The safety decocker was strange for some but it was actually correct from a DA/SA handgun point of view. The thinking behind it was that it would only be used in what Browning called the
Pistol Mode.
Almost all decockers move down to decock the pistol and so Browning made the motion down. The idea was that once it was decocked you'd move the handle back up and treat it as a regular DA/SA pistol.
The other mode was called
Revolver Mode by Browning which explained the markings on the switch,
P or R.
Here's a closeup of the gun in
Revolver Mode
In this mode the hammer always returned to a half cocked position and the safety was seldom if ever used.
Unfortunately, in all the reviews I remember seeing about this gun, no one ever explained why Browning set it up the way they did. Instead, there were tons of comments about the safety being backwards. I think if Browning had done a better job of explaining what they had done and the reasons behind it, and if they had made it so that it accepted the standard HiPower mags, it would have and maybe still be, a winner.
