If the 1911 and Glock 21 were both made in the year 1911

[1911Tuner]

I question my own presence of mind to flip on the safety, especially in the heat of battle.

Repetitive motion. Presence of mind not necessary. Do the same thing over and over and it becomes automatic. This has been proven.

In the 70s, an Illinois state trooper became involved in a shooting. According to witnesses, he shot his revolver dry...dumped the empty brass in his hand...made a quarter turn to his left, and died while he stood looking for the bucket that wasn't there to drop his brass into...because he'd performed that series of moves on the practice range over and over and over. Funny thing, stress. That's why we should be careful of repetitive moves that we make while shooting for recreation. We tend to repeat them without thinking when the game is real.

While I'm sure that the US Army taught them to remove their fingers from the trigger before reholstering, it's a more difficult move to make. Under stress, we tend to clench our fingers into a fist...not straighten them out. So it becomes an unnatural move. While there are no guarantees, teaching both would reduce the probability of a discharge into one's own leg or into the horse. And, finally, the slide-locking feature was given consideration as well, and was likely equally important.

That comment was a little tongue in cheek but since the safety is most often originally attributed to the needs of the mounted rider I thought I'd throw it out there.

Mounted rider notwithstanding, there are still holsters to put pistols into and stress can be found today on a city street as well as the French countryside in 1918. Pistols that get jammed into holsters after a tense moment can still discharge if the finger isn't removed from the trigger. The term that's has been added to our lexicon that addresses the phenomenon is "Glock Leg" and it seems to happen pretty often.

I just wonder how much or often it was deployed as designed or requested.

There's no way of knowing.

The outcry seems to be that we'll forget to engage or disengage a manual safety. Yet, thousands of people use manual safeties year in and year out. If the problem was a common one, it would have been well documented by now.

 

[rcmodel]

I'd have to guess if those shavetails forgot to put the safety on a 1911?

They might have been related to the older ones with a limp who forget to un-cock thier SAA if they decided not to shoot after cocking it.

rc

 

[Knockdownpower]

If a man is so freeked out that he can't keep his finger off the trigger while drawing or holstering his secondary firearm, he should find some other line of work. 1911 or Glock, it doesn't matter, sufficient training is the answer.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by Knockdownpower: If a man is so freeked out that he can't keep his finger off the trigger while drawing or holstering his secondary firearm, he should find some other line of work. 1911 or Glock, it doesn't matter, sufficient training is the answer.

Read Post #155 one more time. Training does not eliminate the risk.

Nothing do do with secondary weapons, either. I did mention back-up guns in Post #190, but not in the context of fingers on triggers.

 

[tarosean]

Back in those days most everyone was an accomplished rider by necessity if they rode at all but having spent some time on horseback myself and been in a few rodeos along the way I question my own presence of mind to flip on the safety, especially in the heat of battle.

I'm not sure which way you swung in this charade. I was however curious as to how many favored the glock had actually been on a horse. I Would imagine quite a few mounts were lost when they swapped to the 1911 a SF pistol would multiply that ten fold...

 

[X-Rap]

I'm not sure which way you swung in this charade. I was however curious as to how many favored the glock had actually been on a horse. I Would imagine quite a few mounts were lost when they swapped to the 1911 a SF pistol would multiply that ten fold...

I prefere the Glock in todays world given the holsters and the fact I don't fight off a horse. I actually think the horse criteria wouldn't have been so important had the selection been in the 20's or 30's since the last real Cavalry charge was in Mexico in 1917 I think. The US did have horse mounted Troopers well past that but they were far from the primary means of conveyance.

I doubt switching from the SA revolver to the SA semi auto killed anymore horses, the SA Army would have its own set of decocking hazards on an unruly horse.

Horseback or not it is clear that the Army still loves its safetys as they chose it on their most recent pick, we can only speculate of what the next will be when it comes to pass but I say it will start with a G and end with a K.

 

[tarosean]

we can only speculate of what the next will be when it comes to pass but I say it will start with a G and end with a K.

Why on earth would the Army pick a Glassik Deringer?

 

[Skribs]

Honestly, if the Army does decide to go for a polymer striker-fired pistol, I more see them going with a SR9, FNS9, or M&P9 with the safety, as opposed to jumping to the non-safety model. If they did eschew the manual safety, my guess is they'd go XD for the grip safety.

 

[GLOOB]

It's pretty obvious that if Austria had invented the Glock 70 years earlier, it (or a more evolved handgun inspired by it) would be even more popular, today, than it already is.

If it had been invented and produced in America, it could very well have been adopted by the US military by now.

The safety issue is overblown. Many units that carry/carried the 1911 mandated condition 3 carry, anyhow, unless imminent contact was expected. I think a Glock type handgun with an adequate holster could be adopted without too many resultant Glock-legs.

 

[1911Tuner]

Many units that carry/carried the 1911 mandated condition 3 carry, anyhow, unless imminent contact was expected.

That was mandated from day one, just like for the service rifles...for everybody.

Maintaining the pistol in Condition One has never been allowed unless action is expected.

MARSOC may have altered that for their operations, but if they have, I'm not aware of it.

 

[Kleanbore]

The instructions for firing from horseback contained in this manual from 1940 cover extensively the rules for locking and unlocking the pistol an for keeping the finger out of the trigger guard while on horseback.

It is the War Department Basic Field Manual, Automatic Pistol Caliber .45 M1911 and M1911 A1.

It discusses firing from different gaits, and it even covers horse training.

One will note the occasional use of the word "clip".

That was not uncommon.

I knew a cavalry officer who demonstrated firing .45 from a horse and reloading it. One person who was in the audience was Herbert Hoover.