Dropping handgun poll

I voted yes, but I have never dropped a loaded one, which is the real problem. Knocked one off a table while cleaning once.

Lets see.

had a handgun fallout out of my safe. didn't set it completely on the holder.
had a pistol on the top shelf of closet once, that I knocked off pulling something else down.
scabbard broke, gun fell off horse.
I fell down ravine, all guns went flying.

thats over several decades.
Recently dropped a slide on the floor while cleaning (and it broke)

Yes, I have dropped a pistol .... once ... that I recall ... loaded & in its pocket holster onto a carpeted floor.

I have been handling handguns for ~55 years and I imagine that I have handled them a LOT relative to most folks, especially in the last ~40 years.

That aspect of the past ~40 (the handling/dealing-with, not the dropping) has certainly been fine.

I have never dropped a handgun or had one knocked out on my hand. Now I have fallen, been knocked down and even been in a good many fights with a holstered hand gun, but never had it come out of the holster.
Now I did drop a M16A1 back in 1982. Drill Instructor Sgt. Kelly made me pay dearly for that.

Never dropped a loaded one but have had a strong gust of wind catch the edge of a soft case and launch an unloaded gun down range, twice.

Could have been loaded had I set one down to, say, adjust eye pro or such.

Shouldn't the question be, "Have you ever dropped a Loaded handgun?"

There is a big difference between dropping a loaded gun and an empty gun.

I can't believe the amount of attention this P320 "drop issue" is getting.
There are brands which literally go off when, or while they are holstered.
The entire line is designed the same way,
the company does NOTHING about it, for DECADES. There is
a syndrome named after it, and nobody raises an eyebrow, after
literally dozens of people have suffered gunshot wounds. NOBODY
CARES that this product has proven itself, time and again, dangerous
to the general public.
But everybody
is all over Sig, like a pack of starving wolves, because of an arbitrary drop safety
issue, WHERE NOT ONE PERSON has been injured, AND they are
immediately retrofitting a fix.
WHY is everybody suddenly so Eddie Eagle about this one SIG design?

Last week I dropped my G26 while trying to place it into Kydex holster on my belt. The gun did not go off.

The time I dropped my BHP, it was loaded. One in the chamber, hammer down. When it hit the concrete (on the hammer, no less) it was pointed right at my face. That was a little disconcerting.

I've dropped a revolver once, from only about a foot above the ground.

Until someone shuts off gravity, things are going to be dropped.

Danoobie said:

There are brands which literally go off when, or while they are holstered.

Click to expand...

Such as? If you are talking about Glocks you are flat wrong. They fire because of poor handling techniques, not random parts failure.

There are a variety of reasons one might drop a handgun that have nothing to do with carelessness. The gun carrier taking a spill from a fall has been mentioned. There are a multitude of ways a soldier or LEO can drop a gun that are not the result of poor gun handling skills. Some seem to "forget" handguns are weapons and weapons are used in confrontations. Many reasons one might drop something in a confrontation.

IIRC, after a sailor dropped the Victory model he was carrying, it discharged killing the sailor. This had S&W recalling them all and modifying the design to prevent it from happening. This was a design that had been in use for more than 40 years with no official reports of not being drop safe.

A lab in the 70s proved a 1911 could discharge if dropped on the muzzle from a certain height. They had to get on ladder to get high enough IIRC. There were stories going around of this happening but no conclusive proof. This didn't raise an outcry of 1911 owners but it convinced Colt to come out with the firing pin safety to prevent it.

Someone said they couldn't understand the brouhaha as no one has been injured. If something is wrong don't you think something should he done before that happens?

Prior to the drop safe issue the NJ State Police had problems with their Sigs. Sig kept trying to take the cheap way out until NJSP said enough was enough and replaced them with Glocks. NJSP is currently suing Sig for cost of the guns, holsters, etc.

Last I looked Sig is calling this an "upgrade" not a "recall". That's a sloppy way to handle it IMO.

If I ever have, I can't remember.

I recently bought my first 1911 without an internal safety, and I had to ask myself if it was really important, what the odds were, that of all the things that can go wrong during a gun fight, how big of a deal is it for me to have a 'drop safe'(er) gun? I decided not very.

jjones45 said:

I have never heard of a gun just going off in a holster by itself, except one time on this forum I believe but that was a bit sketchy also. And if someone thinks inserting a gun into a holster while something is in the trigger guard and it fires is the same as a gun just going off they may need to do just a tad bit more research and talk to a few professionals. I don't get that thought process, even when I had no firearms knowledge I would not blame a firearm manufacturer for a gun firing when something physically pulled the trigger to the rear. That's just silly.

