Are striker guns still safe?

[Boomstick303]

2 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

but I'm a fudd i guess.

 

I do not think that is the case.  It comes down to what platform you started with.  I started with the P320 platform.  So I have to make a conscious effort disengage the thumb safety for 2011 platforms and rifle platforms every time the buzzer goes off.  Once in a great while I still do not disengage the safety for those super fast first shot in the 2.5 - 3 second range.  

[Racinready300ex]

14 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

my preference is DA or manual safety. that's probably because i compete with cz and 1911/2011 guns. my wife shoots a sig legion and when I shoot it i feel like I have to pay extra attention to it. but I'm a fudd i guess.

 

I think this may touch on the problem. It's probably smart to pay extra attention when holstering a SAO gun with no manual safety and such a light trigger. But, after many, many draws and rounds fired someone who uses one all the time might get complacent. A long hot day at the range might make it worse. Some who's relatively new...you get the idea. 

 

6 minutes ago, RJH said:

 

I don't know, I shoot and carry a crapper XDM. I know it's been documented and proven that the grip safety will get me killed in the streets, but I do like the fact that it adds an extra layer of protection while holstering so I don't shoot myself in the pecker or legs accidentally. I know, I know, with proper training you would never shoot yourself in the pecker or legs accidentally, but it does seem to happen from time to time to people

 

I know of someone in my area who shot themselves with a tuned up XDM.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Racinready300ex

[motosapiens]

11 minutes ago, RJH said:

 

I don't know, I shoot and carry a crapper XDM. I know it's been documented and proven that the grip safety will get me killed in the streets, but I do like the fact that it adds an extra layer of protection while holstering so I don't shoot myself in the pecker or legs accidentally. 

i struggled with activating the grip safety on my xdm, so I sold it. anyway, I usually grip the gun when i'm holstering it, so it seems like you would have to have a specific holstering technique to avoid activating the grip safety. 

 

When holstering my carry guns, i am pretty careful about pointing the whole holster away from my body. not as much of an issue with a competition holster, because it's easier to see what I'm doing, gun slides in easier, holster is offset anyway, etc....

[RJH]

8 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

 

 

I know of someone in my area who shot themselves with a tuned up XDM.

So now I got to know, did the grip safety still work? What kind of trigger and such was in it? And how did they do it, was it drawing or holstering or what?

 

The reason I ask is always take my hand off the grip safety when I holster just to be a little more careful, but obviously if you don't let go of the grip safety when you holster you're you're doing the same as holstering any other striker fire gun

[RJH]

2 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

i struggled with activating the grip safety on my xdm, so I sold it. anyway, I usually grip the gun when i'm holstering it, so it seems like you would have to have a specific holstering technique to avoid activating the grip safety. 

 

When holstering my carry guns, i am pretty careful about pointing the whole holster away from my body. not as much of an issue with a competition holster, because it's easier to see what I'm doing, gun slides in easier, holster is offset anyway, etc....

 

Yep, when I holster my gun I just open my grip a touch and slip my thumb to the back of the slide and push the gun in the holster so that I have the grip safety released.

 

Oddly enough I've never missed the grip safety on an XDM and I've got 70,000 plus rounds through various XDs and xdms, but if my grip safeties are not pinned on my 1911's, I seem to never get them depressed when I draw and come up on target. There has been a time or two on table starts when I didn't get a very good grip on my XDM and I think, "well now it's going to be the time if it's not going to go off," but it always has LOL

[Racinready300ex]

I have noticed some shooters don't look at there holster and wonder if that's part of the problem. I have seen (generally older) guys with Leather IWB rigs running them at like 4 o'clockish just blindly poking the gun at the holster behind them and cringed at the sight. I've heard my club is going to implement not looking at your holster will be DQ'able. It's IDPA so they can do that I think. Not sure if this is true or not there's supposed to be a safety meeting coming up. 

 

5 minutes ago, RJH said:

So now I got to know, did the grip safety still work? What kind of trigger and such was in it? And how did they do it, was it drawing or holstering or what?

 

The reason I ask is always take my hand off the grip safety when I holster just to be a little more careful, but obviously if you don't let go of the grip safety when you holster you're you're doing the same as holstering any other striker fire gun

 

I believe the shooter thought the gun went off on it's own. People who were there seemed to think his finger was probably in the trigger guard and the holster pushed his finger into the trigger which seems more likely.  This was many years ago. 

