I never said anything about dumbing down the instruction. As a CCW instructor, I've plenty of folks with striker fired pistols and a fair number with 1911's. There is zero question that, all else being equal, a beginner with a 1911 or a DA/SA is more hazardous to be around that a beginner with a striker fire. I regularly had to remind folks to put the safety on before holstering and people often forget to take the safety off when they went to fire the weapon. That's just inherent in having additional steps to using the weapon.
Still, enough negligent discharges have occurred with striker fired weapons as they are holstered, that there is an after market for striker control devices.
it is a lot harder to shoot yourself with one of these:
or these
I used to believe the self serving information I read that the 1911 was designed to be carried cocked and locked, and I found to my dismay, that carrying my Colt 1911 that the extended safety was almost always off when I removed the pistol from myself.
I have not found the period texts, but I really think these early John Browning automatics were carried magazine in gun, nothing in chamber.
Goddard's book of the 1911 mentions how the horse cavalry hated having to use two hands to load, and make safe, the pre 1911 auto pistols. In all the troop test reports I have read, Horse Cavalry units preferred their Colt New Service revolvers.
I have often wondered how these military single action pistols were carried
Just looking at the pictures, I think the user would lose control of the hammer if there was a half cock, so I believe these pistols were carried nothing in the chamber, magazine in the gun. But, I don't have any pre WW2 Russian manuals to verify that.
the thing is, the 1911 is a pre WW1 design, and the designers of that era were having a lot of trouble designing reliable mechanisms, and could only guess at what problems users would create. And as the "experts" here, they assumed that users would have a lot more knowledge about firearms than was actually the case.
The P-38 was actually a huge technological leap when it was issued
Double action, firing pin block, decocker. And, simple and easy to field strip.
It was not until the posts of 1911tuner that I began to realize that yes, the 1911 was designed to be carried on the half cock. And it was not until I found a WW1 small arms manual that I confirmed that the Army carried their 1911's round in chamber, hammer down. It is apparent from the writings of General Hatcher that the Army distrusted the half cock. And it was probably due to half cock failures with Colt Single Action Army pistols, or, percussion cap revolvers. The Officers in charge of the Army Ordnance Bureau and the Horse Cavalry lived in the period when cartridges were a new technology. Everyone would have some experience with the Civil War era percussion cap revolvers, and the half cock accidents with those revolvers.
I think thumb decocking a 1911 is accident prone and dangerous as lots of negligent discharges have happened when the hammer slipped from under a user's thumb. Current design 1911's , with their over rap beavertails make it just about impossible to lower the hammer with any fingers, never mind the thumb. This is an example of where the 1911 has been modified way beyond the pre WW1 combat pistol.
The GI configuration gave a lot of space between the grip safety and hammer.
It used to be in Bullseye Pistol, that shooters were required to hold the hammer back with their thumb, whenever the slide was dropped for the first round in timed fire and rapid fire. That was because of all the hammer following events that happened with worn triggers and sears. Holding the hammer back engaged the disconnector and the hammer would not jar off the sear as long as the hammer was held back.
if you can get the hammer down, without losing control of it, then about the only way to have an accidental discharge with a 1911 is by dropping it on its muzzle. Since the firing pin does not extend past the breech face when the hammer is down, hammer down is a lot safer than hammer down on a Colt Single Action Army!
I have described a two handed method, which I am willing to listen to comments on how to improve, in this thread.
1911 style pistol for CCW?
My two handed technique for lowering the hammer is more controlled than using the thumb. I use the middle finger as a block and slowly pull that out till the hammer reaches the half cock. But after the half cock, and after repositioning my hands, I have only one finger in the hammer spur as I lower it all the way down and so there is the possibility I could lose control of the hammer at that point.
But still, even with modified procedures with making a 1911 safe, this weapon is too complicated to hand off to untrained individuals and individuals with no mechanical aptitude.
I mean, some of these customers are the children or grand children of those, who wrote the Coast Guard to rescue the castaway's on Gilligan's Island
That time Americans demanded the Coast Guard rescue the cast of Gilligan’s Island
and you are going to hand them a 1911 and expect good things to happen?
