Are Glocks really drop safe? Even in the summer?

[9mmepiphany]

I guess enough years have passed that the origin of the "trigger safety" has faded from memory.

When the Glock 17 was first introduced to the American market, all the gun rags had to have one to test.

They all wrote that the Glock 17 was designed to win the contract with the Austrian Military. The safety on the face of the trigger was explained as meeting a military requirement that the gun being submitted have a "Safety" which had to be disengaged before the gun could be fired. Glock's solution met the letter of the requirement, if not the spirit

 

[Teachu2]

Complete non-issue.
Denis

Could you be less specific?

 

[DPris]

Sure.
TOTAL non-issue.
Denis

 

[Zerodefect]

Keep in mind that even if the safe-action trigger were to fail in some spectacular fashion in the heat, the striker is still only half-cocked. You can drop it all day long and nothing is going to pop that primer.

Sorry, but this is not true of many Glocks.

If the striker drops from half cocked the Glock may fire. Tested it with blanks and was able to duplicate it many times. Even if the drop safety on the trigger is engaged properly, failure of the cross to hang onto the striker, and an incorrect pretravel setting engaging the firing pin safety can allow the Glock to fire, even though the striker is only half cocked.

Failure of the cross, excessive removal of pre-travel, and light primers can lead to this fault. It's most often seen in modified Glocks that have been modified incorrectly. The glut of aftermarket triggers is the main cause. The other next likely cause are the stupid retards that won't detail clean a Glock because "perfection" or some other nonsense excuse. Brass shavings CAN hang the FP safety up in the unsafe position.

Even on a stock Glock, it would be wise to learn about the Glocks internal safeties, get a clear back plate, and do a good check. Won't cost nothing, and is good stuff to know. If anyone mods a Glock, they need to know how to ensure proper striker engagement and proper FP safety engagement. There is little room for error.

These are all rare with stock Glocks, but weirder things have happened.

 

[Warp]

I still just do not see how a zipper can do that, and I am still rather convinced that some of these "documented" cases are self reported, reminding me of the "the gun just went off" stories. uh-huh

 

[9mmepiphany]

I've seen it more than once.

Both were at IDPA matches:
1. Newer shooters - not used to holstering
2. Wearing jackets instead of vest - didn't have common equipment yet
3. Holstered too fast,without sweeping their cover garment completely clear

The lucky thing is that they were shooting a SIG 226 and a Beretta 92...if it had been a Glock, there is no doubt in my mind that a shot would have gone off

The tail of the jacket went over the holster as they drew their guns, they didn't clear the zipper completely out of the way as they re-holstered after loading. They had their guns partially into the holster and the hammers were starting back by the time I stopped their arm...I was the S.O.

 

[JohnKSa]

...an incorrect pretravel setting engaging the firing pin safety can allow the Glock to fire, even though the striker is only half cocked.

If the trigger pre-travel is set far enough to disengage the firing pin safety then it's also far enough to have moved the striker well past the half-cocked point.

If the striker drops from half cocked the Glock may fire.

It's quite difficult to get the striker to drop from half-cocked without damaging the trigger housing of the trigger or bending the trigger bar. The ramp safety portion of the trigger housing will prevent the trigger bar from moving downward far enough to drop the striker until the trigger bar has moved backward enough to take the striker well past the half-cock point (or unless the trigger bar or ramp safety is damaged).

Someone could calculate how hard the Glock would have to strike the ground with the muzzle straight up to cause inertia of the trigger components to overcome a 5lb trigger pull, and pull.

Force is equal to kinetic energy divided by the distance it takes to stop the moving object. When an object is stopped essentially instantly by hitting an unyielding surface, or, worse yet, bounces on impact, the amount of force generated is spectacular, even if the kinetic energy isn't that large.

 

[farscott]

The reason Glock uses -40 to 122 degrees F is because those temperatures are -40 to +50 degrees Celsius. One can assume that Glock does testing over that temperature range.

 

[barnbwt]

I think the striker hook steel may be too brittle past -40 to keep from snapping off, negating all safety features. Won't matter since the frame will have since shattered in half, launching the slide assembly across the room as the backplate snaps off & sends the striker back at your frozen corpse

Cold, dead hands drop no guns.

TCB

 

[MikeJackmin]

If the striker drops from half cocked the Glock may fire. Tested it with blanks and was able to duplicate it many times. Even if the drop safety on the trigger is engaged properly, failure of the cross to hang onto the striker, and an incorrect pretravel setting engaging the firing pin safety can allow the Glock to fire, even though the striker is only half cocked.

I'm surprised by this, but if you've tested it yourself I'm happy to agree.

I'd expect that this would have been engineered with exactly these issues in mind. If the striker retains enough energy to fire the gun from the half-cocked position, then why not just cock it fully?

