05Sept06

Several have suggested I also enumerate those other directions in pistol design that range from useless to hurtful. Not all can be legitimately cal led " trends," but all of the following are manifestations of manufacturer s going in the wrong direction:

(1) Grip Safety. Grip safeties have been standard on 1911s from the beginning. They are also found on the more current SA/XD. Happily, none o f the other major manufacturers have seen a need for them. Grip safeties are call ed " passive" safety devices, because they are not deliberately, or even

consciously, operated by the shooter. The pistol can't be fired unless gra sped in the normal, firing grip, an act which depresses the grip safety and enables the

trigger mechanism. When they work, grip safeties function just fine, but people with skinny/bony hands sometimes fail to depress them sufficiently, even when they grasp the pistol correctly. In fact, a poorly-adjusted grip safe ty can be a problem even for those with average hands. I, for one, would not like to see grip safeties added to pistols that do not already have them.

(2) Loaded-Chamber Indicator. Taking the form of a bulge on the extractor or a hole drilled into the chamber itself, loaded-chamber indicators are supposed to provide an tactile/visual indication of the status of the chamb er. They now come standard on several otherwise excellent pistols. My advice i s to ignore them. When ignored, loaded-chamber indicators are, at least, harmless. The danger comes when naive shooters rely upon the dubious infor mation provided by the device, instead of performing a legitimate chamber check. The world would be better off without them.

(3) Forward Slide Serrations. Another "feature" best ignore d. The trouble starts when shooters use them when they attempt to reciprocate the slide wi th the traditional (and correct) support-hand, overhand grip. The support hand

then gets too far forward and actually occludes the ejection port, making it impossible for the pistol to cleanly eject a recalcitrant round or an empty

case. In addition, with the hand in this forward position, the little finger invariably drapes over the muzzle. Front slide serrations have no legitimate function on serious pistols. Covering the ejection port while reciprocatin g the slide would appear to be an inherent contradiction. Placing fingers in front of muzzles, for any reason or duration, is foolish.

(4) Manual Safety. The vast majority of pistols currently in production do

not feature a two-position, manual safety, nor have they ever. In the opinion of professional gunmen, the weight and length of most pistols =99 trigger pulls provides the margin of safety necessary for daily carry and serious u se. The addition of a manual safety constitutes a superfluous and dangerous redundancy. I, for one, do not want to see two-position manual safeties ad ded to pistols, such as the Glock, that do not already have them, even as an optio n. We're all familiar with the way "options" quickly migrate t o "requisites!"

(5) Hyper-Accuracy. There is no doubt that some pistols are inherently mor e accurate than others. SIG's five-point lockup, for example, yields an intrinsically greater degree of accuracy than is the case with most other production pistols. However, in serious use, discussions of pistol accurac y are mostly irrelevant. Any production pistol, from any reputable manufacturer, is more than sufficiently accurate for nearly any practical purpose. The trou ble comes when, in an attempt to produce hyper-accuracy, pistols are tightened up to the point where they become unreliable. Hyper-accurate, but temperamental, pistols are of no interest to serious gunmen.

(6) Magazine Safety. Worse than merely useless, magazine safeties are deat h traps! Formidable liability negates any conjectured "safety=80 benefit of this device. The presumed advantage is that a grip safety sterilizes the pistol when the magazine is removed. However, often the magazine in a pistol that is being carried for defensive purposes is inadvertently unseated. Under these circumstances, the pistol will not fire and the owner doesn't know it and won't find out until the pistol is desperately needed to defend his life. In a worst case, the unseated magazine may, unnoticed, fall free from the pistol and thus not be immediately available for reseating. In addition, t he pistol is unavoidably inoperable during much of the reloading process, and when magazines are damaged or unavailable, the pistol becomes completely useless . Worst of all, dependence on a magazine safety can be used to excuse sloppy and unsafe gun handling and storage. Storing an unsecured pistol with a ro und chambered is unsafe and improper, whether the pistol is equipped with a magazine safety or not.

In summary, magazine safeties provide precious little in the way of =80 safety" but do substantially jeopardize the health of the pistols' owners.

The foregoing are with us mostly as a result of gunmakers' over-caut ious, in-house councils trying desperately to justify their existence and not cari ng a whit for the poor schmuck whose life may, one day, depend upon their product. None come about as the result of consultation with real operators and professional gunmen.

/John