Click to expand...

One I can think of that could easily go off in holster is the Japanese Type 94. It had an exposed external sear, that if pressed would fire the gun.

JONWILL said:

One I can think of that could easily go off in holster is the Japanese Type 94. It had an exposed external sear, that if pressed would fire the gun.

Click to expand...

Wasn't there a Taurus that'd go off if you shook it right? I misremember which.

Danoobie said:

I can't believe the amount of attention this P320 "drop issue" is getting.
There are brands which literally go off when, or while they are holstered.
The entire line is designed the same way,
the company does NOTHING about it, for DECADES. There is
a syndrome named after it, and nobody raises an eyebrow, after
literally dozens of people have suffered gunshot wounds. NOBODY
CARES that this product has proven itself, time and again, dangerous
to the general public.
But everybody
is all over Sig, like a pack of starving wolves, because of an arbitrary drop safety
issue, WHERE NOT ONE PERSON has been injured, AND they are
immediately retrofitting a fix.
WHY is everybody suddenly so Eddie Eagle about this one SIG design?

Click to expand...

First, if you are referring to Glock the gun is doing nothing wrong for Glock leg, the user is holstering unsafely. M&P and Sigs would go off in the same circumstance.

Second, from Sigs website page for the 320.

"Safety isn’t negotiable. The P320 maximizes peace of mind with a robust safety system. Never again will you need to pull the trigger to disassemble your pistol. And, while available as an option, you won’t need a tabbed trigger safety for your gun to be drop safe."

So, without the voluntary upgrade that statement is a bold faced lie.

They will fix it and it will be forgotten, but their refusal to admit the problem in the face of evidence and a lawsuit from the CT cop who was injured has made Sig deserve the criticism they have gotten.

And I still like my Sigs and will buy more. Not the 320 though, I prefer their hammer fired offerings more.

Yes I have. In the military my rifle (or some other issue weapon assigned to me) has fallen to the ground several times after being leaned against a wall or other object. 100% of the time they were unloaded and just being carried. I earned many pushups, and gave out just as many, over a dropped rifle.

As far as personal firearms go, not very many. When I was still new to carrying concealed I had a couple (I think) instances where I was using a cheap holster to carry. And I was doing something mundane like going to the bathroom and the firearm flopped out to a usually tile floor. Some dings on slides and some hurt pride but never a discharge.

My wife had one instance where she was carrying a S&W Bodyguard in a very cheap ($3) holster. Same instance for her, in a bathroom it dropped to the floor. It traveled into the adjacent bathroom stall where a young lady (probably mid teens) handed it back to her, rather safetly from what the wife says. Quite a bit more embarrassing for her as I was getting a new holster for the wife the next day.

In 40 years about three or four times. Never a dangerous situation.

In the "dynamic environments" that military and LE work in, guns get dropped from many causes.

Anyone who has never dropped a gun has never actually used one for anything other than a range toy. In the real world I've taken several falls and dropped rifles and shotguns hard while hunting. Any gun intended for military or LE use stands a very good chance of being dropped or worse. They are often used in ways you'd never use one in controlled range games.

In hand to hand combat guns are often used as clubs, soldiers and cops get shot, die or get wounded and drop their guns. Civilians aren't jumping out of helicopters under fire while carrying guns that sometimes get dropped. Those same helicopters sometimes go down with soldiers and guns rattling around inside. Same as police cars involved in crashes or military vehicles when they hit an IED. If your buddy is under fire and his weapon is either lost, or not functional you're going to pick up another dead soldiers gun and toss it to him. You shouldn't have to worry that it will discharge when it hits the ground and slides to him.

Many of these things violate "range rules". But in the real world you often do what you have to do in order to survive a fight. No firearm should discharge unless the trigger is pulled. No excuses.

As long as we're spilling our guts......
I have a sort of gun maintenance area in my shed where I have my cleaning supplies on the workbench. I had just cleaned my (unloaded) lcp after an informal shooting session. I was applying a few drops of lube to the action and firing pin area by holding the action of the tiny little pistol open with one hand, oiler in the other.
Something slipped...
I fumbled the gun, but not only that...I made a grab for it only to slap it harder into the concrete floor.
A good inspection, and another trip back to the targets proved that no harm was done, thankfully.

I've knocked over/dropped plenty of rifles. Never a handgun. Not yet, hopefully never.