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Old November 26, 2012, 04:46 PM   #67
Rainbow Demon
Senior Member
 
Join Date: September 27, 2012
Posts: 397
The trigger disconect safety of the S&W 59 is a good idea.
The magazine disconnect gets bad press for combat use, but for a home defense or CCW its an excellent option.
At the end of the day you can simply remove the magazine and leave a round chambered, which in the long run is safer than clearing the chamber every evening, then chambering a round the next day, no worries about bullets being pushed into the case by repeated chamberings.
To clear the chamber of my FN you can't retract the slide while the safety is engaged, and must grip the pistol firmly enough that the grip safety is disengaged in order to retract the slide. Same goes for the 1911.
The recoil spring of the FN is strong, and the slide small, several times when clearing the chamber the live round fell back into the chamber rather than ejecting. It takes a rapid movement of the slide to eject an unfired round and clear the ejection port. Often as not I have to let the extracted round fall out the magazine well.

For complete safety I'd not leave a round chambered in the S&W, but when no one other than myself can access the magazine the chambered round makes it much easier to make the pistol ready to repel home invaders if awakened. No fumbling about, just slide the magazine home and flick off the firing pin blocking and locking safety.
Which reminds me. My S&W 59 has the safety that both blocks and locks the firing pin. I've read that some earlier production 59 pistols have the block but not the lock. Its possible that mine was retrofitted at some point.

Also theres a thin opening visible with slide closed, through this opening you can see a thin slice of the case head of a chambered round. Not quite as good as a loaded chamber indicator, but better than nothing.
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