Originally Posted by barnbwt
Wait, wouldn't inertia pull the safety lever down along with the trigger?
The little dingus is at least as heavy or heavier on top than on bottom. So inertia would cause the trigger safety to engage harder, if anything, when the gun is dropped on the back of the slide.
On most guns, what is called the drop safety is there to prevent the firing pin to hit the primer when the gun is dropped on the muzzle. The Glock has that one, too, which is the spring loaded plunger that blocks the striker. That's the end-all of drop safeties... but it only works when the trigger is NOT pulled. In a gun where inertia can potentially pull the trigger, you obviously need something more.
In the Glock, a fall on the rear of the slide can not only pull the trigger (the trigger bar is below the trigger pivot point, rather than above), but it would also pull the striker back, essentially "fully cocking" it. In fact, the trigger spring on a Glock is oriented to PULL the trigger. It works in opposition to the striker spring. If you pull the striker back in a Glock, the trigger (in absense of that trigger dongle) pulls itself all the way to the point it will release the striker. When it reaches that point, it's over. Pulling the striker back on a Glock effectively fires the trigger! The trigger goes click and is now stuck all the way back until the gun is cycled, again. Both the sear and the firing pin safety are now locked out of the way. The striker is all the way back. All systems are go, and inertia is spent, so now the striker spring fires the gun. So that little trigger safety is essential in a Glock. A muzzle-up AD is way more dangerous than muzzle-down.
Of course Glock says this trigger safety prevents the trigger from being pulled by indirectly applied pressures to the sides of the trigger, such as a too-tight holster or stray finger. That's a side benefit, in marketing hindsight. But that's not the reason the trigger safety is there. The Glock NEEDS it to be drop safe.
It doesn't necessarily take a high velocity drop to make this happen. One of the most variable factors is how fast the gun stops. This is determined by how hard and solid is the surface that the gun lands on. Dropped out of a plane into soft grass and earth might not be able to cause an AD, at all. But a fall from 3-4 feet onto a thick slab of concrete might be enough.
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