westernrover
Member
- Joined
- May 4, 2018
- Messages
- 1,613
It seems obvious, especially for defense and other anti-personnel use. Single-actions require a compressed spring for the firing pin and a safety, or an empty chamber condition. I would have thought doing away with safeties for the kind of guns used for this purpose would have been a priority after the Kansas City Massacre. We've certainly seen a strong preference for not having mechanical disablers on handguns since at least Fairbairn and Sykes, and this accounts for a great deal of the argument in favor of DA/SA autos a generation ago, and striker-fired autos for the last couple decades or longer, and has always been one of the merits of the double-action revolver. The compressed spring issue is certainly a smaller one, but one that has come up perennially none-the-less with respect to the manner in which some people store home-defense guns.
A double-action trigger has long proven adequate for both safety and speed at handgun ranges. The range of the shotgun and demand for accuracy is not greater except perhaps in the case of the special-purpose shotgun with a rifled barrel for deer hunting. I would also argue the carbine, which has gained favor over the shotgun in recent decades for police and home-defense purposes, would also benefit from a double-action for this use. While the M4 may be used at ranges greater than 200 yards for military, hunting, recreational and other purposes, a carbine's practical use for police, personal and home defense is almost certainly benefited greater by a double-action trigger than by a single-action encumbered by a manual safety. This is especially true of the carbines chambered for pistol cartridges and larger caliber carbines for subsonic cartridges used with a suppressor.
There doesn't seem to be a good reason or explanation why the world of shotguns and carbines has remained in a state where the only options are cocked-and-locked, or an empty-chamber, while individual and institutional preferences for some form of double-action for handguns has prevailed.
Now I understand that Mossberg did offer a double-action shotgun about 20 years ago. I am not familiar with it but I understand it was not well received and it may not have deserved to be. Its action was derided as a safety feature for incompetently trained users. I cannot imagine the argument that M92, H&K, Sig and Glock users are employing a crutch for incompetently trained users being given any veracity today. The idea that a gun-disabling "safety" device is superior to skill with a double-action trigger lacks merit. The assertion that people should be trained to operate a gun-disabling lock before their firearm is ready to use has rightly been derided for over 100 years.
A double-action trigger has long proven adequate for both safety and speed at handgun ranges. The range of the shotgun and demand for accuracy is not greater except perhaps in the case of the special-purpose shotgun with a rifled barrel for deer hunting. I would also argue the carbine, which has gained favor over the shotgun in recent decades for police and home-defense purposes, would also benefit from a double-action for this use. While the M4 may be used at ranges greater than 200 yards for military, hunting, recreational and other purposes, a carbine's practical use for police, personal and home defense is almost certainly benefited greater by a double-action trigger than by a single-action encumbered by a manual safety. This is especially true of the carbines chambered for pistol cartridges and larger caliber carbines for subsonic cartridges used with a suppressor.
There doesn't seem to be a good reason or explanation why the world of shotguns and carbines has remained in a state where the only options are cocked-and-locked, or an empty-chamber, while individual and institutional preferences for some form of double-action for handguns has prevailed.
Now I understand that Mossberg did offer a double-action shotgun about 20 years ago. I am not familiar with it but I understand it was not well received and it may not have deserved to be. Its action was derided as a safety feature for incompetently trained users. I cannot imagine the argument that M92, H&K, Sig and Glock users are employing a crutch for incompetently trained users being given any veracity today. The idea that a gun-disabling "safety" device is superior to skill with a double-action trigger lacks merit. The assertion that people should be trained to operate a gun-disabling lock before their firearm is ready to use has rightly been derided for over 100 years.