questions about drop tests

[Jim NE]

Hi, I have several questions about drop tests for hand guns.

1) Is there a national standardized test or testing facility for drop tests?

2) is there a good source for seeing drop test results?

3) Is it correct to assume that guns that which are "cocked" are MORE prone to discharge if accidentally dropped than guns that aren't?

4) If the assumption in question #3 is correct, wouldn't DAO weapons be "safer" than Da/SA weapons or SA weapons in that they can't be cocked?

5) From the standpoint of being accidentally dropped, are revolvers "safer"* than semi-autos?

*(I'm aware that the primary consideration for safety lies in the common sense, strategies, training and alertness of the gun owner, so there's no need to go on and on about that...my point in this thread is to address the design/engineering advantages of one type of firearm over another)

Thanks in advance for your experience and input.

 

[Effigy]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think drop safety is much of an issue with modern pistols. The drop safety mechanisms are internal, so it shouldn't matter whether the weapon has an external hammer. Common features are a transfer bar to prevent the hammer/striker from impacting the firing pin unless the trigger is pulled, and/or a firing pin lock that disengages when the trigger is pulled.

 

[Jim NE]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think drop safety is much of an issue with modern pistols.

Well, that was always kind of my impression, too, until I started doing a bit of "research" on the net. I was looking for some sort of professional industry recognized lab that might do these types of tests because I'm finding "results" from "tests" done by guys in their garages who are getting guns to fire when dropped from only two or three feet. Needless to say, I'm skeptical about some oif the results, so I thought I'd check to see if there were more legitimate sources.

 

[rcmodel]

guns that which are "cocked" are MORE prone to discharge if accidentally dropped than guns that aren't?

Not necessarily true.

Colts 1911 easily passed California's very stringent destructive drop-testing.

Several DOA pistols with no thumb safety are in fact fully cocked at all times when they are loaded. The Springfield XD comes to mind as one of those.

Moving on to revolvers?
If you drop a cocked DA revolver, it is very likely to jar off and release the hammer when it hits the ground.
But the gun will still not fire because there is either a transfer bar or hammer block that only allows it to fire only when the trigger is held fully to the rear by the shooter.

In actual fact, nowadays the only guns being made that are not drop safe when fully loaded & safeties in operation are Colt SAA's and clones of them.

But it is a long accepted practice to carry them with an empty chamber under the hammer.

rc

 

[ForumSurfer]

1. Don't know
2. See above.
3. No. If it has a drop safety, it is internal.
4. See above.
5. It depends on if it has a drop safety mechanism and/or the condition you dropped it in.

I've dropped a cocked and locked 1911 and a glock. Luckily, nothing happened.

 

[NavyLCDR]

Luckily, nothing happened.

By design, nothing happened.

 

[ForumSurfer]

By design, nothing happened.

Touché!

Always remember, a falling knife has no handle and a falling gun has 1,000,000,000,000 triggers. Just let it fall.

 

[Jim NE]

Thanks for the input. It puts my mind at ease. Here's one of the finds from the internet that made me a bit skeptical. He got a keltec to fire from a 3 foot drop and a Colt 1911 (well used) to fire from a 2 foot drop. Don't know if he MEANT to say "hammer to fall without firing", but he SAID "fire" (he does show fired primers in crtridges):

http://www.1bad69.com/keltec/droptestresults.htm

Not saying his results are bogus, just saying it may not have been the most scientific test. I'm not a person who assumes anything just because everyone else does, but it would seem very strange, in the age of outrageous lawsuits, for gun makers to produce millions of weapons that are so easily discharged by being dropped.

 

[ForumSurfer]

The author also stated that he shortened the firing pin spring in that article. If he was clipping coils on the keltec, who knows what was done to that 1911.

 

[Jim NE]

Yeah, I think he was trying to find out which modifications might help to make it safer. He DID state that some of the test trials were from guns with stock springs and hammers, which, according to him, did discharge. To me the modifications confuse the issue a bit...I'm more interested to see how a gun does in stock form.

