berenson@cookie.enet.dec.com (Coffee: Nature's Productivity Tool 12-Jun-1991 0930) (06/12/91)
There are two key questions about magazine safeties. Do they enhance safety or reduce overall safety and what impact they have on a tactical situation. In any semi-auto without a hammer drop, I conclude that they most definitely REDUCE safety because you can't go through the unload/drop hammer routine without placing a magazine back in the gun. The normal sequence for safely unloading a semi-auto is: lock slide back (ejecting round in the chamber in the process), remove magazine, drop slide, drop hammer. If the slide is dropped before the magazine is removed, you chamber a new round. Completing the sequence results in a loud noise and the need to change your clothing starting below the waist. The magazine safety interferes with the mental notion that an "empty" gun is one without a magazine in it and complicates the unloading sequence, thus increasing the chance of an accidental discharge. NOTE that this form of accident seems much more prevalent than the accidental discharge while cleaning a loaded gun scenario (that the magazine safety tries to prevent). In a semi-auto with a hammer drop, I conclude that a magazine safety still reduces overall safety, but not quite as significantly. In general, if you get into the habit of lowering the hammer with the hammer drop, even when emptying the gun, then the odds of an accidental discharge are reduced. BUT, one purpose of lowering the hammer by pulling the trigger (and the reason it is *required* in IPSC competition) is final proof that the gun is really empty. So, using the hammer drop can actually mislead you into thinking the gun is safely unloaded when in fact a round is still in the chamber (examples of how this might happen include the case of the magazine still being in the gun when you dropped the slide, or a round getting stuck in the extractor where you see the chamber is empty but the round get's reinserted when you drop the slide). Finally, we get to tactical impact. There are pathological cases where a magazine safety have lead to tactical advantage. Massad Ayoob talks about one where an officer fighting to retain his weapon managed to hit the magazine release and drop the magazine a fraction of an inch. When the assailant got the gun and tried to shoot the officer, the magazine safety saved him. But, overall, magazine safeties seem to have nothing but tactical disadvantage. The most rational example of this I've heard is when an assailant is being held at gunpoint with the last round in the chamber and you want to reload. With a magazine safety, you are temporarily disarmed. There are many similar scenarios. So, my overall conclusion is that you get no tactical advantage and an actual reduction in overall safety with the use of a magazine safety. They are bad news. ............................................................................. Hal Berenson Home: 71640.3535@compuserve.com OR oldcolo!berenson@csn.org Work: berenson@cookie.enet.dec.com -- Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are my own, not my employer's! If I happen to communicate with you from work rather than home, its just for convenience (just like asking for a "daytime phone number") and should not be construed as representing the views of my employer or its employees, officers, directors, or stockholders. --
sasazc@mcnc.org (Al Cohen) (06/15/91)
If so many of us feel the same way about magazine safeties -
more hinderance than help - why doesn't S&W come out with a
model without the safety? Please, no responces about product
liability and lawsuits and CYA. Colt, and too many clones to
count, successfully have braved the courts. S&W seems to come
out with a new model every other week, why not one without the
magazine safety?
--
Al Cohen SAS Institute Inc.
sasazc@dev SAS Campus Drive
(919)677-8000 x7117 Cary, NC 27513
"The horror ... the horror"