Striker vs. Hammer

[D.B. Cooper]

So, why would one choose a striker-fired handgun over a hammer-fired handgun? Or, the opposite.

One of my students asked me this week about the Army dropping the M9 etc etc. After explaining the politics and economics that are involved in government procurement, I added that the Army may have just wanted to go to a striker-fired gun. After having said that, I realize that I can't think of single reason why either might be better than the other.

 

[Striker]

Neither can I having been issued both types during my career. M9 & M11 hammer fired and Glock 19, 23, & 22 on the striker side, with both types serving me well.

 

[Jenrick]

Strikers in general have less parts, and are generally more tolerant of harsh conditions (ie helo born sand etc) then hammer fired guns. Please note this is a generalization as there are always exceptions to the rule. As far as actions go, SF guns tend to have a single trigger pull (though by shooting off the reset we in effect create a DA/SA type trigger) where as most hammer fired guns are DA/SA, or the brass have a fit with SA pistols.

-Jenrick

 

[Charliefrank]

I prefer hammer fired myself. For shooting and for carrying. That's just me though. I feel safer and more confident with a hammer I can see. Are they safer? I guess it depends on how the striker is held/blocked. The Jennings comes to mind. I could never bring myself to carry with one in the chamber. Is the hammer fired more accurate? Probably not. The triggers tend to be better though. On the other hand the most accurate target pistols (22 cal) I've owned have all been striker fired. I believe that whatever you're most comfortable with, you'll become more proficient with.

 

[Jim Watson]

Striker fired pistols, as embodied in the current crop of Glocks and competitors, are cheap and simple.

On the other hand the most accurate target pistols (22 cal) I've owned have all been striker fired.

Really? You shoot ISSF Free Pistol? Which others are striker fired? All the nice .22s I have shot or looked at had hammers. Usually concealed, but they are under there.

 

[Fiv3r]

I prefer striker fired. I like the constant trigger pull over the da/sa.

They tend to be reliable and less expensive. I have always been a fan of the M9, but I will admit that my 320 has totally replaced it. It's not as sexy of a gun, but I shoot it better and it has never given me a hiccup.

 

[Livin_Cincy]

I was issued a Revolver as my first Military side arm... Then we got the M-9.
When I got my own personal at home handgun I chose modern technology and a striker fired gun.
I really liked it and still keep it at my bed side.

I realized that I prefer revolvers & DA/SA guns for range shooting. I shoot 38 & 357 revolvers and 380 & 9mm DA/SA handguns.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

I was issued a Revolver as my first Military side arm...

Was that right before the charge up San Juan Hill?

I kid. I kid. =)

 

[D.B. Cooper]

I chose modern technology and a striker fired gun.

I didn't say it in my original post, but I think this has a lot to do with the discussion. I think many people (government leaders included) want to be on the cutting edge and tend to eschew anything that has the perception of "old" or "antiquity."

 

[jmr40]

For the same reasons no new long guns have been designed with exposed hammers in over 100 years. The better question is why did it take so long for handguns to make the switch. An exposed hammer can be damaged if dropped, it creates another opening for dirt and debris to enter the gun, it is more complex and less reliable. At contact distances clothing can get between the hammer and firing pin and prevent the gun from firing.

 

[JeffG]

The gun, as it is, is the gun. It is designed and manufactured of its own function. Hammer guns are functional, some are nostalgic. Strikers are more closed, and less prone to outside contamination, of mud and clothing fuzz.
I like both for the characteristics of the gun being presented.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

For the same reasons no new long guns have been designed with exposed hammers in over 100 years. The better question is why did it take so long for handguns to make the switch. An exposed hammer can be damaged if dropped, it creates another opening for dirt and debris to enter the gun, it is more complex and less reliable. At contact distances clothing can get between the hammer and firing pin and prevent the gun from firing.

Yet, rifles are still hammer fired. Or are we to see the AR15 relegated to the scrap bin for some sort of striker fired rifle?