In the case of the 1911, he seemed to be trying to demonstrate that his mods actually made the gun safer, which I guess is plausable.

Once again, I'm in NO WAY trying to imply his results are bogus or his experiments were performed improperly...but it made me wish I could see evaluations done in an actual lab.

 

[gathert]

Find a drop test in this thread over on GlockTalk. He also threw his Glock 21 out of a plane among other tests. Nothing ever went wrong even after being drug down the street behind his car to boot and shot the slide with a .22 a few times.

http://www.glocktalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=462537

 

[Jim NE]

JEEZ! Hope he didn't have real ammo in it when he drove down the street!! I'm presuming these tests are done w/blanks

 

[gathert]

You can tell if its gone off without having bullets in it. The trigger stays at the rear of the trigger guard until the slide is racked which cocks the gun again and puts the trigger back in its "normal" position. Dont need ammo to test that kind of thing. Some of them he had bullets in like for the roof drop that actually bent them where they wouldnt feed afterwards but the gun never went off of course.

 

[tipoc]

His drop test has the weight of the gun plus the PVC pipe to it along with the mods he did to the gun. He also loaded the primer only cartridges himself. I'm not sure what the tests actually show that have meaning for anyone else or any other guns.

I once knew a fella who took his loaded and cocked 1911s and revolvers and put them, one at a time of course, into an old boot and tossed the boot and gun combo 10 feet into the air to see if the gun would go off on impact with the ground. I asked him what he was hoping to show. He said, "I'm showing that if you put your gun in an old boot and toss it 10 feet in the air it will probably not fire on impact". And that is exactly what he did show, nothing more, nothing less.

tipoc

 

[gamestalker]

Up until handguns had the transfer bars added, back in the 1980s I think, a revolver could discharge quite easily if it landed on the hammer. I had a Ruger Super Black Hawk in 1980 ish that dischargedwhen it fell out of my holster hourse back riding. No one was injured but it taught me to carry on an empty chamber. Now that they have been modified I don't short myself that one round any more.
So far as AL are concerned, I really don't know. I own some, but I'm not as familar with them operationally speaking.

 

[GLOOB]

Know how the gun operates.

I consider a gun drop safe when it has a passive firing pin safety (that works). In other words, when the trigger isn't pulled, the firing pin is blocked from hitting the firing pin.

Revolvers are not automatically 100% drop safe just because they have a transfer bar. The bar prevents the firing pin from being struck, but it does not stop the firing pin from hitting a primer by momentum. (But at least the gun can't fire upwards when dropped).

External hammer? No problem. As long as there's a working passive firing pin safety, it doesn't matter if the hammer falls or not.

But many modern firearms, especially rifles and shotguns, are not completely drop safe. It doesn't take a masters degree to figure out which ones are and which ones aren't.

 

[Loosedhorse]

Covered in MA by 940 CMR 16.00

Handgun Drop Test: shall mean a test in which the handgun in question shall be:

(a) test loaded;

(b) set such that the handgun is ready to fire; and

(c) dropped onto a solid slab of concrete from a height of one meter from each of the following positions:

1. normal firing position,

2. upside down,

3. on grip,

4. on the muzzle,

5. on either side, and

6. on the exposed hammer or striker (or if there is no exposed hammer or striker, then the rearmost part of the firearm).

In addition, if the handgun is designed so that its hammer or striker may be set in other positions, the handgun in question shall be tested with the hammer or striker in each such position (but otherwise ready to fire). Alternatively, the tester may use different handguns of the same make and model, in similar condition, for the test of each of these hammer/striker settings.

I believe they are typically performed by HP White. I know of no central database, but Kahr lists their results for some models.

 

[brickeyee]

Drop tests are state level stupidity, so there is no federal standard involved.

