To "safety" or not?

[GreenOps]

I always teach students to "safety" during movement. Something that was taught to me early in Special Forces. As I started getting more into competition, my desire to engage the safety became less desirable so that I could become faster. Later, I discovered that it didn't add more time. Here's an example:

Any thoughts or feedback on engaging the safety?

 

[275RLTW]

Never seen it add time. If it takes you that long to go from a ready/carry/movement position to sights on target, then the time issue is not from the safety.

 

[Arete]

One of the ND's that I've seen in training with a rifle was during a "emergency reload". Shooter had his finger on the trigger and when he released the bolt to chamber a fresh round, he fired the weapon. That got my attention.

After reading and watching what Pat Mac and Paul Howe have to say about running the safety, I tested it and found that indeed there is no time added, and incorporated it into my own skillset, such that I do it at the subconscious level now.

"The safety is never a disabler, only an enabler". Pat Mac.

 

[Gilevi]

i will always teach safety. as a LEO instructor i tend to be teaching to the lowest common denominator, and they tend to have low round counts. id rather be safe. also someone like me that action is so built in over the years that not doing it would probably fuck me up more then doing it, i dont see a increase in speed.

 

[Ryan St.Jean]

Is your goal to be a tactical shooter or a gamer? If you want to be a good tactical shooter the answer is safety. If you want to be a good gamer look at whatever they do.

 

[Arete]

Competitors who have ND's get DQ'd . . .

 

[ggammell]

One fall in a class sold me. I ate it hard but I made damn sure the rifle stayed where it needed to stay. So glad the safety was on.

 

[Zito]

I was always a "safety on movement" guy but was definitely a no safety on malfunctions/transitions/bolt-lock reloads until about 2010. About that time I was working for a guy that was all about it and his rationale definitely made sense to me. So I started using the safety for everything (malfunctions, transitions, bolt-lock reloads, etc). I have seen more issues prevented by the safety engaged reload than have been hindered by it. Just this year, I have seen several competitors ND solely because they didn't engage the safety on either movement or a reload. Much like split times (to a point), I don't think you're going to win or lose a match/stage because of the time it took to engage/disengage a safety. I think there's a lot of value.

 

[Low_Speed_Notper8or]

A question here as a "non-initiatied" non Military, non LEO guy.

Why is engaging the safety such a thing I have seen stressed in training on rifles, yet the same guys will run a glock or striker and preach against a manual safety on a pistol?

With a design with a thumb safety like a CZ or BHP or (for you medicare recipients out there) a 1911 with a modern choked up thumbs forward grip you engage that safety just attaining a firing grip. Versus with a rifle, if your carrying it around and have the safety on you can conceivably bring the gun up and not disengage the safety

It just seems to me something that seems strange and inconsistent to me.

Personally I try to safe with a rifle, and also while holstering a hot handgun as well.

Something else I have wondered from a safety standpoint, with the floating firing pin, is the AR drop safe?

 

[Arete]

Pistols with safeties or decockers are used similar to the safety on a AR15. Engage the safety or decock prior to doing non shooting tasks. "Decock before you walk, decock before you talk".

Pistols that lack such features (Glock) you don't worry about it, just like with a DA revolver you don't worry about it.

Floating firing pin on a AR will not cause a primer to detonate. Repeated taps on a primer from a floating firing pin can cause a primer to NOT detonate, however.

 

[user12358]

Pistols that lack such features (Glock) you don't worry about it, just like with a DA revolver you don't worry about it.

There always seems to be a lot of hand waving when it comes to this. A DA pull is twice or more the weight and two to three times the distance of pull compared to a striker fired gun. I would agree that decocking a DA/SA gun when doing anything but shooting or putting an AR on safe when not looking down the sight are the prudent and correct SOPs. I just don't get how a Glock is so much different than a DA/SA gun with the hammer cocked in terms of trigger pull distance or weight. Obviously, I have used Glocks and the multitude of MSF guns like everyone else but the cognitive dissonance that the entire community has about Striker fired handguns seems pretty strong to me.

 

[shoobe01]

I'll try: The theory is that you can holster handguns. You don't have to sling a handgun; the holster is the most important safety (hence: good holsters are important, not gunbuckets, not serpas).

Also, they are smaller. If you fall, a handgun should not be hitting the dirt, but your body and you use the hand to keep the gun from being impacted. A rifle is going to take the fall. SMGs fall protection (to avoid open bolts loading themselves) is a similar issue

And the dirty secret that works for me and a few others: safeties on handguns are not reliable for this. They stick out, have little resistance, etc. so are easily knocked off, even in the holster. It is pretty easy to have the shooter's thumb disengage the safety by accident while moving as they have a firing grip all the time, so it's not a security measure as much as it would appear to be.

But also, yeah. A safety is a safety. I never really hold it against any agency that insists on a safety lever on their gun. IF it is used all the time. An M9 safety is dumb because it's too hard to use so no one wants to use it routinely, for example.

 

[user12358]

Would you consider holstering a P226 that is cocked to be safe? I'm personally far more worried about someone negligently pulling the trigger than I am about a drop induced discharge. I think we can all agree that most service handguns are effectively drop safe these days and obviously a trigger can't be pulled in a quality holster so the point is really moot in those two scenarios.

I guess I don't subscribe to the logic that because there are handguns with poor manual safeties that Striker fired guns be exempt from the school of thought that ridicules the "This is my safety" mentality that some people have misappropriated. I haven't seen people, and certainly haven't myself, holstering Striker fired weapons while moving or as soon as they are done shooting like we do with decocking DA/SA guns.

