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Thread: After consideration, I went with the Taurus

  1. #101
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    Quote Originally Posted by Safetyhit View Post
    What specifically does "snags on everything" mean? On what type of gear or what type of instance did you personally experience this repeatedly? I have holstered several Berettas hundreds of times over the years without such incident, ever.

    But there is always that chance I did something wrong, of course. Please kindly clarify for all of us here.
    My first experience with the Beretta, me and a bunch of other troops had to enter a TOC. I swear, each and every one of us snagged our M9s on the camo netting draping near thed entrance. It was comical, except we noticed that some of the M9s had their appendix thingy changed from "safe/decocked/hammerblocked" to "fire"

    The appendix item in mention sticks out, regardless of holster, and provides a fun point of unpredictable Fail. And is hard to reach to manipulate when you want it to.

  2. #102
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChicagoTex View Post
    A lot of us recognize the reality that we may have to decock our carry weapons after a life or death confrontation where the adrenaline is flowing, the fine motor skills have gone to shit, and our hearts are going at 160bpm. With a decocker, we have a 100% chance of decocking safely, without it... the percentage is much lower.

    Call me crazy, but I think I'll stick with 100% success instead of rolling the dice for my own ego.
    Why are you decocking? This isn't a Wild West Single action revolver; it's a modern pistol.

    First of all, the only reason you think you NEED a decocker is that you choose to shoot DA/SA.

    Second, if it were a safety instead, you'd just flick safety "on".

    Third, if you had a striker fired piece, you wouldn't think of decocking, so why stick with DA/SA?

    People who need the DA to avoid accidentally shooting people shouldn't HAVE a gun.

    DA/SA and decockers are a solution in search of a problem, imo. In the gun world SA w/safety and/or striker fired are the solution.

  3. #103
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    Why are you decocking? This isn't a Wild West Single action revolver; it's a modern pistol.

    First of all, the only reason you think you NEED a decocker is that you choose to shoot DA/SA.

    Second, if it were a safety instead, you'd just flick safety "on".

    Third, if you had a striker fired piece, you wouldn't think of decocking, so why stick with DA/SA?

    People who need the DA to avoid accidentally shooting people shouldn't HAVE a gun.

    DA/SA and decockers are a solution in search of a problem, imo. In the gun world SA w/safety and/or striker fired are the solution.
    While I do primarily tend to carry single-mode, no safety guns (Glocks, M&Ps, Walther PPS, etc) I still like, trust, and shoot extremely well with SIG and H&K DA/SAs and I'm definetely not alone. Simply dismissing decockers out of hand because "you shouldn't be running DA/SA" is crazy and WASN'T your original point to begin with. I'll quote you again and see if you can stay on point this time:

    I personally don't like decockers, but I'm not scared of manually decocking a hammer on a loaded chamber either. From my reading on multiple forums, a lot of people are uncomfortable manually dropping the hammer on a live round. A decocker serves a very real purpose for them.
    You didn't say "I think DA/SAs are antequated and shouldn't be used" (that at least would be a half-ass defensible position), you said "decockers are for pussies. Manly men like me aren't afraid to decock manually".

    There's nothing wrong with running a DA/SA in this day and age if it suits your preferences and purposes, but if you do, a decocker is a huge plus (which, I'd venture to guess, is probably why pretty much every DA/SA available today is available with a decocker).

  4. #104
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    Quote Originally Posted by shadow65 View Post
    Uh, so you are saying the officers gave your weapon back to you so you could unload it for them? Really?
    Two seperate occassions. One stop was a seatbelt violation. I thought the poor guy was going to shoot himself. I told him to just give me the thing and I would unload it before he shot himself. The other was a speeding violation. I felt sorry for the second guy. I was on my way to a class with John Farnum and had primaries and backups in case anything went down: two ARs, two 870s, two 1911s, two snub nosed .38s and tons of ammo. After running all the numbers, he gave everything back to me with the most disgusted look on his face. He just couldn't believe that somebody running around with all that firepower didn't have any warrants. He wound up not giving me a ticket, but he did lecture me on how dangerous it was to carry my pistol cocked.
    Last edited by ranburr; 04-29-10 at 01:18.