 

[tipoc]

Read the following the Ca. procedures for the drop test are outlined in section 12128. 12127 is also interesting.

http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/dwcl/12125.php

tipoc

 

[toivo]

You can tell if its gone off without having bullets in it. The trigger stays at the rear of the trigger guard until the slide is racked which cocks the gun again and puts the trigger back in its "normal" position.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that only tell you that the sear has been tripped? The issue here is whether the firing pin can contact the primer just from momentum: the "short fall and sudden stop," especially if the gun lands muzzle-first. The Kel-Tec that was tested in that link is a DAO, so there's no way the sear could have been tripped by dropping it.

I could be wrong. It has happened before once or twice.

 

[gathert]

There is a reason that the spring loaded firing pin was invented. Guns like the SKS dont have a spring on the firing pin which means its free floating and therefore could theoretically be dropped on the muzzle and go off. That problem was solved by adding a spring that pushed the firing pin back at all times so that it could not move on its own and go off when dropped.

 

[Owen]

There are a number of standards for drop testing.

The military has three drop test standards that I am familiar with.

The first one is 5 orientations, 1.5m(~5ft) onto concrete, with the safety on, and the safety off.
The second one is 5 orientations, 2.1m, onto concrete for packaged items.
The third is focused on parachute operations, and is a 40ft drop with a tether. This test is to look for things like broken stocks, etc.

NATO has drop test standards that mirror the US military standard.

The SAAMI test is dropping the gun in six orientations, 5 ft, onto 1" thick 95 durometer rubber.

The California test is like the SAAMI test, but onto steel (at least it was back when I was paid to care about these things)

There are also tests involving dropping the gun directly onto a steel block so it strikes the hammer, etc.

One of the funny things about drop testing is that height matters, and not in the intuitive way most people think. It is completely within the realm of possibility (as in, I was doing the testing that exposed the issue) that a gun that is perfectly fine when dropped from 3ft and 5ft, will fail when its dropped from 4ft.

I've also seen DAO pistols fire when dropped to impact on the back of the slide, because the inertia of the trigger was sufficient for it to pull itself on impact. I never would have believed it until I saw it.

There are a few independent, non-government labs that do this type of testing, with HP White being the best known.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

1) Is there a national standardized test or testing facility for drop tests?

Not to my knowledge. It is done by individual state's attorney general's offices, in those states that require such tests. Their real aim is to reduce the number of handguns available for sale, because it is not cost effective for a manufacturer to submit a sample of every model of handgun they sell. Some law enforcement agencies may have drop safety standards for adoption of new handguns.

2) is there a good source for seeing drop test results?

Possibly, the above-mentioned AG's office.

3) Is it correct to assume that guns that which are "cocked" are MORE prone to discharge if accidentally dropped than guns that aren't?

No, if the handgun in question is designed with a firing pin safety or inertial firing pin. (Some cheap handguns were not, but if you followed the maker's instructions to keep the chamber empty until ready to shoot, this is a moot point.)

4) If the assumption in question #3 is correct, wouldn't DAO weapons be "safer" than Da/SA weapons or SA weapons in that they can't be cocked?

As far as drop safeties are concerned, no.

5) From the standpoint of being accidentally dropped, are revolvers "safer"* than semi-autos?

Again, if both are designed with hammer blocks or other drop safety mechanisms, no.

 

[toivo]

There is a reason that the spring loaded firing pin was invented. Guns like the SKS dont have a spring on the firing pin which means its free floating and therefore could theoretically be dropped on the muzzle and go off. That problem was solved by adding a spring that pushed the firing pin back at all times so that it could not move on its own and go off when dropped.

Understood, but the results of that Kel-Tec tests seem to indicate that even a spring-loaded firing pin can contact the primer when the pistol is dropped -- even a DAO.

I've also seen DAO pistols fire when dropped to impact on the back of the slide, because the inertia of the trigger was sufficient for it to pull itself on impact. I never would have believed it until I saw it.

That could explain the results of the Kel-Tec test. I just assumed it was because the force of the sudden stop was enough to overcome the spring tension. I guess the test to see if the trigger has gone "dead" would tell the story.

 

[gathert]

Well, just a spring cannot prevent an AD but it sure helps. Thats why drop safeties were invented to try and prevent that. On some pistols that just cause more problems than they fix.