What besides the Ruger MK series are always "cocked and locked" when loaded?

[TunnelRat]

Please reread. I said Hammer BLOCK not hammer back.

My apologies.

I believe my first point, however, still stands. Pull a trigger and gun goes boom. Most modern semiautos have firing pin blocks that will prevent a discharge if dropped. What makes a Glock safer than a Ruger Mk II? If anything you have to deliberately disengage the safety on the Ruger. On a Glock it's just your trigger finger really.

 

[carguychris]

Most modern semiautos have firing pin blocks that will prevent a discharge if dropped. What makes a Glock safer than a Ruger Mk II? If anything you have to deliberately disengage the safety on the Ruger. On a Glock it's just your trigger finger really.

Additionally, the Glock- along with most other auto pistols designed from the late 70's onward- has a positive trigger-actuated firing pin block designed to prevent the firing pin from striking the cartridge if the pistol is dropped.

The MkII thumb safety only locks the sear, and there is no mechanism to prevent the firing pin from moving forward under its own inertia if the gun is dropped on the muzzle hard enough.

I have never heard of a Ruger Mk series going off accidently from that condition except from careless gun handling. I'm not saying that it never happened: but I have never heard of it.

Ditto, but all bets are off when Bubba whips out the needle files and Dremel tool to "improve" the trigger.

 

[Doyle]

The MkII thumb safety only locks the sear, and there is no mechanism to prevent the firing pin from moving forward under its own inertia if the gun is dropped on the muzzle hard enough.

Finally. Someone who has the mechanical speak to put it into plain english. Thank you. This is what I was talking about - although not just with being dropped but also with bumping around in the holster. With other pistol designs, there is still something besides a mechanical devise holding back a spring-loaded firing pin. (although I understand glocks are partially spring loaded with the trigger pull doing the rest of the loading).

 

[aarondhgraham]

What besides the Ruger MK series are always "cocked and locked" when loaded?

Wouldn't that be pretty much any single-action with an internal or concealed hammer?

Aarond

.

 

[mavracer]

The MkII thumb safety only locks the sear, and there is no mechanism to prevent the firing pin from moving forward under its own inertia if the gun is dropped on the muzzle hard enough.

I still don't get the hand wringing you'd have to drop it from a low orbit to get enough momentum then it has to hit a hard surface like the ground to shoot a bullet INTO THE GROUND

 

[carguychris]

The MkII thumb safety only locks the sear, and there is no mechanism to prevent the firing pin from moving forward under its own inertia if the gun is dropped on the muzzle hard enough.

Finally. Someone who has the mechanical speak to put it into plain english. Thank you. This is what I was talking about - although not just with being dropped but also with bumping around in the holster. With other pistol designs, there is still something besides a mechanical devise holding back a spring-loaded firing pin.

I appreciate the compliment about my writing skills, but I thought I was veering slightly from the original topic, or perhaps you're slightly mistaken about how a 1911 works.

Let me rewind a bit...

I just can't carry around a handgun [such as a MkII] in a holster with a cocked hammer/striker and only a single mechanical safety. At least with a 1911 style you have both the thumb safety AND the grip safety.

Prior to the Colt Series 80, the safeties on a Colt M1911 series only lock the hammer and sear. Neither the thumb safety nor the grip safety acts on the firing pin.

As with the firing pin in the MkII, the old-style Colt M1911 firing pin is also free to move forwards under its own inertia. There's really not a fundamental difference in the safety mechanisms of these pistols other than the fact that the M1911 has TWO externally-actuated sear- or hammer-locking mechanisms rather than ONE.

Many decades' worth of articles in the gun press debate how hard of an impact it might take to make a M1911 fire and/or how truly safe this system is. There are numerous stories circulating about M1911's that discharged when dropped against a hard surface, although the particulars in these stories are often in dispute (e.g. whether the gun was modified and the storyteller purposefully obscured this; whether the shooter actually had an ND caused by sloppy trigger discipline and made up the story to cover his butt; etc).

Consequently, many M1911 fans are aware of this issue, although to say that most shooters know about it is probably overgeneralizing. However, it's worth noting that many M1911 fans are comfortable carrying a "cocked and locked" M1911 with a chambered round, despite the remote but known possibility that the pistol could fire if dropped.

What besides the Ruger MK series are always "cocked and locked" when loaded?

Wouldn't that be pretty much any single-action with an internal or concealed hammer?

Yup!

The concept of a safety that physically locks the firing pin really got going with the original Walther PP series (the PP, PPK, and PPK/S, not the PPS, PPQ, PPX and so on). However, the manual safety mechanisms in these guns- along with the P-38 and other early postwar DA/SA pistols such as the S&W Model 39 and Beretta 92S- only lock the firing pin when the thumb lever is on SAFE. The firing pin still can move forward when the lever is in the FIRE position!