  5. #105
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    but he did lecture me on how dangerous it was to carry my pistol cocked
    Don't you just love how someone who couldn't unload the gun himself is qualified to tell you that it's unsafe?

  6. #106
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    If it wasn't dangerous why would you have it?
    We miss you, AC.
    We miss you, ToddG.

  7. #107
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChicagoTex View Post
    While I do primarily tend to carry single-mode, no safety guns (Glocks, M&Ps, Walther PPS, etc) I still like, trust, and shoot extremely well with SIG and H&K DA/SAs and I'm definetely not alone. Simply dismissing decockers out of hand because "you shouldn't be running DA/SA" is crazy and WASN'T your original point to begin with. I'll quote you again and see if you can stay on point this time:



    You didn't say "I think DA/SAs are antequated and shouldn't be used" (that at least would be a half-ass defensible position), you said "decockers are for pussies. Manly men like me aren't afraid to decock manually".

    There's nothing wrong with running a DA/SA in this day and age if it suits your preferences and purposes, but if you do, a decocker is a huge plus (which, I'd venture to guess, is probably why pretty much every DA/SA available today is available with a decocker).
    Thanks for the redirect. I am still forming my opinion on the issue, and didn't mean to say the latter.

    What I SHOULD have said, is that,

    "the more I think about the issue, I'm wondering in what exact situations a decocker is superior to striker fired, engaging a safety, or just unloading the darned gun?"

    I'm starting to wonder what niche the decocker mechanism actually fills.

  8. #108
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    "the more I think about the issue, I'm wondering in what exact situations a decocker is superior to striker fired, engaging a safety, or just unloading the darned gun?"

    I'm starting to wonder what niche the decocker mechanism actually fills.
    It helps to first recognize that striker fired handguns weren't nearly as common, or trusted, as little as 10 years ago. Second you must consider that a very large part of handgun development is driven by law enforcement sales.

    With those in mind you can start to see the advantages of the decocked and safety off carry pattern. It provides a gun with a hefty 12-14lb first shot resistance (to keep twitchy officers from accidentally discharging their weapons under stress), while at the same eliminating the need to disengage a safety, which can be forgotten or fumbled under stress. After an officer (or anyone else) fires their weapon or, for some foolish reason, cocks it in advance and is finished shooting, they can quickly, reliably, and safely hit the decocker and return the weapon to the same "safe" mode they've trained to draw with and return it to their holster, or keep their weapon handy in case they anticipate future use.

    Naturally, in the past decade law enforcement agencies have become more and more accepting of no safety, single-mode striker fired handguns based on three realizations: 1. plastic (framed) guns really do hold up well and are reliable, 2. this new-fangled no-hammer system really is reliable, and 3 (probably most important). the huge increase in "accidental" discharges from officers switching to Glocks is because officers were taught piss-poor gun-handling (if they were taught anything at all) and not because the design is inherently dangerous.
    Since then, the trend in the development of new handguns has clearly been towards the striker fired pattern.

    Returning to your original question again, the advantage of a decocker vs a safety is, once again, some people have shown a tendency to forget or fumble their manual safety under stress (though I wholeheartedly believe this can be overcome with nominal training) and engaging the safety on a gun that you normally carry decocked and off-safe changes your manual of arms next time you draw.

    Unloading the gun makes you unable to fight, which is something I refuse to personally do until a bunch of boys in blue show up to cover me no matter how dead and/or absent the threat that caused me to shoot may appear.

    As for whether a DA/SA is BETTER than a striker fired, that's really a matter of personal taste. Quantitatively striker fired guns get the nod, but there's so much more to a gun than it's method of firing and a DA/SA that fits your needs that you shoot really well is better than a striker fired that doesn't suit you for whatever reason.

    Case in point: I'd much rather have a SIG P226 over a Ruger SR9. The Ruger may have the arguably better firing mechanism, but the SIG's the much better overall gun.