[RJH]

18 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said:

I have noticed some shooters don't look at there holster and wonder if that's part of the problem. I have seen (generally older) guys with Leather IWB rigs running them at like 4 o'clockish just blindly poking the gun at the holster behind them and cringed at the sight. I've heard my club is going to implement not looking at your holster will be DQ'able. It's IDPA so they can do that I think. Not sure if this is true or not there's supposed to be a safety meeting coming up. 

 

I have seen that several times, almost like they think the targets are going to run off.....

18 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

 

I believe the shooter thought the gun went off on it's own. People who were there seemed to think his finger was probably in the trigger guard and the holster pushed his finger into the trigger which seems more likely.  This was many years ago. 

 

Thx

[Johnny_Chimpo]

10 hours ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

 

But, that tuned 2011 must have a functioning safety which is checked a chrono at majors. If you holster with out using that safety it's a DQ. We just assume striker guns safeties are all functioning properly.

 

While you're correct in that external safeties have to work and are checked, my point was no one bothers to engage them when moving from one position to the next no matter how far away that might be or how fast you have to run to get there.

 

Mix that with heavily tuned SAO pistols and a fall or a dropped gun and you can imagine the rest.

 

You are right in that there is no easy way to tell if the internal safeties in the wide variety of SFA designs are working as intended unless you're an armorer and know what to look for.

[CC3D]

No one "bothers to engage them" while running because there is no real reason to do so during that time. Other safety procedures are in place to prevent accidents during this time. I think we can all agree that reholstering a loaded firearm is probably the most dangerous thing that we do (at least statistically thats where the most incidents occur). Single action safties are engaged during this time making them WAY more safe than a potentially unsafely modified striker fired gun such as is being discussed here. 

[Johnny_Chimpo]

51 minutes ago, CC3D said:

No one "bothers to engage them" while running because there is no real reason to do so during that time.

 

Let's agree to disagree

[Southpaw]

3 hours ago, CC3D said:

No one "bothers to engage them" while running because there is no real reason to do so during that time. Other safety procedures are in place to prevent accidents during this time. I think we can all agree that reholstering a loaded firearm is probably the most dangerous thing that we do (at least statistically thats where the most incidents occur). Single action safties are engaged during this time making them WAY more safe than a potentially unsafely modified striker fired gun such as is being discussed here. 

 

I've seen a guy while running between positions trip and fall, which turned into some kind of somersault, where he swept half the squad with a cocked and unlocked 2011.  I'd say that's far more dangerous (especially for the rest of the squad), than holstering is

[BritinUSA]

Falling on a stage happens rarely, holstering a loaded gun happens hundreds of times at a match.

[Johnny_Chimpo]

6 hours ago, BritinUSA said:

Falling on a stage happens rarely, holstering a loaded gun happens hundreds of times at a match.

 

That is true but that is only one factor in risk analysis.

 

It would be interesting (but extremely difficult) to analyze the probability of a discharge during holstering vs falling vs dropping a loaded pistol.

 

Then maybe we could come at this from a rational point of view instead of an emotional/opinion-based point of view.

 

And not use click-bait titles.......

Edited May 4, 2022 by Johnny_Chimpo

[Racinready300ex]

9 hours ago, Johnny_Chimpo said:

 

That is true but that is only one factor in risk analysis.

 

It would be interesting (but extremely difficult) to analyze the probability of a discharge during holstering vs falling vs dropping a loaded pistol.

 

Then maybe we could come at this from a rational point of view instead of an emotional/opinion-based point of view.

 

And not use click-bait titles.......

 

It would be hard, to analyze since I don't think we really report these things to anything that could be tracked.

 

The point of this post is I think we all know there are currently striker fired guns at our matches that have had all the safeties disabled and have vary light short triggers. Is this a good thing? Is it safe? I don't really think it is.  

 

[CClassForLife]

Why do all SA guns require the safety to be on when a round is chambered before holstering? Because some SA guns can have extremely short and light triggers. By the same logic, if some striker fired guns have triggers roughly as light and short, then manual safeties should be required on all striker fired guns.

 

Since I don't think USPSA will make manual safeties mandatory on strikers, they'll probably ignore the issue until it becomes a big enough problem. From there, I can see them taking the IPSC approach of enforcing minimum trigger pull weight. This will eventually be seen as a bandaid solution and an addendum for a minimum trigger travel will be introduced. Clubs will want guidance on how to measure distance and then some trigger travel gauge will be adopted at majors.

