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September 25, 2012, 09:29 AM | #51 |
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Just as there are many reasons why the number of failures of the I.L. system may be over-documented there are as many reasons that it may under-documented. Such as the owner's of such guns just do not bother to post about it, do not use the INTERNET, remove the lock without comment, sell the gun, etc., and there is no system for reporting/documenting I.L. malfunctions and keeping count of the failures.
Last edited by dahermit; September 25, 2012 at 03:25 PM. |
September 25, 2012, 11:07 AM | #52 |
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Webely ---
First off I have to say that personally, I believe there have been more than 2 documented cases of the ILS autolock phenomenon. Is it rampant? No I will grant you that but I do not discount the number of cases you do based on the assumption that people can not adequately diagnose their gun's failure or have an ax to grind. To be frank the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, however your blanket discounting of other reports makes it seem that you sir are the one with the ax to grind. Second any real estimate of the frequency of autolock would have to be based on actual use of the gun, not production numbers. How many guns have the lock disabled? How many end up loaded and tossed in a night stand with no rounds fired. As I said prior no one knows, not you, not I and I admit that the number is small. You make sweeping generalizations and assumptions and generate a small number, if I wanted to I could make my own sweeping generalizations and assumptions and come up with a number that is small as well but perhaps several orders of magnatude larger than yours. It's called playing with statisicis and it's not going to generate meaningful numbers. I admit the number is small to truly know how small requires information neither of us have. Third my point about medicine and aerospace engineering is not about a specific device, my point is about how we make choices in these fields with things that need to not fail or else there are grave consequences. In this arena if we can eliminate something that happens some small percentage of the time or make that percentage even smaller this is considered a very real benefit. I, and many others feel the same about our guns, if we can eliminate this small number form our guns why would we not? And eliminating it does not require some expensive metallurgy or exotic engineering, just eliminate something that is not needed or used. Or as others have pointed out design it so failure is less likely, or so that it fails - safe. |
September 26, 2012, 03:13 PM | #53 | ||||
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In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that the numbers in my previous post were off due to some problems with decimal points. That post has been edited with correct calculations.
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September 26, 2012, 03:17 PM | #54 | |
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September 26, 2012, 03:28 PM | #55 |
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In a defense situation, failure due to faulty locks is the last thing I would worry about.
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September 26, 2012, 03:46 PM | #56 | |
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Originally posted by dahermit
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September 26, 2012, 08:15 PM | #57 |
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Web Man,
It’s funny in a way that I among others can admit that lock failures are rare and it does not really bother us if one carries and ILS gun yet many yourself included feel the need to argue to opposite here to the extreme. First off in response to your point about S+W ejector rods unscrewing, I can tell you that personally, I would agree with you, in an absolute sense the ruger design is a "better" design as it can not back out and lock up the gun. In addition I do not know many engineers who would disagree with me. In absolute terms one should always design a devise to fail in the most benign way possible, in that sense the smith ejector rod as designed / manufactured is some manner of a poor idea. Furthermore many of us apply thread locker when we service our guns to prevent this very failure mode. Does everyone? Do all gunsmiths agree that it is prudent to do so? No, it's a bit of a debate, like the ILS but I can tell you I would rather have to heat and cuss at an ejector rod when taking the gun down than have the gun lock up on us. A similar situation exists with 1911 plunger tubes. You can have anything from original GI, to GI with a lip milled in the frame to add support, to a housing that is brazed or bonded to the frame as well as staked to bolt on, to a plunger tube cast / milled integral to the frame. All of these solutions seek to reduce or eliminate what is by most accounts anywhere from and uncommon to a very rare problem. Why I ask you is seeking to eliminate ILS failures which are admittedly rare not a good idea? Second I am not reviewing and arguing auto lock cases with you, you seem interested in minimizing the number of failures for your own reasons, I will leave it at that. Third what you are failing to grasp and insist on waving you hands around regarding your friend's experience with ventilators is I am not talking about a specific piece of equipment, I am speaking of HOW choices are made. In medicine we do not look at a given procedure and