Drop safe Star bm-9?
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wiscoaster
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No, it is not drop safe with the hammer down. It's drop safe only if "cocked and locked". Theoretically. But, frankly, the safeties on those pistols leave something to be desired, IMO, and I'm not sure I'd want to trust it 100% in actual practice. Draw your own conclusion about my opinion of carrying the Star BM as a self-defense sidearm. Which goes way beyond the question in the OP, but is probably behind the reason for it being asked. And mine doesn't function reliably with hollow-points so it's a no-go for that reason regardless.
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Nature Boy
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They’re still cool little pistols
Monac
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I am not familiar with the Star BM. Does the safety on it work differently from the safety on a mil-spec 1911A1, for example? Or is the difference in manufacture rather than design?
MosinT53Hunter
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Star BM, like most Star pistols, do not usually have a grip safety like your average 1911 pistol. Most have magazine disconnects and frame mounted safeties.
Monac
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So it is the grip safety the makes the GI type 1911 drop safe? That surprises me, because so many pistols have abandoned grips safeties; they began to fade out of pistol design after World War I. I can see how it would make a pistol safer if it was dropped when the manual safety was off; after all, that is what it is supposed to do. But I thought Nature Boy was talking about the manual safety; maybe I misunderstood him.
Blkhrt13
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There is a reason the series 70 became the series 80. Even 1911 have had issues with not being drop safe. Any older gun should be very cautiously handled. This along with cost is part of why my LWC doesn’t see much carry.
barnetmill
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There a practice among gunsmiths when doing trigger jobs on 1911 that is called balancing the springs. They not only cut the mainspring, but they also cut coils from the spring around the firing pin that retards it movement forward when gun is dropped on its muzzle.
I SUSPECT that firing pin with a GI spec spring on it is much safer to drop on the muzzle than is one that has been balanced by cutting off coils.
Mainspring is what powers the hammer and is in the flat or arched housing
I SUSPECT that firing pin with a GI spec spring on it is much safer to drop on the muzzle than is one that has been balanced by cutting off coils.
Mainspring is what powers the hammer and is in the flat or arched housing
Blkhrt13
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Back to your question OP no. They are not very drop safe. Also do not dry fire them the firing pin is brittle if I recall.
wiscoaster
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No, it doesn't. In the series 80 1911 there's a plunger in the slide that blocks the firing pin until the trigger is pulled. The usual method of making a hammer-fired pistol drop safe today, but not present in the Star BM, and many other pistols of that era. Also the Star's hammer is in direct contact with the firing pin when it's down.
Star BM slide:
View attachment 1080453
Pin on the left is the extractor retention pin; pin on the right is the firing pin retention spring. No firing pin block plunger. As a side note, the firing pin retention pin can be removed only after first removing the rear sight. A really, really disgusting feature of this particular pistol.
And I was bad-mouthing the safety because on my gun it doesn't engage very firmly, and also if you happen to thumb it too far in the wrong direction it will plain and simply just fall out of the frame.
I think my gun just needs a whole new set of springs.
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FL-NC
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I have heard that they are not drop safe. I acquired one a few months ago- after test firing it (it worked) I loaded it and put it in a drawer in my tool chest in the garage- round in the chamber, on half cock (not a gun that I carry).
JTQ
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In a GI 1911, one without a firing pin safety, the grip safety prevents inertial movement of the trigger, if the gun is dropped and it lands muzzle up, which acts as a drop safety.
wiscoaster
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I'm sorry to disagree, but in my mind, any qualifier, such as "if it lands muzzle up", disqualifies it from 100% reliably acting as a drop safety. The firing pin block is 100%.
It's been a really long time since I've had a 1911 apart, but if memory serves, the grip safety just pushes on one of the three leaves of the sear spring, right? I mean, it doesn't actually physically block the firing pin when it's not pushed in? It's just spring tension you're working with or against?
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Monac
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No, it doesn't. In the series 80 1911 there's a plunger in the slide that blocks the firing pin until the trigger is pulled. The usual method of making a hammer-fired pistol drop safe today, but not present in the Star BM, and many other pistols of that era. Also the Star's hammer is in direct contact with the firing pin when it's down.
Star BM slide:
View attachment 1080453
Pin on the left is the extractor retention pin; pin on the right is the firing pin retention spring. No firing pin block plunger. As a side note, the firing pin retention pin can be removed only after first removing the rear sight. A really, really disgusting feature of this particular pistol.
And I was bad-mouthing the safety because on my gun it doesn't engage very firmly, and also if you happen to thumb it too far in the wrong direction it will plain and simply just fall out of the frame.
