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November 21, 2012, 01:57 PM | #26 | |
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November 21, 2012, 02:03 PM | #27 | |
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November 21, 2012, 04:47 PM | #28 |
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Black Jack Pershing cut a stripe down his leg when his 1911 went off in the holster when he threw a hissy fit during a briefing and stomped the floor very hard.
The 1911 was only intended for cocked and locked carry when secured in the issue flap holster, and even then only cocked and locked immediately before going into battle. Normal carry was either with empty chamber or hammer down on a round in the chamber. The p-38 pistol was designed for the Wermacht. It originally had an enclosed hammer, but this was changed more due to psychological reasons than anything else. Shooters were reassured by being able to see the position of the hammer. Second strike capability was a benefit when much of the 9mm cartridge manufacture at that time was intended for use in blowback SMGs and hard primers were in common use. I know how important that could be since I had some WW2 era SMG 9mm ammo and found my P-35 often required three strikes to set it off. That ammo was super hot stuff, closer to .357 energy levels. it had a truncated cone cupro nickel jacket bullet, near as I can tell it was Italian and meant for the Berretta machine carbines. Even with standard pistol ammo lack of proper cold weather lubes meant congealed oil could slow down a hammer fall enough that it might take more than one strike to ignite a cartridge in sub zero conditions. A Savage pocket auto I repaired years ago had a very dangerous condition brought on by loosening of the slide rails. If you pressed the trigger while the safety was engaged it would not fire, but if you later released the safety it would fire without having pulled the trigger. Tightening the slide rails cured that situation. The Polish Radom 1935 was known to AD when applying the safety, if the firing pin was a tad too long. Worn or ill fitting parts can result in hidden dangers. Some Lugers rebuilt by Spandau could be fired simply by squeezing the external sear cover plate. The Japanese had an autoloader that had the same problem from the factory. The Browning 1910 had a rep for doubling if worn and not kept well oiled. I learned of that in reading a book writen by a forensic expert. He had solved a locked room mystery involving a man found with two bullet wounds to the head. They had even arrested the butler, believing he had killed his boss. On testing they found the pistol doubled almost every time it was fired, so it had been a suicide afterall. That was one true case that sounded more like a Sherlock Holmes story. A pistol in excellent mechanical condition, and properly cleaned and lubed should not go off by itself, but there are numerous possible factors that can cause an AD. Not pointing the gun at anyone doesn't always prevent harm being done. Ricochets off stone or tile floors have caused deaths, such as the bank job where Patty Hearst was almost charged with felony murder. |
November 21, 2012, 06:05 PM | #29 | |||
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Funny how the 1911 gets such a rep. Depending on who you talk to and when, the gun is considered both a powerful expert's gun and a gun that is good for neophytes and women who might otherwise have trouble qualitying with a gun. http://thefiringline.com/forums/show...ght=ayoob+1911 Quote:
Interesting you mention keeping the hammer down given that such carry is considered unsafe. Even the military in 1940 thought the hammer should be down only when the pistol had an empty chamber. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/...Fs/FM23-35.pdf
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November 21, 2012, 09:15 PM | #30 | |||
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From Rainbow Demon,
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http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=257436 http://www.jouster.com/forums/showth...n-and-the-1911 http://www.coltforum.com/forums/colt...on-1911-s.html But I have not seen a primary source for this story. At any rate only a 1911 that had been "messed with" could go off under such circumstances. Quote:
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tipoc |
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November 21, 2012, 09:34 PM | #31 |
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Tough question. Someone holding a SA 1911 on a BG has less of a margin of error then a Sig P229 12lb DA trigger pull, but the fact is it's still violating safety because of the muzzle, finger on the trigger... I know of one case in Hampton NH where a Police Officer blew off the suspects mandible while covering him with a 1911 and having an unintentional discharge. There were charges filed, in part because he wasn't using dept. issued ammo.