 

[JohnKSa]

• Striker fired handguns tend to be more self-contained so there are fewer entry points on them for dirt/dust to get into the works.
• Striker fired handguns tend to be externally more streamlined due to the lack of a hammer. This makes them less likely to snag.
• Striker fired handguns are generally engineered to provide a consistent trigger pull, typically one that is fairly light compared to traditional hammer-based DAO systems.
• Striker fired handguns are typically somewhat more simple in terms of design and parts count.
• Striker fired handguns can typically be designed to provide a very high grip/low bore axis due to the elimination of the hammer/hammer strut/hammer spring.
• The nature of striker fired pistols is such that the striker spring tends to operate against the recoil spring. When the recoil spring starts to get weak, a trigger-pull can actually pull the slide slightly out of battery.
• Because the rear of the slide is typically smooth/flat, the gun can easily be held in battery with the off-hand for contact shots without the risk of pushing the gun out of battery. Also, the same feature makes it easy to drive the slide into battery on a stubborn round/dirty gun by striking it with the off-hand.
• There's no such thing as hammer-bite with a striker fired gun.
• The lack of a hammer/hammer-channel means that the rear sight can be placed farther back on the slide, increasing the sight radius.

Hammer fired guns.

• Hammer fired guns provide more positive feedback as to the state of the firearm.
• Holding the thumb on a hammer fired gun during holstering makes holstering incidents much less likely since the user can feel the hammer start to move if the trigger snags on something.
• Hammer fired guns typically have more firing pin energy which provides more reliable ignition under harsh conditions or with poor quality ammunition.
• Hammer fired guns (especially single-action versions) can have extremely nice triggers. Striker-fired guns (especially the new ones) can have nice triggers but still give up something to a top-of-the-line single-action hammer fired trigger.
• The nature of hammer fired designs tends to "automatically" provide out-of-battery discharge prevention since the hammer can't usually reach the firing pin until the slide/bolt is all the way forward.
• The hammer strike can drive the slide/bolt forward fully into battery and chamber a round where it may fire on the second attempt.
• Hammer fired guns are generally simpler to use for dryfire practice since the hammer can be easily cocked without manipulating the slide, and the DA pull generally doesn't require the slide to be reset for each shot.
• Decocking a hammer fired gun is generally pretty simple, even if there's no decocker provided in the design.

Yet, rifles are still hammer fired.

Some are. Bolt-action rifles are nearly exclusively striker-fired.

 

[Odd Job]

There is one oddity I know of, for the sake of interest: the Vektor CP1.
It doesn't look like it from the outside, but the gun is hammer fired, single action only. On the plus side the gun was very nice to carry IWB because it would not snag. On the minus side, despite being hammer fired it had an awful trigger!

 

[Kano383]

Striker = high-tech, modern design???

Ahem... Colt 1908 anyone? Browning 1900, Borchardt 1893, most all bolt-action guns since almost 140 years? Strikes a bell?

 

[someguy2800]

After owning both I am firmly in the striker fired no external safety camp. I have double action revolvers, singe action semi auto's, single/double action semi auto's and striker fired semi auto's.

I cannot tell you how many times I have pulled my single action semi autos out to shoot, pulled the trigger, and found the safety is on. This is why for a carry gun I won't have one with a safety because it has the potential to get my killed under stress. As for the trigger pull, for me to shoot a single action trigger well with good follow through it needs to be under about 4 lbs. I do not believe a single action trigger of that weight is safe to carry and draw without an external safety which I don't want. Because of the long pull it is much more difficult to accidentally fire a 4 lb striker fire trigger than a 4 lb single action trigger under stress. I hate double/single action hammer guns because the double action trigger pull is way too heavy and most of them have have a decocker so they cannot be carried hammer cocked and safety on. I shoot a striker fired gun just as well as a single action so it offers me no advantage at all.

I love my 1911 for target shooting but I'll never buy another hammer fired gun to carry.

 

[Charliefrank]

Striker fired pistols, as embodied in the current crop of Glocks and competitors, are cheap and simple.



Really? You shoot ISSF Free Pistol? Which others are striker fired? All the nice .22s I have shot or looked at had hammers. Usually concealed, but they are under there.

To have a hammer without the ability to manually pull it back requires a lengthy trigger pull. Not so in the 22 target pistols I was referring to. S&W 42 for instance. With a trigger that has zero take up, no over travel and a pull of less than two pounds there's no way you're preloading a hammer

 

[stchman]

So, why would one choose a striker-fired handgun over a hammer-fired handgun? Or, the opposite.

