I can’t help but think that people carrying these pistols and similar models are not partly doing so for the same bad reasons mentioned here:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=762136
As long as you understand it's limitations and lack of a firing pin safety, take appropriate measures while handling the weapon, I don't see the problem.
The problem is identified in your very words. Why would you want to have to “take appropriate measures” if a better design eliminated the need to do so.
I once knew an officer in the British SAS who swore by what he called, "Colt's little Model M." If they were good enough for him I consider them to be more then good enough for me.
Please put these comments in context. What years was this SAS soldier carrying the Model M? Was he carrying it with a round in the chamber? Was it carried in a manner that enabled a rapid draw when surprised or was it in a flap holster and carried as a doubtfully needed back-up weapon. Do you think anyone today serving in the Special Air Service would think a Model M is the best choice for any use? I don’t think so.
You could do a lot worse in this day and age!
Loaded Guns are inherently dangerous.
They are supposed to be!
Long as you remember that, everything will be O.K..
You can do much better in this day and age! Memory is not good enough which is why we have so many common safety features in more modern designs. Human memory is very fallible so it is good design practice to make the tools we use as safety infallible as possible.
It's a better pistol than most modern .380 designs.
I do not believe any objective analysis would support that statement.
It was good enough for Patton, and Ike.......
In conditions and for reasons that have very little relevance to the choice of a small pistol for self-defense in the 21st century.
Drop safe is pretty crazy thing to place all your stock in. How frequently were pistols dropped causing them to fire before such concerns?
Far to frequently to be tolerated today by the courts or most responsible gun owners. These pistols did not have firing pin safeties because of mechanical design limitations but because of a laxer attitude toward safety.
The argument about the thumb safety being hard to manipulate when under stress is not one I agree with, FOR ME.
How fortunate for you. Considering the thousands of dollars spent replacing the relatively enormous stock thumb-safeties on 1911s, BHPs, etc., with larger safeties over the last several decades it is fairly obvious that most shooters do not believe small thumb-safeties are easy to manipulate when under stress.
I collect these pistols and consider the safety to be nearly impossible to manipulate with one hand and the original sights to be nearly useless in a crisis (although they're so small that they don't represent much risk of hanging up on anything). I would keep a vintage pistol like that as a collectable and purchase a small 9mm in place of it that pointed like it.
Anyone reading this thread who has or has not already gotten emotionally invested in carrying a Model M or similar design should think long and hard about the reality check and wise suggestion that hso posted.