I think my gun just needs a whole new set of springs.
Thank you. I understand now. It is both the basic 1911 (pre-firing pin lock) design and some things about the Star involved here.
wiscoaster
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Yes. Sorry to confuse. That's the nature of the medium. I rely on the forum moderators to keep it from getting too far off course. (aka shooting my mouth off about irrelevancies)
halfmoonclip
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You can't move a 1911 trigger without depressing the grip safety. It does not secure the firing pin, unless it is an example that uses the Swartz firing pin safety, actuated by the grip safety.
I remain skeptical of how far you'd have to drop a 1911 on its muzzle to make the firing pin detonate a round thru' inertia.
Moon
I remain skeptical of how far you'd have to drop a 1911 on its muzzle to make the firing pin detonate a round thru' inertia.
Moon
shoobe01
Member
No. Star didn't get into drop safety with inertial firing pins and firing pin blocks until they shifted production to the modern series guns (M30, Firestars, etc) starting between 1979 and 1983. So, about the time everyone else did also.
Star explicitly doesn't think you should lower the hammer on any single action pistol because are you nuts?
They, like everyone, thought that this was plenty of safety then.
Despite the warning above, that's CYA stuff. I have seen zero evidence (of a lot of it!) that any Star pistol firing pins are unusually brittle. I'd only be maybe careful because they are now all old guns and it is hard to find parts for many of them.
Fun tangent: The M28/30/31 safeties retract and lock the firing pin but do not disable the rest of the fire control unit. You can specifically use this to dry fire without the slightest chance of wear to the firing pin. Pretty sure it says this in the manual but too lazy to go look one up now.
Star explicitly doesn't think you should lower the hammer on any single action pistol because are you nuts?
They, like everyone, thought that this was plenty of safety then.
Despite the warning above, that's CYA stuff. I have seen zero evidence (of a lot of it!) that any Star pistol firing pins are unusually brittle. I'd only be maybe careful because they are now all old guns and it is hard to find parts for many of them.
Fun tangent: The M28/30/31 safeties retract and lock the firing pin but do not disable the rest of the fire control unit. You can specifically use this to dry fire without the slightest chance of wear to the firing pin. Pretty sure it says this in the manual but too lazy to go look one up now.
JTQ
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Drake Oldham 1911 drop tests. Much depends on the weight/mass of the firing pin, and the strength of the firing pin spring.
http://dave2.freeshell.org/1911/drop1/drop1.htm
halfmoonclip
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JTQ, Colt's current Series 70 guns use Titanium firing pins for just that reason. Some manufacturers don't seem worried about it; an older Springer GI model and a current TISAS 1911 seem to simply use the original system. It may be they have a stronger firing pin spring.
Lowering a 1911 hammer on a loaded chamber is a lot harder than Steve McQueen made it look in the movies.
Moon
Lowering a 1911 hammer on a loaded chamber is a lot harder than Steve McQueen made it look in the movies.
Moon
wiscoaster
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Huh!?!? I don't recall the movie reference right off the top, but I just did it a half dozen times in a row with my Springfield, just to test your thesis. No skin lost and very little pain. It's not hard at all.
shoobe01
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Lowering the hammer on a loaded chamber works fine... right up until it doesn't. Then, loud noises, bullet holes in things. Your thumb probably hurts a little bit.
I can't think of any reason you'd want to, also. Seriously, not any idea at all why anyone likes to lower the hammer even to (safer but only a little) half cock. Leave it alone. Put the safety on, and put it in a holster. Don't touch it till you need to shoot it, or unload it.
I can't think of any reason you'd want to, also. Seriously, not any idea at all why anyone likes to lower the hammer even to (safer but only a little) half cock. Leave it alone. Put the safety on, and put it in a holster. Don't touch it till you need to shoot it, or unload it.
wiscoaster
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Any pistol that has a DA/SA action I think it's a good idea to practice shooting both trigger pulls. If the gun doesn't have a decocker then the only practical way to practice the DA trigger pull multiple consecutive shots is to decock the hammer. So, yes, that's a reason to do it, but it's only done for training and practice, and only done in an environment and situation where you're on a shooting range, with the muzzle pointed downrange, and an accidental discharge if your thumb slips is not a big deal.
A 1911 has a SA trigger only, so for that make and model your comment would be entirely appropriate and correct.
shoobe01
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The classic stars (B series among them) also are all single action. I only meant those as: thread.
Selective double action guns pretty much always have decockers or safeties you can apply to safely lower the hammer.
Selective double action guns pretty much always have decockers or safeties you can apply to safely lower the hammer.
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