.

I understand the layers of safety and I also understand the potential danger all firearms present and human response to stress.

In my opinion, I always felt (and still feel) safest with the 1911 platform: it's drop safe (SA TRP) and there are two safeties to disengage to fire. Okay, one is what I term "an administrative safety" (the grip safety) because once you place the gun into your hand that safety is disengaged.

I had a P7M8 and I felt that was a safe pistol to carry (12 lbs to cock it and 2 to hold the safety disengaged).

The LEM H&K pistols would be the about equal in my estimation to the P7 and sometimes I felt a little more secure as I could and would apply pressure to the hammer when reloading.

True story with the P2000. The very same day I purchased it I used it. I did not have to fire the pistol but I had to draw it while seated in a vehicle. Guess what? Finger was ON the trigger and the slack was taken up before I could get the pistol turned towards the bad guy. I still think about trigger actions to this day (mainly, how would that have worked out with my current carry rotation?)

Glocks with stock triggers are "okay" add a SCD/Gadget and I'm fine.

H&K VP9. Great shooter. It's what I term "a cheater pistol" as it flatters me on a good day. The trigger? It FEELS "feathery light" though it isn't. In the situations we imagine - the goblin somehow makes his presence known a few seconds prior to you going to steel it seems almost perfect (the Glock 19 seems to "leap out of the holster" compared to the VP9 though). I carry it AIWB and I dry fire the shit out of my second one ton make damned well sure I cognitively comprehend what I *feel* with that trigger.

I'm testing the CZ P10C and it has a rolling break that I don't like for shooting small targets at distance but I find it slightly more forgiving than say a stock Glock or VP9 trigger.

One thing I found myself doing prior to a Gadget was placing my finger BEHIND the trigger as I was holstering these polymer, no external safety, no hammer pistols. Not sure if that's a good idea; it's certainly not something I would try to teach or transfer to someone.

I would like to think "I will never be in a hurry to holster" but that's probably not true. The VP9 could be a disaster in that environment. The 1911, the best for me as I have (rightfully or wrongfully) complete confidence in that system. In fact, TLG stopped me in his Aim Fast Hit Fast, Shooting on the Move Class because I was rapidly re-holstering - but I was using a striker-fired pistol. [emoji102][emoji102]

So the journey for me is to master the DA/LEM. It's not as fast (for me) and the first shot can sometimes still fall low and left. But I'm working on it.

If an accident were to take place we know a human can fly thru ALL safeties and have a "bang!" moment. Thus I use the terms "more forgiving", "less forgiving" and "unforgiving" when describing pistol actions.

What do y'all think?


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[BehindBlueI's]

Sorry I don't have the data. Just the trends...If you want some hard numbers it would be better to agree to disagree. I don't think any numbers would make you happy. Not only can I not give them, I also admitted that if I had the raw numbers I wouldn't give them to you. It's not only bad for me but raw numbers can be easily manipulated by misusing stats in the same way you and I disagree on how to interpret how changing a physical construct of a trigger can make something better or worse.

To be fair to departments that not only will not keep the stats but they usually keep just enough to see the trend and move on. Why? Because our disagreement that we have here isn't an interwebs disagreement. That's just something silly that people say on the internet. Our disagreement is the same argument that has to be won by officers and trainers during every lawsuit around the country. Ultimately the numbers then becomes an interpretation. There are plenty of people who interpret them incorrectly. If you're an activist or lawyer there are plenty of classes at university that will teach how to lie using them. They make them show something that logically they can't show. Ultimately what we've been talking about is the same thing. Break it down to the geek level, think about it, make your choice and move on. As I think Tom Givens said (or close to it), "You make your choices and take your chances". I add, "Choose wisely." For instructors I add, "Make sure you're correct because you're not screwing yourself up. You're screwing the very people that need you the most, the below average."

Did you ever have the hard numbers? You had no issue pronouncing that the UDs were evenly distributed across platforms based on the numbers of each in use. Now numbers are some how verboten. How many UDs in total were your percentages based on?

What you're telling me is you tracked 525 recruits, if the average is correct, and came up with enough UDs with enough variety in platforms to make such a pronouncement? What was the context of these UDs?

[BehindBlueI's]

Hard numbers on human error are difficult to acquire ; for obvious reasons people are not incentivized to report their own mistakes honestly. Further ,clean data is impossible to obtain- who among us is willing to have their carry pistol wired for data as it's used over a period of years? Data which might be used as evidence in a defensive incident?

That's actually why I only tracked UDs resulting in injury or death. No damage/property damage only are often not reported. Injuries that are very minor may not be reported, but they tend to be. Yes, people will lie, but there is often a witness or some forensic evidence to help with that, as well as the interview itself.

[JustOneGun]

Could it accurately be said that a traditional double action is MORE FORGIVING and a short travel, striker fired action be LESS FORGIVING of human error


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Of course that's what we've debating. On the face of it it seems a longer trigger stroke or a longer and heaver trigger stroke is more forgiving. But my and other's arguments is that it doesn't seem to pan out that way in real life.

So if we start to isolate things like a bad shooting or a UD while holstering we see things like, average people and below having trouble stopping the trigger press after the decision is made to fire or the decision to holster has been made. The distance a pistol passes into the holster from the top edge to the seated position is longer than the max length of all triggers in the DA/SA pistol. The pressure the average person uses to holster the pistol can overcome the average DA/SA trigger. That fact that when we holster without looking we most often holster quickly and with more pressure than average.

I could go on for paragraphs. What you believe in this way and why is the argument.

[GardoneVT]

Of course that's what we've debating. On the face of it it seems a longer trigger stroke or a longer and heaver trigger stroke is more forgiving. But my and other's arguments is that it doesn't seem to pan out that way in real life.