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November 21, 2012, 11:56 PM | #32 | |
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"...They embody more clever and interesting features than any other automatic pistol in the world. The double action feature solves the problem of carrying an automatic pistol chamber loaded, hammer down, perfectly safe and yet ready to go into action with the speed of a double action revolver..." Early ads for the PP and PPK emphasize the safety of the da/sa action and the ability to bring the gun into play one handed without having to rack the slide to bring a round into the chamber. One ad points out that with a round in the chamber and the safety on... "In this state the pistol can be carried without the risk of an accidental discharge and yet is ready for action the moment of danger or necessity without the help of a second hand, because the marksman presses up the safety lever...and pulls the trigger as with a revolver in order to fire the first shot." It was also emphasized that the gun was safe to carry hammer down on a loaded round with the safety off. Second strike capability was also seen as a feature. In the PP, P and P38 though this capability was a secondary result of the da/sa advantages. These were the features the German military wanted in a service sidearm. Gangarosa in his book and Kersten in the book "Walter-A German Legend" make this clear. They wanted a gun less expensive to make than the P08 and more reliable. Walther had developed a reliable da/sa pistol design and they wanted those features for their new gun. They got it in the P-38. Some militaries and later law enforcement saw problems with single action pistols. Their solution was not proper training in gun handling but to build their way around it to what they considered a safer design. There is nothing inherently unsafe in single action pistols. tipoc |
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November 22, 2012, 04:45 AM | #33 | ||
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They actually found that the firing pin was more likely to dent a primer if the pistol was dropped in the cocked and locked condition. With no endplay the firing pin could not build up speed and inertia, with endplay the added movement allowed more inertia. The instructions in the manual are for times when the pistol may not be in your personal control at all times, and on the range. The Manual, which is a Calvary manual, presumes the presence of the issue flap holster. A friend witnessed an AD resulting in death due to a guard not knowing that someone else had loaded the pistol before is was passed to him when he came on duty. The pistol went off in the holster when being passed to the next guard as he came on duty. Why it went off is unknown. Had he opened the flap he would have seen it was cocked, but apparently no longer locked. If you carry the pistol fully loaded, seven in the magazine +one in the chamber then you'll either carry cocked and locked, which is fine if carried in the issue flap holster, or with hammer down on a loaded chamber. Since the flap holster may not always be available, and certain situations may call for putting the pistol down for a moment or tucking it in a waist band so both hands are free, lowering the hammer would be an option. I think they use the term "tactical reload" these days, inserting a fresh magazine while theres still a round in the chamber rather than shooting till dry. The flap holster also prevents mud, gravel, or bits of clothing from getting wedged between hammer and frame or slide. A lowered hammer also prevents stuff from getting in. A lowered hammer is also far less likely to become bent if the pistol is dropped or the owner takes a hard fall. Grip safeties can become wedged in the down position by rust, hardened fouling, or debris, and more than once I've removed a 1911 from a civilian type open top holster and found the safety was no longer engaged though it had been engaged when the pistol was placed in the holster. AD from troops picking up rusty handguns and rifles from the field days or weeks after a battle were enough of a problem that officers were told to instruct their men to leave any U S firearm they found abandoned where it was, so a squad trained in retrieving such weapons could deal with it. The redesign of the S&W revolver passive hammerblock came about because of one such incident involving a Britis .455 Hand Ejector picked up two weeks after the owner had fallen in battle. Milspec handguns are not expected to receive tender loving care, or even a cursory cleaning during months in the field. Many soldiers only carried a handgun because the previous owner was shot dead a few feet from them and they quickly retrieved the weapon for their own use. I've cleaned up old handguns found in drawers or nightstands years after the owner died, looking fine on the outside but with internals frozen solid by congealed grease and/or rust. Almost every one of those pistols brought to me was still fully loaded, and the person who found it did not know enough about pistols to check it. There are a million reasons why any mechanical safety device can fail, and only one reason why they don't fail, that reason is dilligence in all aspects of its care. Quote:
With an exposed hammer you can also easily check whether the firing pin moves freely. Having vital moving parts hidden and inaccessible removes some of the feeling of control. PS I carried a 1911A1 for many years, its one of my favorite handguns, I still have my 1918 marked flap holster and magazine pouches. I only stopped carrying the 1911 because an injury made it difficult to depress the grip safety and squeeze the trigger properly. The injury has healed as much as it ever will, but I still have a problem with grip safeties. Also this just occurred to me. When unloading a 1911 that is in cocked and locked condition, you have to disengage the safety in order to retract the slide. So when clearing the chamber you are holding a cocked pistol with safety disengaged. You'd also have to hold the grip firmly which would depress the grip safety. If unloading a 1911 that has been carried with hammer down on an empty chamber, the slide is already free to retract and the hammer is in the not cocked position till the chamber has been cleared. Another point. If a 1911 is dropped or thrown to impact muzzle first, the tilting barrel recoil operation means both the barrel and slide will be pushed back out of battery, with primer of a chambered round dropping in relation to the firing pin opening, and the recoil spring will absorb most of the impact. If safety is engaged the barrel and slide will not move back, the primer remains centered to the firing pin, and the recoil spring can not absorb impact. This would be another reason why pistols dropped while cocked and locked were more likely to show indentations of the primer. If intended to never be carried with hammer down on a live round, there would have been no need to use the floating firing pin to begin with. To top off this long winded presentation An unaltered 1910 prototype, without any thumb safety at all. http://www.coltautos.com/1910ci_sn5.htm A couple of these were altered by addition of experimental thumb safeties at the insistence of the Army. Browning obviously had not considered the cocked and locked carry to be as safe as the hammer down on loaded chamber. Last edited by Rainbow Demon; November 22, 2012 at 11:48 AM. |
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November 22, 2012, 11:34 AM | #34 | |
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November 23, 2012, 02:48 PM | #35 |
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It's interesting to note that Colt developed the Swartz safety system for the 1911 in the 1930s (Kimber today uses a variation of the Swartz system). In the build up for WWII no branch of the military wanted the device in the gun, possibly due to both cost and questions about the usefulness of the device. During WWII, Korea, Viet Nam and various conflicts no extra safety devices were added to the 1911.
