Walt Sherrill
Member
SwampWolf said:
You were right to mention that, and I simply overlooked (forgot about?) the H&K approach -- which is also unique and very clever.
H&K offers both functions in a single lever mechanism. The H&K design gives you cocked & locked, but If you're excited and press that lever too hard, you can decock the weapon. The firing pin safety function is performed by the little lever that flips up when in the half-cock position, as the gun is being decocked. It blocks hammer movement, not firing pin movement. But, if the hammer is fully down there is no firing pin safety to prevent an accidental discharge from slams or drops. (That written, I don't know why anyone would want to manually lower the hammer on a chambered round in a decocker-equipped gun, but it is a subtle functional difference).
While I've seen a number of H&Ks being fired, and have fired a few myself, I don't think I've ever seen anyone start theirs from cocked and locked. I have seen them, at the range, start from cocked -- after chambering the first round. (Maybe I just haven't seen enough H&K shooters -- H&Ks are kind of rare in this part of the country -- like CZs used to be and like Sphinx models are today.)
The CZ safety design, while it doesn't work internally in the same manner as the 1911 safety, feels similar to the shooter. -- especially if you retrofit the larger SA safety lever(s), which is/are quite a bit larger than the standard (relatively small) CZ safety levers. You just press down and you can't press too far. And the firing pin block can only be deactivated by pulling the trigger fully to the rear -- so it's drop safe in any mode.
S&W had a slide-mounted one-lever safety/decocker mechanism in their 3rd Gen. semi-autos, but it didn't allow cocked & locked starts. Ditto for most of the Beretta models: single lever, but they also can't do cocked & locked. (One Beretta M-92 FS variant has a frame-mounted safety, but no decocker.)
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