 

[JohnKSa]

I'm surprised by this, but if you've tested it yourself I'm happy to agree.

The internal design of the Glock, especially the "ramp safety" in the trigger housing makes it quite difficult to drop the striker from the "half-cocked" position. It would require forcing the trigger bar downward by either bending the trigger bar or deforming the ramp safety in the trigger housing.

It might be possible to do the testing by carefully measuring the striker compression at half-cock and then doing the test with the slide off the gun so you don't have to fight the ramp safety and risk damaging the gun.

For reference, at half-cock, the firing pin spring stored energy in the Glock design is reduced about 75% from the stored energy at full-cock.

 

[barnbwt]

They all wrote that the Glock 17 was designed to win the contract with the Austrian Military. The safety on the face of the trigger was explained as meeting a military requirement that the gun being submitted have a "Safety" which had to be disengaged before the gun could be fired. Glock's solution met the letter of the requirement, if not the spirit

Does not the transfer bar's inertia attempt to shift backward & release the striker if dropped muzzle-up (the most dangerous kind), stopped only by the trigger safety interfering with the bar's travel? I always saw the device as a drop-safety marketed as an 'automatic manual safety' (oxymoron)

TCB

 

[gc70]

Glock describes the trigger safety as a drop safety, consistent with JohnSKa's explanation.

The trigger safety is a lever incorporated into the trigger. When the trigger safety is in the forward position it blocks the trigger from moving rearward. The trigger safety and the trigger must be fully depressed at the same time to fire the pistol. If the trigger safety is not depressed, the trigger will not move rearward and allow the pistol to fire. The trigger safety is designed to protect against firing if the pistol is dropped or the trigger is subjected to lateral pressure.

 

[rcmodel]

I think they meant to say 'If the the pistol is dropped, and you try to catch it.'

Lateral pressure means pressure from the side.

What does the safety blade have to do with that anyway??

Other then snagging the side of the trigger on the edge of a holster and shooting yourself in the leg?

Seems to be a translation problem between Austrian and English to me.

I still contend there is not enough weight in the plastic trigger, and all it's related parts, to cause it to cock a 5+ pound striker spring, and fire it if you dropped off the Empire State Building!!

rc

 

[Zerodefect]

Agree'd. The Glock trigger safety was pretty much a drop safety. The marketing department are the ones that changed it.

 

[4thPointOfContact]

122 degrees Fahrenheit converts to 50 degrees Celsius. Which is a common temperature to test to in a lab.

Bingo!
And unsurprisingly (or not) -40F converts to -40C which makes for nice round numbers with a wide spread for testing.

 

[GLOOB]

I think they meant to say 'If the the pistol is dropped, and you try to catch it.'

Plaxico Burris provides a case study showing how this doesn't work. If he had let the gun fall on the floor, he would have saved himself a lot of money.
To a marketing department, it might be something else. But to an engineer, it's a drop safety, pure and simple. I doubt S&W, Ruger, HK, and Walther are copying it for marketing reasons. For those who don't understand what it does, it appears to be purely redundant and mildy annoying at best.

If you were to put a knob on the striker, extending out a slot on the top of the slide, and you removed the trigger safety, you would be able to fire a Glock like a bow and arrow, by simply pulling back the striker and releasing it. The trigger would pull itself, pushing the striker safety up and dropping the sear out of the way. Once that happens, no matter how quickly or slowly you return the striker, it's a free shot to the primer; the trigger will not reset, again, until after the disconnector is pushed in. Substitute a drop on the back of the slide for manually pulling back the striker, and you get a drop fire. (The trigger safety is specifically weighted so that a drop to the back of the slide makes it engage harder; the spring can't be overcome by any amount of force in this direction).

It's scary that some people have taken out this safety mechanism without knowing what it's actually for. Maybe it's even scarier that a marketing department has to come up with a lame excuse for this mechanism because it's too much bother to explain what it really is.

 

[gc70]

Seems to be a translation problem between Austrian and English to me.

Glock is probably capable of accurately translating between German (the official language of Austria) and English to describe their product.

Smith & Wesson's engineers reached the same conclusion when the function of Glock's trigger safety was described in the patent for S&W's hinged trigger.

I still contend there is not enough weight in the plastic trigger, and all it's related parts, to cause it to cock a 5+ pound striker spring, and fire it if you dropped off the Empire State Building!!

First, there is the inertia of the plastic trigger and the metal trigger bar, assisted by the rearward pull of the trigger spring (standard 5-lb. or extra-strength 6-lb.). Then there is the inertia of the metal firing pin, resisted by the forward push of the striker spring (standard 5.5-lb. or reduced-strength 5-lb. or 4.5-lb.).