Not trying to start a crusade against Striker handguns, just thinking out loud as I have never been able to reconcile my best practices with a rifle and DA/SA gun with a Striker fired handgun considering how similar the pull distances and weights are of a MSF, DA/SA, and a decent rifle trigger.

 

[shoobe01]

Sorry if not clear, this was more a consolidation of the principles I have seen outlined over the decades. We've seen people pull straight through long/heavy triggers to have stress-induced NDs, so I don't know why DA revolvers get a pass on it either.

Because I agree that if you think about it, it's weird. And I am never totally comfortable running and gunning with a handgun for the reasons you outline, but don't say much about it as no one else seems to much mind, and just try not to trip, and to keep the muzzle in a safe direction.

And I wouldn't want to see people speed holstering before moving either.

 

[user12358]

Totally agree with you that you can still pull straight through a long and nasty 13lb DA revolver pull and ND. In the end they are all deadly weapons and every safety feature we add is just trying to make it so they are only dangerous in the precise moment that we consciously chose them to be so.

I guess it all comes down to where you fall on the sliding scale of what you are comfortable with. I personally prefer a P22X style system where I am just as quick to break the first double action shot as I am if I leave it cocked but I have to make a much more deliberate action to set the gun off in DA and I can also place downward pressure on the hammer when holstering (of course, the gadget gives you this same functionality with a Glock). Looking back at it, it seems like the big Glock marketing push of the "safe action" just pushed the Overton window enough that it became acceptable.

Not to derail this thread too much and getting backon the original topic, I actuate the safety every time I raise the rifle up and then flip it off every time I come off the sight and have found no time disadvantage or hindrance to operation in doing so.

 

[Sunshine_Shooter]

So, does anyone have valid reasoning why we advocate using a safety on an AR during reloads, malfunctions, moving, etc., but not on striker fired pistols during those same operations? Is it just that the difference in usage was figured out back in the DA/SA days and wasn't updated for striker fired guns? Or is it just a level of risk that we accept because we don't have a good way to fix it with Glocks, M&Ps, etc., like we do on rifles?

 

[DanM]

The vast majority of striker fired handguns don’t have manual safeties at all. For the ones that do, I’m not familiar enough with them to know if it’s even possible to safe them during a slide lock reload or if their safeties function like a 1911 safety in which you can’t safe they pistol with the slide locked back.

I believe that if the manual safety of your pistol is ergonomic enough to activate/deactivate without ridiculous contortions, you should activate it whenever you aren’t shooting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Matt Landfair]

So, does anyone have valid reasoning why we advocate using a safety on an AR during reloads, malfunctions, moving, etc., but not on striker fired pistols during those same operations? Is it just that the difference in usage was figured out back in the DA/SA days and wasn't updated for striker fired guns? Or is it just a level of risk that we accept because we don't have a good way to fix it with Glocks, M&Ps, etc., like we do on rifles?

To disengage the safety from an AR should be a natural response - you dont think abut it, it just happens. This practice wont be noticeable in timed drills.

If I have the ability, I will safe it - same with shotguns. Bad things happen and we cant take back rounds fired. Tripping, NDs, you name it - there is no reason not to take that extra step of precaution.

If you arent at the unconscious level of performance, work at it to become unconscious.

 

[Arete]

If a Glock had a safety, I would use it, similar to how I use a safety on a 1911, M9, or a decocker on a P226 or P220 (all of which I have carried as duty guns during my career in MIL and LE)

A Glock is different than a cocked SA or DA/SA pistol. Look at what's happening inside the gun. When you depress a Glock trigger, you are cocking the firing mechanism, which cannot fire until you pull the trigger fully rearward. What keeps the striker from going forward is the drop safety.

A cocked 1911 or DA pistol relies upon the full cock notch to keep the hammer rearward, and should the hammer fall, then the half cock notch or the safety shelf is supposed to keep the hammer from going the rest of the way forward, additionally, the firing pin block should keep the firing pin from moving forward if struck w/o the trigger being pulled.

1911s that lack firing pin blocks can be problematic in this regard, as can be pre ~95ish (?) Sigs.

From the perspective of a long, heavy trigger pull preventing ND's. That's a nice theory . . .

There always seems to be a lot of hand waving when it comes to this. A DA pull is twice or more the weight and two to three times the distance of pull compared to a striker fired gun. I would agree that decocking a DA/SA gun when doing anything but shooting or putting an AR on safe when not looking down the sight are the prudent and correct SOPs. I just don't get how a Glock is so much different than a DA/SA gun with the hammer cocked in terms of trigger pull distance or weight. Obviously, I have used Glocks and the multitude of MSF guns like everyone else but the cognitive dissonance that the entire community has about Striker fired handguns seems pretty strong to me.

 

[user12358]

From the perspective of a long, heavy trigger pull preventing ND's. That's a nice theory . . .

I certainly would argue that it gives you much more room for error, nothing besides filling the barrel in is going to make a firearms completely safe.

I think we are all fairly on the same page about the drop safeties of modern firearms and that really isn't what was brought up. With the safety off on an AR-15 the trigger pull is, near as makes no difference, identical to a Glock in terms of weight and travel distance. (I know that the AR-15 safety is simply blocking trigger movement and the Glock internal mechanisms are blocking the firing pin and such.) Why is it considered safe for a Glock to always be in the "fire" condition when compared to an AR-15 where as most of us are putting the safety on whenever the AR-15 isn't actually on target?

Not looking at them mechanically, but why is it considered safe for Widget A to have a 4lb short travel pull w/ no safety but Widget B is unsafe to have a 4lb short travel pull w/ no safety.