One of my students asked me this week about the Army dropping the M9 etc etc. After explaining the politics and economics that are involved in government procurement, I added that the Army may have just wanted to go to a striker-fired gun. After having said that, I realize that I can't think of single reason why either might be better than the other.

Striker fired guns have consistent trigger pulls. Hammer fired guns can give that light crisp feel in SA.

IMO the reason the US military went with the P320 was purely price. Sig had the lowest bid. As we can see with the problems the military is having with the P320, it ain't the best. Glock would have probably been the better gun, but Sig beat them on price.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

Consistency of trigger pull, and typically a lower cost of production are advantages of striker guns. Those are the only two advantages I can think of.

 

[cougar1717]

It is good to have both. Sure, none of these talking points are groundbreaking. This is the sort of thing that on thousands of threads. One important item to note is that if you buy ammo or reload ammo that has "hard" primers (ie - Russian, eastern European), SOME striker fired handguns will not always reliably set them off. Neither the handgun, nor the ammo/primers are "junk". It is just that the striker mechanism is on the edge in terms of energy required to set off hard primers. Hammer-fired handguns with factory weight hammer springs have more firing pin energy and will reliably set off hard primers. It is always wise to check your handgun with various ammo/primers after any trigger/sear/replacement spring work.

 

[Kano383]

So, why would one choose a striker-fired handgun over a hammer-fired handgun? Or, the opposite.

One of my students asked me this week about the Army dropping the M9 etc etc. After explaining the politics and economics that are involved in government procurement, I added that the Army may have just wanted to go to a striker-fired gun. After having said that, I realize that I can't think of single reason why either might be better than the other.

I do agree... My favorite handguns are the 1911, and the HK P7: one hammer, one striker, par for the course. The common denominator being all-steel quality, and fighting qualities (not talking about el-Cheapo 1911 versions, but a properly built one. The P7 comes in one flavor only, and it's Qualität... ).

For too many people, striker-fired has become synonymous with plastic-magic, and there is a whole generation who thinks that it was invented by them, to teach ol' timers how to make a gun...

Then too many forget that the AK47, AR15, MP5, G3, FN FAL, M4, and all sorts of tactical-tacticool stuff are all hammer-fired...

So, as you rightly point out, there is no "better one", only "better made".

And no, I don't like plastic.

 

[bassjam]

For military applications I think a striker fired gun makes sense. With the harsh conditions they often will find themselves in having a system that's fully contained should make it more reliable vs something with an exposed hammer.

But for civilian use, I think it all comes down to personal preference. Believe it or not very few of us will ever need a gun that can be buried in the sand and mud and still shoot reliably afterwards.

 

[Jim Watson]

IMO the reason the US military went with the P320 was purely price. Sig had the lowest bid. As we can see with the problems the military is having with the P320, it ain't the best. Glock would have probably been the better gun, but Sig beat them on price.

The conspiracy theory was that the Pentagon wrote the spec out of the Sig catalog.
The FBI was said to, too, but they did not copy it well enough and Glock outsmarted them.

 

[SharpDog]

Personally, after starting with 1911's and revolvers, progressing through a box of Glocks and ending up with Sig p22x's, there are more important factors to me than whether a firearm was hammer or striker fired.

For mid-weight, general purpose (EDC and field defensive carry):

- Capacity, concealability and weight are the main reasons I don't carry my revolvers. In the heavy category I carry a 629 Trail Boss.
- Capacity and reliability are why I left 1911's for Glock.
- Grip angle is the main reason I left Glock for Sig.

My Sig's p22x's are doing fine, but if I do leave them it will likely be because of the weight. However, I have a mk25 and an M11A1 which are internally coated to withstand moisture, that is very valuable to me.

When I switch systems, I like consistency and options so I tend to get multiple firearms and holsters, it's not simply switching out one firearm for another. There would have to be a specific reason to change platforms. I looked at the p320 series and they don't offer enough difference to the p22x series to make me switch. The striker vs. the hammer or the modularity are not enough.

If they offered the military, internally coated versions of the p320 I would take a hard look. If they offered that with the X-series trigger I'd be camping out at my LGS (hear that Sig?).

 

[Corpral_Agarn]

I think that strikers are more efficient but hammers give me the warm fuzzies.

I chose a hammer fired gun because the trigger I wanted (DA/SA), doesn't come in striker.