Passive trigger-actuated firing-pin blocks didn't really start becoming common until the 1980's. This is why Glock has historically made such a big deal over having one; they weren't the first, but they got on board early, and stressed its presence due to the lack of obvious external manual safeties on the gun.

 

[TunnelRat]

Finally. Someone who has the mechanical speak to put it into plain english. Thank you. This is what I was talking about - although not just with being dropped but also with bumping around in the holster. With other pistol designs, there is still something besides a mechanical devise holding back a spring-loaded firing pin. (although I understand glocks are partially spring loaded with the trigger pull doing the rest of the loading).

Then your thread title is a misnomer. There is no requirement that carrying cocked and locked has to include the absence of a firing pin block.

 

[Snyper]

No amount of mishandling short of actually pulling the trigger itself is going to make it go off.

That applies to the MKII as well

 

[Auto5]

Most of the semi autos I've owned over the last 40 years have been single actions, carried in condition one. To quote another forum member "Keep your booger hook off the bang switch!" and you'll be fine.

 

[WC145]

What I couldn't get past was the fact that if the chamber was loaded, the only thing that kept that pistol from accidently going off if the trigger was bumped was the safety.

Do you hunt? This is no different than walking in the woods or fields with your loaded rifle or shotgun with the safety on.
Unless you hunt with a gun with an empty chamber....

 

[Doyle]

Do you hunt? This is no different than walking in the woods or fields with your loaded rifle or shotgun with the safety on.

I addressed that earlier. I can personally control both muzzle and trigger in a rifle or shotgun. With a handgun, control of both lies within the holster.

 

[4thPoint]

Additionally, the Glock- along with most other auto pistols designed from the late 70's onward- has a positive trigger-actuated firing pin block designed to prevent the firing pin from striking the cartridge if the pistol is dropped.

The MkII thumb safety only locks the sear, and there is no mechanism to prevent the firing pin from moving forward under its own inertia if the gun is dropped on the muzzle hard enough.

Are we forgetting about the 'firing pin spring'?

 

[Doyle]

Are we forgetting about the 'firing pin spring'?

When cocked, the firing pin spring is always trying to force the firing pin towards the primer. If something causes that seer to disengage, the firing pin spring takes over and causes a discharge - whether you intended for it to or not.

 

[TunnelRat]

When cocked, the firing pin spring is always trying to force the firing pin towards the primer. If something causes that seer to disengage, the firing pin spring takes over and causes a discharge - whether you intended for it to or not.

The firing pin spring returns the firing pin to its original position after the firearm discharges on hammer fired guns. The striker assembly spring is a different story.

Edit: I know a lot of people call the striker assembly the firing pin on a Glock and hence the striker spring the firing pin spring, and it is true that the firing pin and the striker are a unit. I differentiate the two. My goal was to explain that the quote was not true for all firing mechanisms.

 

[TunnelRat]

I addressed that earlier. I can personally control both muzzle and trigger in a rifle or shotgun. With a handgun, control of both lies within the holster.

What is magically going on in your holster that will set off the trigger? That would have to be one poorly made holster. A good holster should be rigid around the trigger guard with a tight fight to prevent anything from actuating the trigger. With a good holster it should be next to impossible for the trigger to actuate while inside.

 

[4thPoint]

When cocked, the firing pin spring is always trying to force the firing pin towards the primer. If something causes that seer to disengage, the firing pin spring takes over and causes a discharge - whether you intended for it to or not.

Yeah, um....
Mine must have been one of those that was made wrong as the firing pin spring is between the firing pin and the rest of the bolt.... which would kinda place it in compression, not tension.

 

[WC145]

I addressed that earlier. I can personally control both muzzle and trigger in a rifle or shotgun. With a handgun, control of both lies within the holster.

Buy a quality holster that is made to fit that particular gun and you are controlling both the trigger and the muzzle.

 

[marine6680]

It seems a distrust in the holster is the root, with fear of actuated safeties and triggers the symptom.


As was mentioned, a good holster will prevent the safety or trigger from being manipulated unintentionally.

 

[Doyle]

4thPoint, you're right. TunnelRat reminded me that we were using the same term (firing pin spring) for two different things.

 

[Theohazard]

I can personally control both muzzle and trigger in a rifle or shotgun. With a handgun, control of both lies within the holster.

A Condition One handgun that's secured in a well-made holster is safer than a Condition One long gun that you're carrying in your hands or slung. There's just no way a MK II or a 1911 is going to fire on its own in your holster: If the gun in your holster received an impact that was hard enough to cause the firing pin to overcome the firing pin spring and fire the round in the chamber, then that impact was almost certainly enough to kill you to begin with.

But a rifle that's being carried can always be dropped, and it's hard to control muzzle direction if you fall down a hill or something. And no matter how good your trigger discipline is, it's still more likely that you'll accidentally press the trigger on a carried long gun than on a holstered handgun.