The Navy did demand that S&W revolvers add a hammer block safety device to their revolvers though. The Colt da revolvers had such a safety device in them for many years but not S&W. After a few unintended discharges with S&W revolvers dropped on steel decks the Navy objected and S&W did add the hammer block. They have had them to this day. But no branch of the U.S. military ever disavowed the 1911 for safety reasons. When they went to the Berretta 92 it was for a variety of reasons but safety concerns were not the primary reasons. tipoc |
November 23, 2012, 02:57 PM | #36 | |
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November 23, 2012, 03:06 PM | #37 | |
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November 23, 2012, 04:52 PM | #38 | |
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I have a .32 Handejector with this earlier hammer block, it was made in the 1920's. The change was to a more positive block that was moved by the action of the trigger or the rebounding hammer slide rather than relying on spring pressure. Both systems use the same channel cut into the side plate, so the older revolvers could be upgraded at little expense. The side swung block could be disabled by congealed fouling or rust in the channel, if the spring became weak enough. A hard knock that dented the side plate could also put it out of action. Aside from apocyphal stories like that of Black Jack having an AD (with Patton being in the room when it happened rather than it happening to him) and the rather mysterious incident I mentioned, the only other incidents I've heard of involving a 1911 going off in a military holster involved paratroopers with a chambered round going off when the chute opened. The sudden deceleration shock of a parachute might do it. Any autoloader can go off when dropped if the breechface is badly dinged up near the pin hole, or a bit of hard grit got in there while racking the slide. A firing pin jammed in the forwards position by grit could also do it. A missing or very weak retraction spring would make mishaps more likely. Milspec primers were hard enough that it would require some serious impact, but I have heard of autoloaders going off if the primer cup of commercial ammo was to soft. I just remembered something. A Tanker holster I had used with my 1911 had a very tight strap that passed over the grip (some modern replicas have straps that pass over the rear of the slide so it will be between hammer and slide if carried cocked and locked) and that strap depressed the grip safety. On a couple of occasions the thumb safety was disenaged when I put the gun in that holster. The very tight fit, due to shrinkage in storage was probably the culprit. When oiled and broken in those problems went away. |
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November 23, 2012, 06:20 PM | #39 |
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Wild Bill fatally shot his deputy with a single action revolver. That's documented.
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November 23, 2012, 09:56 PM | #40 | |
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November 24, 2012, 12:51 PM | #41 |
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All this speculation and personal opinons and yet nobody has posted any documentation.
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November 24, 2012, 02:14 PM | #42 | |
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I know of two incidents were a cocked revolver went off injurying the owners. In both incidents the owner temporarily lost control of the handgun due to a sudden unexpected jolt. The revolvers went off by contact of some portion of the hand thumb or fingers with the trigger, but not through consious deliberate touching of the trigger. I either case the revolver would not have gone off if it had not been cocked. The only documentation of one of these incidents is what I posted on another thread about rendering first aid to the victim, and the other would be sealed hospital records and perhaps a police report in a neighboring state, both would require a court order to examine. I've made repairs on several single action revolvers to restore a badly worn full cock notch, and several of those hammers had the half cock notch completely broken away. Most people don't seem to realize that a hair trigger is not a good thing, and more often than not is a sign of excessive wear. Most of those revolvers would go off with the slightest jolt, if cocked, but would be extremely unlikely to go off if not cocked. Those with broken half cock notch could go off while being loaded or unloaded. A bent sear could produce the same effect, causing a phantom half cock condition. I haven't shot myself or others with a single action handgun by accident, but while examing unloaded revolvers brought to me for repairs I've had the cocked hammer drop with no pressure on the trigger, and know that if loaded it would have gone off. Theres not a scrap of documention to explain these particular malfunctions other than this post. Perhaps you should contact an attorney who specializes in suing firearms companies. They may have records of very old cases that they'd be willing to release if the people involved are all dead and gone, otherwise professional client confidentiality would apply. Or you might contact these people and ask for available documents on the 600 injuries due to AD involving the older model Ruger single action revolvers. http://consumerfed.org/pdfs/Firearms.pdf Last edited by Rainbow Demon; November 24, 2012 at 02:21 PM. |
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November 24, 2012, 02:30 PM | #43 | |
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Post Civil War, General Custer was chasing a buffalo on his horse. Custer was using a single action revolver and the buffalo rammed into them. The impact caused Custer to jerk the trigger on his cocked single action and shoot the head of his horse.