say if we can make it some small percent safer, even if it is expensive, we do not ignore that, we embrace it. It is one of the reasons medicine cost what it does and why people fear managed care. Do we want insurance companies or government commissions looking and saying 0.001% risk is fine, never mind if we could knock it down to 0.00001. I mean if you are the company managing it or the gov and are looking to save dollars that probably sounds great, but IF, YOU, or your brother, mother or sister is one of the ones that comes down to the bad side of that equation it could really stink. Web Unless you are simply hopelessly invested in the ILS and it's alleged merits I do not think you can argue with this logic, even if as you say to YOU that risk is insignificant. In the case of the ILS it need not cost anything to eliminate this risk whatever it is, just remove the lock. As to aviation ask yourself this, when was the last time you heard of a jet turbine in commercial service suffering a catastrophic, stuff flys apart failure? As you have said Jets are infinitely more complex than revolvers. Yet the last time I can find of a jet going grenade is 1996 on a Delta jet. That’s pretty dang reliable. For something much more complex. They do not get that way ignoring the small chances of failure, they get there eliminating them at any chance they can. No one in aerospace engineering would design a lock that renders something critical inoperable in the event of a failure. |
September 26, 2012, 09:54 PM | #58 | |||||
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If the lock is removed aftermarket, there are still costs involved. Many people are not mechanically-inclined enough to remove the lock themselves so they must have it done by a gunsmith. Gunsmiths don't work for free so there is a monetary cost. Even if the lock is removed by the owner, removing a safety device from a firearm opens its owner up to increased legal risk. I consider that risk to be a cost because if one plays those odds and loses, the price that must be paid is extremely high. That being said, if you want to remove the locks from your guns, go right ahead. I am not the one that must take on those risks so it matters not to me. This does, however, bring us right back to the original question of this thread: why do people who dislike the lock choose to buy guns without it rather than simply removing or disabling it? |
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September 27, 2012, 08:18 AM | #59 | |
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September 27, 2012, 09:18 AM | #60 |
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dahermit, aside from aesthetics, and symbolism, the other issue which has nothing to do with potential mechanical failure is one of potential bias issues with a prosecutor or jury.
How many threads have there been about not removing a magazine disconnect or other safety device from a carry weapon? The point has been made by quite a few that this could be used by an overzealous prosecutor to paint a defendant as reckless. After all, he removed a safety device! The odds of this happening are probably about as low as the odds of an individual lock failure. But, for many, it is an added concern. |
September 27, 2012, 09:38 AM | #61 | |
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Originally posted by dahermit
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September 27, 2012, 03:16 PM | #62 | |
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September 28, 2012, 07:49 PM | #63 | |
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I am convinced that some lock-equipped guns have malfunctioned because of the lock. I am positive that no guns without the lock have malfunctioned because of the lock. That alone would be reason enough for me.
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September 28, 2012, 08:59 PM | #64 |
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I agree with Sarges reasoning. Statistics mean little when it's you that it happens to. I'm sure those that have had the locks engage improperly feel better knowing it isn't statistically significant.
Regarding the Ruger/Smith extractor rod question, I don't see it as a step up in reliability to go to a Ruger because of that single issue. Rugers have transfer bars. Transfer bars occasionally break. I've personally had more tranfer bars break (3) than Smith extractor rods back out (2) and cause trouble in the 35 or so years I've fooled with them both. I torque extractor rods, and have never had one come loose after being torqued.
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September 29, 2012, 07:14 AM | #65 | |
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September 29, 2012, 08:50 AM | #66 | |
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I have read more incidents of Ruger transfer bars breaking than S&W hammer blocks breaking. As a matter of fact, when I routinely peruse the gun smithing forums, I have seen several instances of Ruger transfer-bar failures but I do not remember any instances of S&W hammer blocks failing. So, that would seem to indicate that both designs are not, "...equal in that regard..." Unless you want to blame it on the part and not the design, that is. |
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September 29, 2012, 09:54 AM | #67 | |
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I've haven't had, or heard of a Smith hammer block breaking. It isn't a part thats even stressed, unless the gun is dropped on the hammer. Transfer bars are stressed every time the gun is fired or dry fired.
