Striker fired versus DA/SA, advantage?

JohnnyBravo said:

I find no difference in time from holster to first shot between the two guns out to about 15 yards. Beyond 15 yards the M&P is a little faster but if you start talking really long range or precision shooting the DA/SA takes back the lead.

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That really sounds more like a sight-related issue than a gun issue.

45_auto said:

There are even studies linked to the startle response that show that conservatives are more easily startled:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/18/AR2008091802265.html

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Jeeze. People are so easily duped by "studies" and claims of "settled science." Yeah, riiiight.

If people weren't so ignorant of when they're being played like drum, we'd all be much better off. I'm a marketer for a living, and trust me, people as a whole are 90% ignorant of when they're being taken by a PR effort masquerading as news, information, and most of all, "science."

Walt Sherrill said:

That really sounds more like a sight-related issue than a gun issue.

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The M&P (with an APEX trigger) is just a bit faster from 15-30 yards but it isn't as light (at about 6.5 lbs est.) as the Sphinx SA.

Actually I struggle a little at longer ranges with the sights on my Sphinx compared to the M&P. The extra light on either side of the front sight makes it a little quicker but makes precision a bit more difficult.

The SA trigger is what makes the Sphinx work so well for me farther out. It would do even better if the rear sight notch was a little narrower but I didn't buy the gun to use it as a target pistol.

I've only had the Sphinx for a few months though, maybe that will iron itself out. My 60 year old eyes aren't getting any younger though.

I really like shooting both guns they are just different that's all.

Edited to add: The 15 -25 yard zone where my performance with the M&P surpasses the Sphinx really is a trigger control issue. I'm working on it. If I don't improve enough to suit myself I may consider a reduced power trigger spring.

Deanimator said:

When you have poor training and judgment, it's always easier to blame the gun...

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It's not a question of placing blame.

It a question of limiting tragic accidents.

Indeed. We can say pretty clearly that when we look at large groups of people using the same equipment (no other clear way to get data rather than single-point anecdotes) we see a measurable and repeatable uptick in un-intended firing of weapons when those people switch en masse from DA to the common Glock and M&P type of striker fired sidearms. And that the inverse appears also to be the case.

That is simply data. Observation of fact. We can say they should be trained better. Ok, but that's not really part of the discussion. I'm sure most WERE trained in the differences when they moved to a new gun. Maybe some weren't. So what? What happens, happens. And it happens commonly enough, across a broad spectrum of users that it is a significant phenomenon to be aware of.

That does not mean YOU or I must change anything about what we like or what we use. It's just data. If we think that we've eliminated or significantly reduced the relevance of that data to our situation, we may choose to disregard it.

"This (wiggling trigger finger) is MY safety!" And, "Safety is between your ears, not a part of your gun!" And all these other aphorisms is merely another way of saying, "I take full responsibility for my actions and my mistakes and if I mistakenly fire my weapon and hurt myself or someone else, that's my dumb fault. I hereby give up the extra margin of error that a longer, heavier trigger does afford, and will rely on nothing but my own brain and my own habits to keep me from this horrible outcome."

And that's fine! Do so. But don't come up with aphoristic ways to denigrate recorded data all shooters should be aware of.

Sam 1911 said:

But don't come up with aphoristic ways to denigrate recorded data all shooters should be aware of.

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I'm not trying to defend Glocks and problems with NDs, but I suspect we are sometimes comparing apples to oranges in some of these discussions.

Was anybody even recording data for ND discharges for the many years before Glock came on the market? Or before the internet made it so easy to share ND-related information? And how complete is the ND data we have now -- what % of all agencies are included? Everyone seems to think that ND are mostly from striker-fired guns, but is that really true?

Most cops use other tools before they resort to their handgun, and the training they receive for gun handling arguably isn't done frequently enough or with enough reinforcement to have much impact on NDs. And then, as others have noted, the "startle reflex" throws another variable into the mix. (Even a DA/SA gun can be a problem if after the first shot - when the gun moves to single action mode -- if the shooter is startled or surprised again after a lul.)

I have a son who is a state trooper, and have had several friends that were deputy sheriffs or city cops over the years. Those guys are or were fairly gun-savvy, but most of their fellow officers aren't really GUN PEOPLE. Only a few of those co-workers ever fire their weapons except for annual (or slightly more frequent) qualification tests. A modest few compete in the gun games.

