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by treadlightly
Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:46 am
Forum: 2015 Legislative Session
Topic: Fox News report on Texas OC
Replies: 19
Views: 11114

Re: Fox News report on Texas OC

Interesting. The picture of the holstered handgun at the top of the article appears to be a 1911 at half-cock.

That's not as safe as either hammer down or cocked and locked, or so I think. Please tell me where I'm off base.

Hammer full down on an inertial firing pin is safe, more or less. Completely so if the weapon is drop-safe and has a firing pin block, although the act of cocking it involves the risk of accidentally (or negligently) dropping the hammer.

Cocked and locked, the safety is a thing of creative beauty. The sear is mechanically locked into engagement, and the hammer is physically blocked from moving. If there is a firing pin block, which I think is best controlled by the grip safety, not the trigger, then the gun is pretty well jammed up and not close to firing.

At half cock anything that snags the hammer sets it up to fall against half cock, which is hard on the sear, or all the way down against the firing pin, which can be hard on the unprotected ear (and other body parts).

Locking the slide is more of a protection against out-of-battery malfunction than a safety feature, although with a non-blocked firing pin it would only go off once if dropped while cocked and locked.

But half-cock as a working, deliberately engaged safety? Probably not for me.

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