    And as for me personally, I've yet to encounter a striker fired gun so out of this world that I'll give up my beloved SIGs and H&Ks, even if I find myself more frequently carrying single-mode striker guns.

  9. #109
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    Quote Originally Posted by LMT42 View Post
    I personally don't like decockers, but I'm not scared of manually decocking a hammer on a loaded chamber either. From my reading on multiple forums, a lot of people are uncomfortable manually dropping the hammer on a live round. A decocker serves a very real purpose for them.
    For the record, attempting to manually lower the hammer on a live round is a pretty bad idea.

    Decockers are far safer. On the Beretta 92, for example, engaging the decocker actually rotates the transfer button out of the way of the hammer leaving a hunk of steel in its place...which means it is physically impossible for the hammer to transfer any energy to the firing pin. The firing pin safety is also active under those circumstances as an extra layer of prevention.

    If someone attempts to Mel Gibson the hammer manually, they bypass all of those safety systems and run a much higher risk of screwing it up.

    Decockers are safe, reliable, and effective. Should you decock with the muzzle of your weapon pointed at your newborn's head? Of course not...but that's more about not pointing a firearm at a baby than about the possibility of a discharge.

    Quote Originally Posted by 120mm View Post
    "the more I think about the issue, I'm wondering in what exact situations a decocker is superior to striker fired, engaging a safety, or just unloading the darned gun?"

    I'm starting to wonder what niche the decocker mechanism actually fills.
    It fills the niche of having an idiot proof method of decocking the hammer on a DA/SA gun. Attempting to do that manually is asking for disaster. Think about it: Making someone actually pull the trigger when they don't want the gun to go bang? Asking them to intercept the hammer and retard its fall enough to stop the weapon from going bang?

    ...and expecting all this to happen under stress? With the muzzle pointed in a safe direction?

    Recipe for disaster. It's much more sensible to have a little switch that you flick in an instant that renders the weapon unable to fire while dropping the hammer safely. Using the 92 as an example, I have yet to hear of ANY Beretta 92 that has gone off when the decocker was used. Ditto the S&W 3rd generation guns which have a similar safety arrangement.

    The reason heavy DA triggers exist is because crap happens, especially with handguns. Because firearms are handled by human beings there is always the possibility that someone will do something stupid with them. Even very well trained human beings can have a blonde moment and do something stupid with a lethal weapon that will result in tragedy. As an example, someone on one of the gun boards recently posted a video of himself being shot in the body armor by his Lt, who was using an M9. They did this as a joke....and in the dark. DA triggers do not make idiocy impossible, it simply provides a larger margin of error for those moments when somebody gets stupid or for when Murphy does his thing and gets dangly bits of gear in the trigger guard.

    I personally carry a striker-fired handgun with a ~ 5 pound trigger and no manual safety on a daily basis...but I do so knowing that I'm giving up certain things to gain the advantages of that arrangement.
    Last edited by John_Wayne777; 04-29-10 at 08:24.

  10. #110
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    Quote Originally Posted by 120mm View Post
    My first experience with the Beretta, me and a bunch of other troops had to enter a TOC. I swear, each and every one of us snagged our M9s on the camo netting draping near thed entrance. It was comical, except we noticed that some of the M9s had their appendix thingy changed from "safe/decocked/hammerblocked" to "fire".


    So we went from "snaggs on everything" to they snagged on camo netting. I would say that while still relevant, this hardly qualifies as "everything". But I do get the point, and apparently there can be issues during intensive training as mentioned also.

    That said, you spawned quite an informative discussion. I have never been fully aware of the mechanics of the decocker until JW posted his info. It always made me very uneasy to have the hammer drop like that on a live round, so I would often do so manually (which is what I was used to with most of my other handguns anyhow).

    Of course I figured they had a specific reason for setting it up that way, but it was really more a mental thing not knowing exactly what was happening when the hammer dropped. But after reading this I will do so with a much higher degree of confidence.

    So I suppose a thanks is in order for the informative turn in the discussion.
    Last edited by Safetyhit; 04-29-10 at 10:11.
    "Facit Omina Voluntas = The Will Decides" - Army Chief


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