I think when one agency reports their results before a switch and their results after a switch, we can pretty much eliminate outside factors as being causal to any difference in rates of unintended firings. As long as they're reporting RATES of incidence (not pure numbers of incidents) and dramatic other changes haven't been implemented in exactly the same time period, results would be useful.

Not really "apples-to-oranges" if one group makes one change and records "X" result. It just IS.

We can always say, well that information would be more comprehensive if we asked more agencies and more users and somehow weighted those results by some kind of relative training modifier ... and ... and ...

But so what? It is data.

Most cops use other tools before they resort to their handgun, and the training they receive for gun handling arguably isn't done frequently enough or with enough reinforcement to have much impact on NDs. And then, as others have noted, the "startle reflex" throws another variable into the mix. (Even a DA/SA gun can be a problem if after the first shot - when the gun moves to single action mode -- if the shooter is startled or surprised again after a lul.)

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All true, but none of it affects the one question at hand: Given everything else being perfectly equal, did the officers fire their weapons without meaning to more often in the X years before, or the X years since we switched platforms.

If you changed other major things about training or whatever the importance of that data would evaporate! But if everything else stayed very close to the same, then you have DATA.

I have a son who is a state trooper, and have had several friends that were deputy sheriffs or city cops over the years. Those guys are or were fairly gun-savvy, but most of their fellow officers aren't really GUN PEOPLE. Only a few of those co-workers ever fire their weapons except for annual (or slightly more frequent) qualification tests. A modest few compete in the gun games.

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Sure. And this might be one of the reasons that one of US may decide "Oh, those guys aren't as well trained as ME so I don't have the same risk they do..."

But unless all the gunny guys quit the day they handed out the Glocks, and a bunch of non-shooters joined the force that day, then the substantive driving factor behind any change in the rate of mistaken discharge would have to be the gun itself.

As Sam1911 said, the LASD report is data. More data -particularly consistent data- would be nice to have, but the LASD data may be the best we can reasonably hope to get. The LASD has about 10,000 armed personnel and still only had 131 incidents over a period of 11 years. Aggregating data from other departments would increase the size of the dataset, but would introduce variables relating to differences in equipment and training. The LASD data at least has the benefit of being based on one agency's set of equipment and training regime.

Sam1911 said:

But unless all the gunny guys quit the day they handed out the Glocks, and a bunch of non-shooters joined the force that day, then the substantive driving factor behind any change in the rate of mistaken discharge would have to be the gun itself.

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It seems intuitively obvious that the driving factor behind any change in the rate of mistaken discharge is the gun itself. That may be correct. You've made what seems to be a valid assessment. That sample is large, but we don't know that it's representative. And while we discuss Glocks here, the guns in the LASD report were S&W M&Ps.

The NYPD has data available on line as of 2012, for ten years of service. The Glock 19 was first introduced in 1994 to new officers, with many others transitioning to that weapon in the following years. (It is believed that 25,000 NYPD officers are now carrying Glock 19s, and the remaining officers, who kept their existing weapons, use P226s, and S&W 59XX series weapons.)

The NYPD has three times as many officers carrying weapons as the LA Sheriff's Department, but less than twice as many unintended discharges -- and 72% of the NYPD officers are carrying striker-fired (non-DA/SA) weapons.

The LASD's NDs had fluctuated a lot in the early years of the study, before the M&Ps were introduced, and it was only the last year of the reporting period (which prompted the study) that the rate was particularly high. During the first three years transition to M&P use, the ND rate was actually lower than prior to the change. Only the LAST YEAR was particularly bad, and because the same weapon had been used in the prior two-three years, that SPIKE might suggest that MORE than just the weapon alone had something to do with the increase. (The report was completed in late 2015, and there had been only 17 NDs that year, 7 in tactical situations [on the job] and 10 in non-tactical situations. According to the source, the non-tactical rate has been pretty steady most years.) The study shows that during the first year of transition (2013) to the M&P, there were both SIGs and Berettas involved in negligent discharges, but no M&Ps.

If you assume that only the NYPD Glocks had the unintentional discharges -- they NYPD rate of ND is still substantially lower than the LASD problem rate.

Here's a link to the NYPD stats: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/nypd_annual_firearms_discharge_report_2011.pdf

And where the NYPD Glocks-in-use count came from: http://www.glockforum.com/A-Year-in-the-Life-of-the-NYPD-Glocks.html

Using statistics or making judgments from what you read is a bit like reading tea leaves -- it's as much an art as a science. And like tea leaves, you can often see anything you want.

The NYPD report linked in the above states that Glocks have a higher percentage of NDs relative to their usage.