Then he was on foot out in the middle of no where. Quote:
Accidental Discharge of a 1911 in a Thumb Break Holster http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/tech/ad_tb.htm
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November 24, 2012, 05:08 PM | #44 | |
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The firing pin should not have been in contact with the primer when hammer was down. If the firing pin was way too long it would make contact but not otherwise. Federal has had numerous recalls of ammunition due to defective primers, some due to primers that were far too soft. They once had a very serious situation with soft primers of a lot of .30-30 ammo. I have heard of a federal .30-30 cartridge igniting when dropped base down in gravel. The speculation of a phantom half cock situation might be the answer, in which case it was user error and the hammer was not truly down. Some liked to carry a exposed hammer auto on halfcock, because that made the cocking motion shorter and easier. I even tried that years ago , but figured it was too likely to break the half cock notch if dropped or if one tried hard to pull the trigger while half cocked. Also in half cock as in cocked and locked theres more pin travel and more inertia imparted to the pin if dropped muzzle down. PS As in most situations if something doesn't fit, don't try to force it. |
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November 24, 2012, 07:23 PM | #45 | |
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The point is that the incidents are the direct cause of either poor gun handling, lack of training, mechanical problems with the gun, improper equipment, etc. and not the fault of the gun being single action. It comes down to that. You can overthink it and overtalk it, but in the end it comes back to that. tipoc |
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November 24, 2012, 08:06 PM | #46 | ||
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I've worked for several attorneys who had cases they asked me to evaluate the cause of an "unintended discharge". Several of them horrific and several with fatalities. I've been hired to work on numerous cases over the years for Plaintiffs, Defendants and Prosecutors and have been qualified in Local, State and Federal courts. I've sat across the table from engineers and technicians (with hoovering attorneys) for severeal noteable firearms manufacturer's that had been named in litigation while conducting evalaution of firearms invovled in these accidents. The website that Rainbow Demon posted does not provide documention, but inflamation. The primary forensic "expert" against Remington was summarily discredited BTW. Some plaintiff attorneys put up this kind of information in an effort to create "documentation" in hopes that Judges will allow it and jurys will beleive it, but there is no scientific merit to that website. Federal Judges will usually not allow this kind of information into court. When people get called to put up the documentation, over and over for the past 20 some odd years on hundreds of website discussions on the topic...they can not do it. Bottom line, maintain your firearms and obey the 4 laws of gun safety and there will be no need for this discussion related to your actions. |
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November 24, 2012, 08:28 PM | #47 | |
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Let's try to keep on track. The op asked...
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Can anyone post a link, cite a book and page number, a magazine or newspaper article that a person could look up, etc. regarding the specific question the op asked? tipoc |
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November 25, 2012, 09:57 AM | #48 | |
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Search the following: "Dumb Lady Policer Officer Accidently Shoots the Criminal" and view the short video. Was that discharge accidental or negligent or reckless? If the handgun can not fire unless the trigger is pulled, then if someone follows the 4 safety rules there should be no "accidental" discharge. On the other hand, if the weapon can fire by falling on the hammer I can imagine some accidental scenarios.
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November 25, 2012, 10:46 AM | #49 | |
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I doubt the OP is a lawyer, newsman, or private investigator. Invasion of privacy by news reporters is allowed on basis of whether the story is "news worthy" simply revealing to the public contents of court documents that are of a sensitive nature can result in liable or slander charges, absolute truth is not an absolute defense (since 2009) if invasion of privacy causes un necessary harm to the person who's privacy has been invaded and the information was disclosed with malicious intent. Stroll down to your local hospital and simply ask for any patient's medical files, let me know how that turns out. PS In the Christec lawsuit the judge made a very good statement , "newspaper clippings are not evidence". A news paper story is not "documentation" anymore than forty-fifty year old memories of events found in an autobiography can be considered as documentation. An example of difficulty in having records of an accidental shooting unsealed. http://blog.al.com/breaking/2012/01/...uah_shoot.html The shooter is on trial for a shooting spree, and the supposedly accidental shooting of her brother years earlier might be used against her, or the earlier case reopened for a second look. another example http://www.kpax.com/news/remington-l...y-vs-security/ Last edited by Rainbow Demon; November 25, 2012 at 11:34 AM. |
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November 25, 2012, 11:36 AM | #50 |
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Go back & read what mete said in the second post. I have a couple guns with extremely light triggers, an S & W model 66 with an extremely light single action pull and an AR 15 with a set trigger.
I NEVER let anyone fire them until they use the trigger a couple times dry firing with a snap cap to see exactly what this particular firearm does. All safety rules apply - ALL THE TIME - and be familiar with or ASK about any guns special qualities. |
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