 

[BritinUSA]

There are two reasons why this can an issue, the lightness of the trigger pull could lead to an accidental discharge if the gun was dropped, or the discharge can happen due to a very light trigger being engaged accidentally from impact with an object, either fingers or the holster.

 

A heavier trigger pull would help to alleviate both issues, but I don't think it's possible to completely eliminate the possibility. IPSC has a 5lb first shot limit followed by an unlimited poundage, or a 3lb limit for every shot. For striker fired guns this would be a 3lb limit as every pull is the same. I think a 3lb trigger with a short travel would be fine.

[CClassForLife]

But that doesn't solve the issue for people wanting to run extremely light and short travel strikers in Open. There will eventually be guidance on strikers solely due to this possibility.

[BritinUSA]

This is a sport for grown-ups. If people want to run very light triggers with no manual safety then they must take responsibility for the consequences.

[CClassForLife]

4 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

This is a sport for grown-ups. If people want to run very light triggers with no manual safety then they must take responsibility for the consequences.

 

Are you for allowing SA guns with no safeties then? If so, then I can see the consistency of your perspective. If not, then it's simply an exception made for strikers because they're different only by name to SA.

 

[Johnny_Chimpo]

44 minutes ago, CClassForLife said:

 it's simply an exception made for strikers because they're different only by name to SA.

 

No, not all of them.

[Johnny_Chimpo]

59 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

 I think a 3lb trigger with a short travel would be fine.

 

Agreed

[B585]

On 5/4/2022 at 5:49 AM, Johnny_Chimpo said:

 

That is true but that is only one factor in risk analysis.

 

It would be interesting (but extremely difficult) to analyze the probability of a discharge during holstering vs falling vs dropping a loaded pistol.

 

Then maybe we could come at this from a rational point of view instead of an emotional/opinion-based point of view.

 

And not use click-bait titles.......

Agreed.   That would be extremely valuable data.

[motosapiens]

On 5/4/2022 at 3:49 AM, Johnny_Chimpo said:

 

It would be interesting (but extremely difficult) to analyze the probability of a discharge during holstering vs falling vs dropping a loaded pistol.

 

i've fallen at least 3 times in matches, and seen other people fall a few dozen times. I haven't seen (or heard of) a discharge when falling. I'm sure it's possible tho.

 

fwiw, it appears to me that the majority of shooting oneself while holstering issues are not associated with competition.

[Boomstick303]

Maybe I am alone in this in my three years of shooting USPSA, but the only ADs I see come from 2011s with super light triggers.  I have yet to see anyone AD with a Striker Fired gun due to a light trigger.  If we are talking about trigger weight alone, I do not understand this discussion at all.  If we are talking about shooters disabling internal safeties and the ramifications of that, that would be a different story.  It looks to me that the thread is conflating the issues.   

 

Most of my P320s all have triggers in the mid to high 2 lbs. range.  Those triggers are no where as sensitive as my 2011 trigger that is slightly under 2 lbs.  I cannot imagine the current trigger weight in my P320s being an issue at any point in competition.  

 

A question for @Racinready300ex, for the guys who shot themselves, was it in competition?  If it was not in competition, has there been a rash of people shooting themselves in competition?  Serpa Holster have been banned by some ranges for the issue of the retention device can lead to ADs with a natural gun draw.  Not sure we can equate that to a light trigger can we? 

 

 

  

[HesedTech]

On 5/2/2022 at 10:25 AM, Racinready300ex said:

now my local club has had 2 guys shoot themselves in the leg this year.

 

I have to be honest, this thread seems to me to be a bit of click bait. There's no info about when, how, type of gun, level of shooter, USPSA, IDPA or outlaw match. 

 

Personal experience with triggers and types, include LEM, Glock style (trigger tab), 1911 (grip), DA/SA, 8 -1.5 lb triggers, short, long and such and it always comes down to personal skill and responsibility. At matches the only ADs I've seen have been during reloading, transitions (over the berm) and initial draws. I have seen YouTube videos where people holstering had something in the trigger area (shirt, pants or finger and the infamous FBI agent who grabbed his drop gun) and then bang! Didn't matter if it was a Glock or a 1911.

 

Be safe, ROs pay attention!

 

And if you don't like striker fired pistols don't use one.