Three of the 13 firearms discharged during purely unintentional incidents were weapons that were not the officers’ regular service or off-duty firearms—two were perpetrator’s weapons, and one was an ESU Glock 19 equipped with an under-the-barrel flashlight. More notably, six of the remaining ten firearms were also manufactured by Glock (three model 19s and three model 26s). In fact, with regard to officers experiencing unintentional discharges while loading or unloading their own firearms, 75 percent of such incidents involved Glocks. Their overrepresentation in this category has been seen consistently over the past five years: since 2007, there have been 31 incidents in which officers unintentionally discharged their own firearms during loading/unloading, and 22 of those incidents—71 percent—have involved Glocks. [emphasis added] This most likely stems from the fact that a person disassembling a Glock must depress the trigger to do so.

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The section you cite doesn't say a higher RATE of discharge, but simply a higher number. Did you notice the earlier assertion that roughly 75% of the weapons used were Glocks? If that is correct, it would seem that 75% of the NYPD guns were involved in 71% of one category of NDs. Glocks may actually be underrepresented in that particular ND category. (SIGs and S&W 59xx guns don't have magazine safeties, either.)*

Again -- I'm not a Glock fanboy -- I'm just trying to say that reading these reports and trying to make judgements from statistical data can leave a reader reeling...

That's why I asked if we were comparing applies to oranges earlier. I'm not sure it was apples to apples. I'll happily stand corrected if somebody can clarify the points I'm missing or unintentionally misinterpreting.

*note: I later found that the S&W 5946 used by the NYPD does have a mag safety...

I am not sure about what percentage of guns that NYPD buys that are Glock. This is one year's data in dollars, and it suggests that, at least in 2010, Glock purchases are much lower than 75% of the gun models purchased. It is hard to be sure as not all of the guns are equally priced.

According to the NY Post, "In 2010, the NYPD spent $656,599 on 1,337 weapons for new recruits, with $283,292 to Smith & Wesson, $215,280 to Glock, and $157,927 to Sig Sauer." As a comparison in pistol prices, nearly half of that figure was for Glock series 9mm pistols.

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Is the NYPD still using Glocks with a heavier than normal trigger pull? Is the LASD using M&P with the standard trigger pull? If so, I wonder if that might account for part of the difference in ND rates.

I haven't fiddled with Glocks or M&P's much. Is the trigger safety easier to to release on an M&P than on a Glock? If so, maybe that's part of it, too.

Since posting the stuff above, I picked up several articles about Glocks and the NYPD

One article says that roughly 25,000 NYPD officers use Glock 19s. That same article also says that NYPD officers buy their own weapons, and if Glocks are cheaper, that might explain a lot -- but they must choose either a Glock 19, a S&W 5946, or a Sig P226 -- all modified to be DAO (not DA/SA). The S&W 5946s have mag safeties.

http://www.tactical-life.com/firearms/big-10-protection-duty-guns-americas-largest-police-departments/#sig-p226-frame

As for prices and dollars -- I would expect Glocks to be anywhere from 2/3 to 1/2 the price of SIG or S&W semi-autos, as Glock has consistently given police departments BIG discounts when they buying large quantities.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1695090/posts

I also picked up a link to an article about Glock problems back in 1996... at that time, it says that 20,000 of them were in service in '96. That would be roughly 60%, and I've seen higher counts. A LEO can often buy a Glock for personal use for less than $400 when using their agency's letterhead to show that they are LEOs. I would expect the NYPD Glocks to be anywhere from 2/3 to 1/2 the price of SIG or S&W semi-autos, as Glock has consistently given police departments BIG discounts when buying large quantities. NYPD LEO would buy their weapon from the city, and get the city's price. Retiring officers kept their weapon.

RE: the heavy NYPD trigger: the following is from a 2012 article, so things may have changed, but it appears that ALL NYPD weapons were modified to be DAO with 12 lb. triggers:


The writer (a retired NYPD LEO) goes on to rant about how hard it is to shoot well and rapidly with a 12 pound trigger...

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/08/foghorn/nypds-choice-of-firearm-may-have-contributed-to-the-terrible-shooting/

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If you practice with it a lot you can become fairly fast at making that first pull, and if you practice with it a lot you can become just as accurate as you would be with a SA or striker-fired first pull. If you don't, you won't. It is the same safety argument made for decades on behalf of double-action revolvers: You probably won't pull that trigger accidentally, the first shot.

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Agreed. One of the main advantages of a double action revolver over single action revolvers. I favor DA/SA semi actions also.