Treading on thin ice: Anyone ever carry a DA/SA pistol with the hammer cocked?

[natedog]

Does anyone here carry a DA/SA pistol (specifically, one that lacks a manual safety) with the hammer cocked, round chambered? Is it too dangerous to even consider? Provided you used proper trigger dicipline and a holster that covered the trigger guard.

 

[psyopspec]

I do not. Out of curiosity, why are you considering such a move? I could see the merits of only having to learn one trigger pull rather than two, but in such a case why not just carry an SA with a manual safety, or a DAO weapon?

 

[P95Carry]

No way Jose!!! The reason I carry DA/SA (SIG226) is because I am less than comfortable with 1911 platform - that only because I came to it late in a long shooting career.

That said - I carried my BHP C&L and that has no grip safety - that's as close as I wanna get to ''sensitivity''!!!

I think - what you suggest (thin ice accepted!) is - shall we say - ''risky'' - or to be precise - looney!

 

[Vernal45]

I carry my P99 in SA mode sometimes. Like P95 said, you obey the rules, not a problem.

 

[BluesBear]

Does anyone here carry a DA/SA pistol (specifically, one that lacks a manual safety) with the hammer cocked, round chambered?

Hell's Bellsâ„¢ no, I ain't crazy nor stoopid.

Well at least I ain't stoopid.​

Is it too dangerous to even consider?

Hell's Bellsâ„¢ it is!

 

[Blue Line]

It would be foolish to carry a single action pistol (like a ruger single six) with the hammer back! The 1911AI has several built in safetys for example the "grip safety" to prevent the hammer from falling. The 1911 is meant to be carried cocked and locked, at least when the the old cowboys rode with thier single actions they only had five rounds in the gun with the hammer resting on an empty chamber.

I carry a sig 229 loaded with one in the chamber but the hammer is not cocked. Be careful - Stay Safe

 

[BryanP]

You're mixing the worst of both worlds if you try this. No external safety and a single-action trigger. You're begging for a ND. And it would be negligent, not accidental in this case.

Carrying in this fashion would be foolish at best.

 

[TheDutchman]

Starting to sound like a trick question here, DA/SA action, no manual safety=Glock

 

[JerGun]

DAO.

Heavy (Much heavier than SA revolvers for sure) trigger.

Even heavier trigger set-ups readily available, and easily installed.

That's a GLOCK.

GLOCKs make good carry guns.

SA revolvers DO NOT, particularly carried in that fashion.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

As you're a Senior Member, this must be a tongue-in-cheek question, to provoke responses. (My reasoning: anyone who's been here long enough to be a Senior Member should know the answer to THAT question.)

I've got a bunch of SA/DA guns that I carry cocked. But they all have manual safeties, which I use. That's the only way I'd even think about it.

Hammer down on a loaded chamber is perfectly safe if the gun has a firing pin block/safety, and that would be the best option for a gun that doesn't have a manual safety.

And, as I understand it, the Glock is none of the above (i.e., DA, SA, or DAO). The slide must be racked to partially load the striker. The trigger must be pulled to complete the loading process and release the striker. In other words, its neither fish nor fowl.

 

[hightech]

Glock

Glock is a DOA firearm. It will detonate the cartridge only if the striker is fully cocked. To fully cock the striker you must pull the trigger.

 

[Bobby Lee]

Glock is a DOA firearm. It will detonate the cartridge only if the striker is fully cocked. To fully cock the striker you must pull the trigger.

At least we have one here that knows the Glock is not a single action.

Good job.

 

[Tom Servo]

At least we have one here that knows the Glock is not a single action.

Technically. I've always been of the mind that anything under 7lbs qualifies as SA, no matter how the mechanics work. Just me

 

[Walt Sherrill]

Glock is a DOA firearm. It will detonate the cartridge only if the striker is fully cocked. To fully cock the striker you must pull the trigger.

Not really.

If the first trigger pull doesn't fire the round, a second pull of the trigger won't do anything, either.

Pulling the trigger alone WON'T fully cock the striker. It will just COMPLETE the cocking process started by slide movement. The striker must first be partially set by slide action, too.

That's why its not a pure DAO gun: no second/restrike capability. It might be argued that a true DAO gun has that ability -- the trigger does it all. I'd argue that the GLOCK is actually closer to SA than DAO (as the slide sets things in motion, just like a SA gun.)

Gun nuts haven't really come up with a good description and acronym for this "action" type, except to call it, as Glock does, "safe action."

 

[Mulliga]

Pulling the trigger alone WON'T fully cock the striker. It will just COMPLETE the cocking process started by slide movement. The striker must first be partially set by slide action, too.

Didn't someone do a study where they found the precocked strikers on Glocks and XDs were able to detonate the primers, even without being pulled all the way back? Can't remember if that's true or not.

Never carried a DA/SA pistol in this fashion - should be possible in the short run, but Murphy's Law being true as always, there are more possible ways a ND could happen. Note, however, that an AD (a true failure of the mechanism of the pistol) would still be extremely rare - in the final tally, the gun is only as safe as you are.

 

[Zundfolge]

The only DA/SA I would even consider carrying cocked is my RAP401 ... and thats only because its designed to be caried cocked and locked (that is you can engage the safety with the hammer cocked and it locks up the mechanism).

Without a manual safety designed for C&L I wouldn't even dream of carrying a DA/SA with the hammer back

 

[spacemanspiff]

pshaawwww! ya'll just aint as professional as i am. which is why i'm the only one qualified to carry a DA/SA sig with a 2 lb trigger, here lemme show ya

bam!!!

hang on, lemme get back to ya on that.