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September 29, 2012, 10:13 AM | #68 | ||
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Originally posted by dahermit
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http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=413431 And Grant Cunningham mentions the issue here: "Save for the aforementioned Colt firing pin issue, parts failures in revolvers are very rare. Other than things like hammer spurs being broken from impact or cylinders being blown apart by faulty handloads, broken parts are few and far between. The only major exception that occurs to me is the hammer block safety in very recent Smith & Wesson "J" frame revolvers (those with external hammers only - the shrouded hammer Centennial series does not have that part.) This part is relatively thin and S&W decided to make it with the MIM (metal injection molding) process." http://www.grantcunningham.com/blog_...c8b9-1043.html I've not personally seen nor heard that many reports of hammer blocks or transfer bars failing, so I really don't think that either case is particularly common, but they're not impossible. |
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September 29, 2012, 11:29 AM | #69 |
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It would seem to me that we would have a lot more accurate data for subjects like aircraft parts where we use logs that track failures/hours used than we would for parts failures on revolvers where we rely on people to report incidents.
Any rare event is more likely to be over reported than under reported. An event that happens ten times out of 5000 gives us a chance to have 4990 false positives reported and only ten chances for a false negative to be reported. |
September 29, 2012, 02:34 PM | #70 | |
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Last edited by dahermit; September 29, 2012 at 08:46 PM. |
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September 29, 2012, 05:05 PM | #71 |
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I'm just curious what a "documented" occurrence of lock failure is. One certified by the International Internal Lock Commission? Those that S&W admit to? Only those that happen in the presence of a famous gun writer?
Do people lie on the internet? Of course, but some accounts are probably true as well. I think current S&W revolvers are overpriced and I'm not likely to buy one, but if I did, I would probably remove the lock and plug the hole, for aesthetics and to eliminate a possible source of failure, no matter how statistically insignificant. Ejector rods, hammer blocks, and transfer bars are necessary to operate the gun. Internal locks are not. |
September 29, 2012, 05:18 PM | #72 |
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Why are you guys still arguing this???
If you don't like the ILS in the S&W revolvers, don't buy the guns made with them after 2000. If you like the Centennial style guns, S&W offers some of those models made without the ILS, so you can still buy those. In the meantime, I just had someone bring in a NIB S&W M617 in which the hand spring had somehow gotten loose and stopped the hand from indexing the cylinder. The long spring leg got caught up between the moving parts and was cut off. (Oddly enough, nothing seemed to be wrong with the ILS in that gun. ) Never saw that happen before, and probably won't again, either. As an armorer, the ILS is the least of my worries when it comes to maintaining/servicing S&W revolvers. Everybody else among the internet gun forums can argue about it as long as they care to do so. Buy what you like, and don't buy what you don't like. Simple enough.
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October 12, 2012, 09:56 PM | #73 |
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Unbelievable but very interesting thread!
Never thought it would take three pages of back and fourth to answer my simple question! I do appreaciate all who contributed and tried to tell me I should not just remove the lock etc. HOWEVER I now see the two sides clearly. Thanks to all. Ted
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October 12, 2012, 10:47 PM | #74 |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVPYgohVCNM
watch this video, explains all! close up detail of lock removal. |
October 15, 2012, 10:48 AM | #75 |
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The idea that an internal lock makes it OK to leave a loaded gun where a child could get it is simply irresponsible.
The idea that locking a gun with an internal lock makes it OK to leave it unsecured in your car or a hotel room is equally irresponsible. If you own a firearm, it is your personal responsibility to ensure that it is either under your control or secured at all times. The ILS fails to meet my standards for "secured". The basic concept that it is a bad idea to add a mechanism which could possibly cause my gun to jam when I need it most seems perfectly rational to me. Even if it is a one-in-a-million chance. That is a lottery I do not care to participate in. I am mystified by Webleymkv's motivation here. |
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