Safe handguns by design?

For safety purposes, Colt Single Action Army revolvers and their clones leave hammers down on empty chambers. Their safety - that is, ability to be handled safely when hammers are cocked and will fall on chambered cartridge - is significantly lower unless the user pays closer attention to the revolver.

Modern single action, single action/double action, and double action only revolvers are significantly safer to handle because their hammers will not fall on a chambered cartridge unless trigger manipulation causes it to happen. This designed feature is 100 percent reliable unless solid steel parts fail that prevent primer of chambered cartridge from being struck by firing pin. The hammer may fall or be jarred off full cock, but hammer fall will not hit the primer of cartridge in chamber. And such parts failures I have never seen, heard of, or read about. I am not referring to human error, rather to mechanisms' designs only. The only modern exception to such designed safety in modern revolvers of which I am aware is Freedom Arms Model 83.

Are similarly effective safety designs universal for semiautomatic pistols that have been designed within the past 75 years? I refer to pistols using hammers and those using strikers. And I refer to these pistols having hammers or strikers cocked over live cartridge in chamber.

the #1 safety of any firearm lays right between your ears!

I’ve read your post a few times, and taking out the extra words leaves the question “Are modern semiautomatic handguns designed so that they only fire when the trigger is pulled?”

The answer is yes.

It wasn’t clear why you mentioned the SAA, but you might have meant to ask if modern handguns are designed to prevent the firing of a cartridge when the gun is dropped or the hammer is struck externally without pulling the trigger, this being the issue with the SAA that is solved by keeping the hammer down on an empty chamber.

The answer is again yes.

I believe it was one of the founders of "The Old Western Scrounger" who had an embarrassing experience when an Orgies pistol went off in his pocket at a gun show, although fortunately nobody was hurt, not even himself. The pistol is in most respects an extremely good one, but it is striker-fired, with a safety acting on the sear alone, and the sear holding on by a small protrusion on the lip of the tubular striker, which is capable of breaking off. That one was gone from the market by that 75 year deadline, but I don't doubt there are others with the same potential.

I don't know of any pistol with the ability to fire when the hammer is all the way down. In full-size pistols there is no difficulty about providing an inertial firing-pin like the Colt 1911, which doesn't span the distance between hammer and primer. If anyone uses one that does, I would expect it to be in an attempt to keep the pistol very small, so that the firing-pin can't have enough inertial to move forward from the hammer and indent the primer.

I am surprised we don't hear more of a strap on the SAA's holster, thick but narrow enough to fit in front of the hammer, and pierced for the firing-pin. That could block the hammer and also hold the revolver in the holster.

One danger was the weakness of the half-cock notch, for which the prudent user should have little use unless the revolver is to lie in a drawer. I suppose the same applies to many other firearms, but nobody fans them. Cowboys often hooked a stirrup onto the saddle horn to get a purchase for tightening up the girth, on a crafty horse that tried for an easy time by flexing his muscles and relaxing when it's done. If the stirrup came off, it could hit the Colt hammer and break the half-cock notch.

The SAA was quite old-fashioned in 1873. European practice, during the years when Eugene Lefaucheux's patent kept Smith and Wesson from tying up that market with European Rollin White patents, was to have a separate single-action sear which the trigger could only reach when the hammer was fully cocked. That permitted the use of a much stronger half-cock notch, which wasn't undercut at all.

This is the design that was copied by Harrington and Richardson, with the addition of an upward extension of the hammer lifter, which acted as a transfer bar, leaving empty space between hammer and firing-pin unless the trigger was in the rearward position.

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Originally Posted by JimB..

I’ve read your post a few times, and taking out the extra words leaves the question “Are modern semiautomatic handguns designed so that they only fire when the trigger is pulled?”

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Thank you for being another one who didn't completely understand the question. :)

For the OP:

In today's sue-happy world, no manufacturer will design a firearm that is not drop-safe or as safe as can be. Defects in safety will get you sued out of existence and, despite Federal laws about suing firearms manufacturers, a defective design will result in a judgement against you. Ask the manufacturers who have recalled firearms and redesigned them.

But...

There are any number of current manufacturers of replica firearms that are true to the originals, SAA clones in particular. Not all of those are safe to carry with a loaded chamber. Plus, just because a trigger needs to be pulled or a firearm is drop-safe, it doesn't mean you can't find people who have negligently discharged a firearm. Build a fool-proof gun and nature will sprout a better fool.

Jeff

Old Iver Johnson ads depicted a hand striking the hammer with a hammer- "Hammer the hammer"- to demonstrate the surety of the transfer bar type.

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Wife has a bersa thunder 380, with the safety on, the decocker blocks the hammer.

With my 1911... The safety blocks the sear, If it was to break, the gun could go full automatic. I carry it cocked and locked though.

I've carried glock handguns loaded and felt fully confident in their safety features. Same with a ruger p95 and a smith and wesson 4006 I carried a while.

I have a Heritage rough rider in .22lr/.22mag.

It has transfer bar, single action, plus a safety next to the hammer.
I do load all 6, and don't worry about it.
Currently it is hiding under the corner of my fly tying bench. Fully loaded, hidden, and instantly accessible at need. Maybe I'm getting old and freaky. I just feel safer knowing I have a gun in reach if I need it.

I don't normally carry, but at home it is easy to get distracted. I don't normally lock the door till I make the rounds turning off lights and checking for problems before bed.

Call me crazy.

Some of the striker fired pistols like the Glock don't have fully "cocked" strikers when the gun is in battery. Pulling the trigger completes cocking the striker so to speak and then releases it. Jarring the striker free while the gun is in battery won't fire the gun. Then there are firing pin blocks that mimic the action of a transfer bar in that they are operated by pulling the trigger and prevent discharge unless the trigger is pulled.

I dont think the Heritage has a transfer bar. It has a safety notch, and a manual safety that blocks the hammer.

Some of the cap and ball revolvers had a very solid safety system in that there was a cut between the chambers in the outside edge of the cylinder where the hammer set when loaded. not half cock but half rotation locked between the 2 caps by the notch.

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Originally Posted by Bazoo

With my 1911... The safety blocks the sear, If it was to break, the gun could go full automatic. I carry it cocked and locked though.

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I think that the disconnector would stop it from going full auto.

FOTG as taught in every hunter safety class works.

In old guns with the hammer at rest lined up with the cylinder YES empty the cylinder.
Load one miss one load rest then let hammer down on the empty chamber. ONLY when you can walk and chew gum.

On modern guns the hammer is blocked . KNOW what you gun is and after fear of dropping it keep your bugger puller out of the trigger guard.

Good training will include getting hit on the head when you do not. This is not for the feely good folks that does not except correction or blame.

CTM control the muzzle, if you are my partner never let your muzzle point at me or you will not be my partner anymore. , This is as trained in the early 80's.

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Originally Posted by Texas by God

Old Iver Johnson ads depicted a hand striking the hammer with a hammer- "Hammer the hammer"- to demonstrate the surety of the transfer bar type.

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They did indeed, but I always wondered if trying it had anyone as safe and unperforated as only a person with a broken-off hammer would be. It was an extremely good syste if unabused, and used also in their Safety Hammerless, where even that triumph of the intellect couldn't happen.