I have not personally tested whether those components would allow the trigger to 'pull itself' if a Glock is dropped with the muzzle pointing up. Rather than being a useful part, I suppose Gaston Glock could have included the trigger dingus simply as a perverse aggravation for shooters.

 

[rcmodel]

I guess?

I still think it has nothing to do with drop safety, other the a reflex grab at the gun if you drop it .

And to prevent you from shooting yourself if the leg if the trigger snags on something while re-holstering it. (Lateral pressure) IE: SIDE PRESSURE on the trigger, as stated by Glock.

rc

 

[MIL-DOT]

But, I wonder how likely (or unlikely) it is to ever have something contact the trigger in just the right way, that it applies enough pressure to have pulled the trigger, yet miraculously doesn't contact that little safety blade? IMO, it's gonna be one of those rare one-in-a-million kinda things, I just don't see it being realistic. I've always felt Glock's little trigger safety was deep-space stupid and completely useless, and I'm baffled to see it replicated by other manufacturers.

 

[danez71]

I still think it has nothing to do with drop safety,,,,,,,,,,,,,

rc

As its been described to me, and it makes a lot of sense, the trigger and the trigger safety have 2 differet pivot points.

By having 2 different fulcrums, the gun can not be dropped at any angle that will let the safety swing to disengage and then let the trigger swing.


Essentially, the gun only falls and hits the ground only at one angle but the trigger and trigger safety need to move at 2 different angles and in the right sequence.

 

[MIL-DOT]

I just stumbled onto a related thread on the S&W forum (in the M&P pistols sub-forum), and one member posted a video showing several pistols being dropped, and the triggers did generate enough intertia to fire the guns. The poster points out that shell cases with only primers in them were used, for obvious safety considerations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVgwVVLE3e4

(but personally, I'm still highly skeptical that the lightweight plastic Glock trigger could ever do this.) Anyone interested in this sibject should go read that thread, there's some very good explanations there. One guy pointed out that the trigger safety wasn't designed to keep the trigger from being pulled, but so that the trigger was the ONLY way the gun could fire.

 

[JohnKSa]

...I'm still highly skeptical that the lightweight plastic Glock trigger could ever do this...

The actual parts that will move and fire the gun in the absence of a trigger safety are the trigger bar and striker. The plastic trigger is just part of the trigger bar assembly which is mostly steel. The striker is a solid steel part.

Rather than let the speculation continue, I finally worked out the numbers. For those who want to make sure I'm not playing any games, here's the link to a calculator that will do the math for you. I'll provide the numbers in the right units to plug into the calculator.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/flobi.html

The trigger bar and striker from a Glock 17 have a combined weight of 0.0188 kg (weighed on an RCBS electronic scale).
I assumed that the gun would be dropped from 4 feet=1.22 meters

When the gun hits the ground, it will be travelling about 16 feet per second and the striker and trigger bar combined will have an energy of about 0.221 Joules.

I assumed the gun would hit muzzle up and assumed it hit an unyielding surface and stopped instantly--did not bounce. In the real world, it would bounce and that would mean the force generated would be greater, but I didn't get into that because I didn't feel like trying to calculate what the bounce would be and because the calculator y'all are going to use to check my work doesn't do that either.

Based on my measurements from a Glock cutaway pistol, the striker and trigger bar will move about 6 mm between half cock and the point where the striker is released. That's 0.006 meters and that's the distance over which the kinetic energy will be dissipated. With that number the force generated by the impact can be calculated.

The calculator indicates that will generate 37 Newtons and you can use the Google conversion for Newtons to pounds force to validate that 37 Newtons is over 8lbs of force. The trigger on a Glock trigger can be operated by less than 7 lbs.

So, without a trigger safety, a Glock dropped from 4 feet and landing muzzle up on an unyielding surface would discharge.

Why wouldn't the firing pin stop it? Because without a trigger safety the trigger bar will move along with the striker, disabling the firing pin safety in the process.

Because the trigger safety prevents the trigger bar from moving due to inertia/momentum, the passive safeties remain engaged. Even though the striker will bounce downwards on impact, when it returns forward it will be caught by the trigger bar, or, if that doesn't happen due to some bizarre malfunction, the firing pin safety will block it.

One function of the trigger safety is to insure that inertia/momentum of internal parts does not fire the gun when it is dropped. Just like Glock says.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Thank you, that is what I was thinking also, I've taken enough math and physics that it was more a feeling than a calculation.

But seeing the math, and explanation, was very helpful...also a nice illustration of how the metric system make calculations easier

 

[9mmepiphany]

other the a reflex grab at the gun if you drop it .

I don't think there is a way that you could grab at a falling gun, that would activate the trigger, that would have been prevented with the Glock trigger safety