Unfortunately existing sample sizes of Law Enforcement academy trainees isn't a good dataset for application to the wider base of gun owners nationwide. Trainees are vetted before attending the academy, and are instructed using an intentionally limited selection of weapons. Civlian carry classes aren't useful either: students come from a wider background, but the guns they bring to the class might not be ones they'd ever carry. Is an ND with a Glock 17 at a gun class an applicable data point when their EDC is a .380 DAO pocket gun?

To empirically determine the nature of trigger systems vis a vis negligent discharges, we'd need a sample size of people reflective of the American population of gun owners, and basically convince them to agree to have their guns wired for trigger & grip pressure. They'd then need to agree to have data collected about their firearms useage for a period of time, perhaps six months. One group would carry & use control pistols -basically weapons of their choice, the other two groups would use DA/SA guns and striker guns respectively througout the testing period. The assignment of who'd carry what would need to be randomly determined for the sake of data integrity - which wouldn't sit well with a lot of folks. It would be like randomly assigning half of P-F forum users to carry a Glock 17 whether they wanted to or not.

There are few gun owners who'd volunteer for something like that . Which leaves us with scattered data points of limited value to answering that question. Perhaps a group of volunteers for such a test could be recruited , but even then the data wouldn't be clean- so we're back to innuendo and opinion.

[JustOneGun]

Unfortunately existing sample sizes of Law Enforcement academy trainees isn't a good dataset for application to the wider base of gun owners nationwide. Trainees are vetted before attending the academy, and are instructed using an intentionally limited selection of weapons. Civlian carry classes aren't useful either: students come from a wider background, but the guns they bring to the class might not be ones they'd ever carry. Is an ND with a Glock 17 at a gun class an applicable data point when their EDC is a .380 DAO pocket gun?

To empirically determine the nature of trigger systems vis a vis negligent discharges, we'd need a sample size of people reflective of the American population of gun owners, and basically convince them to agree to have their guns wired for trigger & grip pressure. They'd then need to agree to have data collected about their firearms useage for a period of time, perhaps six months. One group would carry & use control pistols -basically weapons of their choice, the other two groups would use DA/SA guns and striker guns respectively througout the testing period. The assignment of who'd carry what would need to be randomly determined for the sake of data integrity - which wouldn't sit well with a lot of folks. It would be like randomly assigning half of P-F forum users to carry a Glock 17 whether they wanted to or not.

There are few gun owners who'd volunteer for something like that . Which leaves us with scattered data points of limited value to answering that question. Perhaps a group of volunteers for such a test could be recruited , but even then the data wouldn't be clean- so we're back to innuendo and opinion.

And you are correct. That is one of the legitimate reasons gov and companies don't keep intricate stats. But they do keep basic stats looking for the trends. Those absolutely are essential. So when a department transitions from one handgun system to another and all of a sudden there is a spike in bad shoots we know something is wrong. We need to fix it. It doesn't tell us the gun is evil or bad or the transition equated to a failure to train. But it does tell us we better start looking for what it might be.

Now consider that in general local, city, state gov tend to be risk adverse when it comes to these things of handguns, training, etc we can take anecdotal data from hundreds of cities, counties, states and feds and look for a trend. How many people have prolonged increases in bad shoots as a trend. How many of them had short trends but switched away from striker sooner than they would have replaced the pistol normally. Why is it that striker fired guns continue to gain contracts in the face of such increasing stats and trends that show how unsafe they are?

The answer to each of these are anecdotal. The answer collectively is a trend in and of themselves. HK has and will give a good deal to large departments in order to get their guns in their hands. So will Glock and Sig. In the risk adverse world of LE and gov that trend will go away from Glock if those numbers spiked or trended up and stayed up. The fact is they didn't and don't. Just another piece of the puzzle.

[Mjolnir]

I think we need to narrow the scope or we will go round and round each other.

We have to make some assumptions to narrow the scope.

Skill Level needs to be more "average" AS COMPARED HERE. I cannot and will not attempt to speak to those who have a pistol but low IQ and EQ and no interest or attention span. No "thing" is safe in their hands or around them.

A mistake is a mistake and when executed at full speed or with enough in attention to detail there is an ND.

We cannot cover those.

What I can discuss is a "momentary lapse of reason" with the emphasis on MOMENTARY.

Then, IMHO, longer stroke, heavier trigger weights will be inherently "safer" than short stroke, lighter trigger weights.

I don't think one can argue (effectively) against that.

1911s? I still *FEEL* they are the safest - or CAN BE. They are not for the modern beginner. But then should a Glock, PPQ or VP9? Not so sure though it's done every day. And though there are NDs we aren't unheard of.


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[breakingtime91]

I think we need to narrow the scope or we will go round and round each other.

We have to make some assumptions to narrow the scope.

Skill Level needs to be more "average" AS COMPARED HERE. I cannot and will not attempt to speak to those who have a pistol but low IQ and EQ and no interest or attention span. No "thing" is safe in their hands or around them.

A mistake is a mistake and when executed at full speed or with enough in attention to detail there is an ND.

We cannot cover those.

What I can discuss is a "momentary lapse of reason" with the emphasis on MOMENTARY.

Then, IMHO, longer stroke, heavier trigger weights will be inherently "safer" than short stroke, lighter trigger weights.

I don't think one can argue (effectively) against that.

1911s? I still *FEEL* they are the safest - or CAN BE. They are not for the modern beginner. But then should a Glock, PPQ or VP9? Not so sure though it's done every day. And though there are NDs we aren't unheard of.


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Hard to argue against a series 80 1911. it is a really good option if you feel like you need redundant safeties.