Tokarev vs Glock; safer?

You have arrived at the core of all gun safety, that is a gun will not fire in most circumstances unless the trigger is pulled. From that standpoint, any pistol in "ready to fire" condition is at the same level of safety against something pulling the trigger if all it takes to fire is gripping the gun properly and pulling the trigger. The argument would be that a Glock is somewhat proof against something other than a direct, intentional trigger pull since the trigger will not move if the safety thingy (I really don't like calling it a safety) in the trigger is not depressed. I am a fan of grip safeties for this reason, and they don't effect trigger pull in most cases like trigger thingys can.

There is the issue of safety against drops or other sorts of jostling the weapon. The only fellow I know who accidentally shot himself dropped a Tokarev with hammer down on a live round. The gun was in a shoulder holster. The pistol hit the floor hammer first, pointed at him. He survived, but had permanent damage and health issues.

So it depends on what you mean by safety. Some firearms are not that well configured against impact or part breakage allowing the gun to fire without the trigger being pulled. Again, proper gun handling can ward against that in most cases.

John

The Glock has a firing pin lock, whereas the Tokarev does not. This means the Tokarev is not "drop safe", while the Glock is. Even the hardest impact should not suffice to make the Glock fire, but the Tokarev, as Grayrider's example indicates, can discharge if dropped and it hits something the right way. Incidentally, that also indicates why condition 2 is a stupid way to carry a single action auto.

The Tokarev was not designed to be carried with a round in the tube. You would draw, rack and fire. Similar to US doctrine with the 1911, despite the fact that the 1911 was designed specifically to be carried with a round in the pipe, hammer cocked, safety on. I guess it just looks to scary to carry it how it's suppossed to be...

The Tokarev was not designed to be carried with a round in the tube. You would draw, rack and fire. Similar to US doctrine with the 1911, despite the fact that the 1911 was designed specifically to be carried with a round in the pipe, hammer cocked, safety on. I guess it just looks to scary to carry it how it's suppossed to be...

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That's true enough for how the Tokarev was meant to be carried. But I have to challenge the assertion that the 1911 was designed from the outset by Browning to be carried cocked and locked. It really wasn't. His initial design didn't even include a safety. He added it later after the army expressed concerns about cavalrymen attempting to reholster a cocked pistol that had no way to lower the hammer other than pulling the trigger and easing it down, which is not ideal, especially on horseback. So he added the safety to satisfy the army about that concern, and then, also at their insistence, he added a grip safety as well.

However, having said that, 90+ years of experience have certainly shown beyond doubt that the gun can be safely carried this way by someone who is familiar with its manual of arms.

You are missing the half-cock feature of the Tokarev. I carry a Romanian Tok (which has an afterthought mandated safety that I do not use). I keep it on half-cock, it will not fire without pulling the hammer back to full cock. When I draw, I use my thumb to pull the hammer back while drawing the pistol from the holster. I am ready to fire as the pistol comes up to bear, none of this racking the slide, and no chance of the pistol going off if dropped.

I wasn't missing the idea of carrying on half-cock. But to put the Tokie on half-cock you've got to pull the trigger and lower the hammer. From time to time, our hands always slip...and if you need to get a gun into action quickly, there are far better models out there to use.

If your hands stand a chance of slipping, don't do it. I've been doing this since 1992 on my Norinco 213 and now my Romanian, I've never had any problem. This is a problem that doesn't exist.
My thumb putting the hammer on full cock as I draw doesn't slow me down a bit. I don't see how I could get any quicker with a different pistol.
I have modified my Romanian to fire the 9x23 Winchester round. This is the ballistic duplicate of the .357 Magnum, but in an autoloader. I get more rounds than a 357 revolver, faster reloads, less recoil, less muzzle blast, and in a much more concealable package. Can you name me another semi-auto pistol that can fire .357 Magnum equivalent loads and costs only $230? If you can, I'll buy it.

EDIT: Incidentally, I just won an auction for a Yugo Tokarev M57. Notice the safety on this one, no need of using the half cock here!:

Totally. The Tok was designed with no safety. Almost all the variants followed this design. I'm only aware of two Tok clones that had a designed in safety, the above M57 and the Tokagypt in 9x19 Luger. Most of the imported Toks had to have a safety added to get past the 1968 Gun Control Act. These after thought safeties are not what I would call either effective or robust.

Here is a picture of the Tokagypt. The Norinco clones used this method.



Here is a pic of the Romanian:

The Romanian et al versions that had safeties added as an afterthought due to import restrictions usually just block the trigger. That seems to be the case on the Romanian, Polish, and Chinese versions that I've seen.

I have no experience with the Egyptian version., but on the Yugoslav version produced with a safety by the manufacturer (which the EAA-imported M88 seems to be based on), the safety is slide-mounted. I THINK it's similar to a Makarov safety and would block the hammer but I am NOT certain. The M88 also has a magazine safety, but that only serves to block the trigger. I don't know if that was modeled after the M57.

Someone will come along to correct me if I'm wrong.

jm

ps. Oops, I was wrong about the M57s. By default, they don't appear to have a safety, either. The M88 does, however, have a slide-mounted safety, and the gun itself is based on the Tokarev.

pss. OK, found one on a version imported into Canada. I knew I'd seen one somewhere.

Talking about the Tokarev and the Glock pistol in the same sentence should be grounds for losing your citizenship..

I've had both, and I'm not a Glock lover by any means, but the Tok is basically a pos and the Glock is light years an improvement.

Just personal opinion,

Jesse

I'll disagree. I couldn't shoot a Glock, my hand is too small. I can't get my fingertip on that trigger safety. The Tok fits me perfectly. I can shoot 7.62x25, 9x19, and 9x23 Winchester out of it. It is basically the Russian version of the 1911. It was based on a simplified Browning design, and is just as reliable. I had over 55,000 rounds through one of them with not a single FTF or FTE. It is hardly a POS.
Just my personal opinion.

Mastiff:

My apology for spouting my old fart opinion so strongly on the TOK vs the Glock..

What I should have said is that IN MY EXPERIENCE, the Chinese Tokarev I had was a pos, while the Glock 26 I had was an excellent firearm, altho I personally do not care for the "Glock trigger type". (I prefer TDA).

I would surmise that if you have a TOK with 50,000+ rounds through it with nary a bobble you have been exceeding lucky because it that number of rounds fired I would have thought you'd have at least had a few rounds malfunction thru sheer bad ammo.

But I have no reason to doubt what you say, and I'm sure if I had the same experience with MY Tok as you have had I'd be singing the praises of the Tok as you have done.

I burned up hundreds and hundreds of rounds of 9mm ammo thru my Tok and never did get the sucker to shoot reliably, or accurately. I sold it to a buddy who was a firearms instructor at FLETC and he sold it to another instructor who was a master gunsmith and that's the last I heard of it.

Hey, maybe the gunsmith fixed it and sold it to you?

Again my apology for being a smart butt.

Best Wishes,

Jesse

Sorry, Jesse. I shouldn't have gotten my back up so quick. I'm so used to people who have never even fired one stating that they are garbage that sometimes I jump too soon.
I have talked to 2 guys who have gotten bad Norinco 213's (which were made for export). I guess they figured why worry about quality control, it isn't like our army is going to use them.
I must have gotten one that was made on a Tuesday.

I load my own ammo, and I am very careful.