 

[lyricsdad]

lol that video cracks me up everytime i hear about it..

"this is a glock 40.."

 

[dmallind]

Nope I'd never carry a cocked SA

I'm nothing much in technical gun knowledge compared to most of you but heck it always surprises me that people bring up Glock in these questions. I have to wonder if anyone who does has ever actually shot one. I mean essentially I have guns that fall into two platforms only - 1911s and safe action/DAO. I feel fine carrying either - the former of course with the thumb safety engaged as well as a functioning grip safety (and yep you better believe I check that grip safety every range trip). The latter - Glock, Steyr and Kahr, are loaded and one chambered with no additional safeties (the Steyr actually has a rather nifty one in the trigger guard but even though its very intuitive and fast to disengage I will leave that off if I ever carry the Steyr just to prevent possible confusion - only just yesterday actually got a holster for the thing so no carry yet).

I have not the slightest qualm about that. The trigger pull on any of them - even the very sweet pull on the Steyr - is nothing at all like an SA revolver or 1911. Poundage is after all only one aspect of the pull. My 1911 breaks at about 4.8lbs which is awful close to the Glock's stated (never verified this one) 5.5lbs, but it breaks after a hell of a lot less creep and travel - and from my limited revolver experience SA pulls were even shorter and lighter there. It takes a much more deliberate pull to fire a Glock/Steyr than any SA revolver or 1911, and given good safety awareness and a holster that covers the trigger guard that should be safe enough for anyone. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't carry a Glock loose in my pocket with a bunch of keys and a few pens and whatever, but in normal carry I can't see it going bang unless I am essentially either stupid or intentionally firing.

 

[Jamie C.]

...If the first trigger pull doesn't fire the round, a second pull of the trigger won't do anything, either.

Pulling the trigger alone WON'T fully cock the striker. It will just COMPLETE the cocking process started by slide movement. The striker must first be partially set by slide action, too.....

In the strictest sense of the term, Glocks are indeed "DAO" pistols.
"Double Action" meaning that pulling the trigger does two separate things; one, it finishes cocking the striker, and two, it releases the striker.

It doesn't really make any difference that the slide has to be cycled to reset this system, the trigger still has two functions to perform.

A single action trigger, on the other hand, only has one function; it releases the hammer/striker/whatever. It plays no part in cocking or partially cocking the hammer or striker.

So it makes no difference how the trigger pull feels, or how far it has to travel, even though either type of trigger can feel or appear to be like the other.


J.C.

 

[Jim Watson]

Anyone?
Jeff Cooper said there was some super duper high speed low drag ultimate extreme secret ninja warrior 100% ex-seal government agency that carried BHPs in Condition Zero with no ADs reported. (Well, he didn't use all the magazine cover adjectives but he did say there was such an outfit.) But I'm not one of them and I'm not telling you to do it.

 

[dmallind]

I agree - and I carefully avoided calling the Glock either DAO or SA. I personally think it has more in common with DAO but I defer to the smiths on the board for such technical niceties.

All I mean is that in terms of practical safety I think it does matter how far a trigger has to be pulled and certainly what force is needed to do so because it's much less likely to come up against foreign objects or sloppy handling that cause the force and distance required. For example if you - foolishly - put a Glock in a pocket against a AA battery that somehow gets inside the trgger guard and pushes the trigger in, say, .35", you're fine. Stupid and risky, but not injured. If you do the same thing with a cocked SA revolver you have a hole in your pocket and most likely your leg too.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

In the strictest sense of the term, Glocks are indeed "DAO" pistols.
"Double Action" meaning that pulling the trigger does two separate things; one, it finishes cocking the striker, and two, it releases the striker.

But it isn't that simple.

You've redefined "double action" from the more conventional definition which was "using the trigger to set and release the striker or hammer" to something subtly different: the trigger is now used to "finish setting and releasing the striker."

Where'd that "finish settting" come from? <grin>

I'll agree that with some DAO the slide must be jiggled to make a second trigger pull possible. But not all of them are that way. In most of them aren't.

The CZ 100, CZ75B DAO, SIG DAO models, including the new DAK trigger-equipped models, can all be fired by pulling the trigger again. They are TRUE DAO guns. As are many revolvers. The SA/DA guns can also be fired by pulling the trigger a second time, if the first pull doesn't work. Ditto DAO revolvers, and their DA/SA brethern.

But that's not true of a Glock.

I'd argue that if the Glock were a true DAO, you'd be able to fire it, ammo willing, by simply pulling the trigger again. But a Glock wont let you do it until you've moved the slide 3/8th of an inch or so.

With a SA gun, the striker or hammer spring must be "loaded" or compressed before it can be released by the hammer. That's true of a Luger. Its also true of a Glock. Yet nobody calls a Luger a DAO gun... The fact that a Glock must go a bit farther and load the spring a bit more doesn't change the fact that it wouldn't work if the slide hadn't already done most of the work.

As I said before, the Glock is neither fish nor fowl: it has traits of both a DAO gun and SA gun.

 

[Jim Watson]

I think Glock's success has been in convincing customers, especially police departments who tend to written specifications, that their Safe Action is operationally and legally equivalent to DAO, whatever its mechanical linkages.

 

[eab]

As told to me and our AFROTC detachment by one of our Sergeants who was in the USAF security forces previously, and by a nurse who visted and was deployed to Iraqi.

All USAF personal who are required to carry an M9 carry it with a round chambered, safety off and cocked. So if you need to shoot all you do is pull it out aim and pull the trigger, nothing else.