Tokarev "safety"

[JHeath]

I have seen discussions about whether the Tokarev half-cock was ever intended to be used as the primary safety vs. the pistol carried on an empty chamber. Mine is an M57.

Just noticed on the Zastava site:

http://www.zastava-arms.rs/en/civilianproduct/pistol-m57

"The pistol is put to safety position when the hammer is pulled "to the first cam". "

[Outpost75]

I interviewed Russian vets and was told they carried the pistol at full cock on an empty chamber to reduce effort in racking the slide to chamber a round

If carried with chamber loaded and hammer set at halfcock, pistol WILL fire if dropped on the muzzle from 1 metre drop onto a hard surface.

Tok is unsafe to carry with chamber loaded and Russian Army never carried it that way.

[JHeath]

If carried with chamber loaded and hammer set at halfcock, pistol WILL fire if dropped on the muzzle from 1 metre drop onto a hard surface.



I've read that's because the firing pin has enough inertia to strike the primer regardless of whether the hammer falls, and that a cocked/locked 1911 has a high chance of doing the same. If true, you could remove the hammer and the pistol would still go off if you dropped it on the muzzle.

My understanding is that many auto pistols without a firing pin block can be expected to discharge if dropped on the muzzle.

Full-cock on a hopefully-unloaded chamber, with no safety? For an army of trainees it sounds worse than relying on the half-cock. You can look at a pistol and know whether the safety is on, or the hammer on half-cock. But you can't know the chamber is empty.

How about half-cocked if dropped on the hammer? Because of the angles, it looks like the hammer notch would hold and the sear (in almost straight compression) would hold. Maybe the sear pin would shear, or not.

A cocked/locked 1911 relies on the narrow full-cock notch to hold the hammer. How is that better? The grip and thumb safeties just hold the sear in the notch.

[Outpost75]

When we set guns up for testing in the lab, we would slide them on guides of piano wire and crash them onto a 6" slab of reinforced concrete covered by a 1/2" thick hard rubber matting of 7-80 Shore Durometer hardness. Depending upon the drop height you could break the sear nose off the M1911, or the hammer notch, or both, or fire the gun just from firing pin inertia.

Saw and investigated lots of NDs with .45s and I won't own or carry one....

[KCSO]

Back when surplus 1911's were cheap we tried to set off a round by dropping one on it's muzzle to a concrete floor. This was a junker gun set for a rebuild so we didn't care if it got bunged up. Long story short we managed to set off a primer on the 16th drop from 12 feet when the gun landed square on the muzzle. Since I sped very little time on a step ladder tryig to dp my gun straight down on to the muzzle I figured John Browning knew what he was doing and quit worrying about it. Oh and if you hold the gun loose and have someone hit the muzzle with a rubber malet hard enough...

[JHeath]

When we set guns up for testing in the lab, we would slide them on guides of piano wire and crash them onto a 6" slab of reinforced concrete covered by a 1/2" thick hard rubber matting of 7-80 Shore Durometer hardness. Depending upon the drop height you could break the sear nose off the M1911, or the hammer notch, or both, or fire the gun just from firing pin inertia.

Saw and investigated lots of NDs with .45s and I won't own or carry one....

Aha! Data! I love data. Thanks! Are the results published, or available online?

Yes, wire-guiding the pistol is the way to go, repeatable. Plus low-friction like a freefall.

Had I more trigger groups I would test a Tokarev on half-cock. I think the hammer notch would hold, and the sear would hold because driven in compression (not shear). The sear pin might shear given enough force on the hammer at the worst-case angle. That's a hypothesis, not a conclusion.

In the sheared-sear-pin scenario, the force would tend to drive the hammer down toward the fire control group, not so much "forward". I am not 100% certain the pistol would discharge, but it probably because most Toks have positive firing pins. To drive the hammer "forward" from half-cock would require striking the Tok at an angle that would contact the butt end of the slide, and not the hit the hammer at all.

I share Outpost75's unease with the 1911 cocked and locked. A fully "energized" hammer held by a tiny notch (1911) seems no better, and maybe worse, than a 1/5th cocked hammer held by a very deep notch (Tok).

People draw remarkably firm conclusions from tradition.

My father refused to load six chambers in a DA revolver, because he grew up knowing that it is reckless to load six chambers in any revolver. No doubt inherited from the single-action era in early 20th Century Texas. It's unsafe to carry an SAA on half-cock and I think we've inherited that and applied it to the Tok. I am a skeptic in both directions -- I inherited distrust of the half-cock, but suspect scientific testing would show the concerns are overblown.

[Outpost75]

Aha! Data! I love data. Thanks! Are the results published, or available online?....

I fear not. The work was performed as part of a comprehensive safety evaluation in which the recommendation to the government was that the M1911 pistol be declared obsolete and replaced by a safer, more modern design. Unfortunately, anyone in the military who ever had a Red Rider BB gun as a kid considers himself an "expert" on small arms, and has never had to explain to a grieving widow how her loved one was killed by an accidental discharge when a piece of government-issued property malfunctioned.

Similar critical safety defects with the M16 platform were thoroughly detailed in test reports originating at Aberdeen Proving Ground. These were redacted and sanitized by Army higher ups to cover up accidents occurring in the field which resulted in fatalities, which were thoroughly documented, but similarly swept under the rug, being ignored by Congress, the GAO and Army CID.

The truth is out there, but the lies are repeated more often and louder.

[JHeath]

I fear not. The work was performed as part of a comprehensive safety evaluation in which the recommendation to the government was that the M1911 pistol be declared obsolete and replaced by a safer, more modern design. Unfortunately, anyone in the military who ever had a Red Rider BB gun as a kid considers himself an "expert" on small arms, and has never had to explain to a grieving widow how her loved one was killed by an accidental discharge when a piece of government-issued property malfunctioned.

Similar critical safety defects with the M16 platform were thoroughly detailed in test reports originating at Aberdeen Proving Ground. These were redacted and sanitized by Army higher ups to cover up accidents occurring in the field which resulted in fatalities, which were thoroughly documented, but similarly swept under the rug, being ignored by Congress, the GAO and Army CID.

The truth is out there, but the lies are repeated more often and louder.

Amen brother. I have soooo been there, and recently. A fatal jobsite accident last year that I worked for seven years to prevent. Sometimes organizations get confused about which interests to protect. People say "follow the money" but it's not even that. For example the college football program that imploded over covering for a child molesting assistant coach -- where's the money in that?

Anyway the Tokarev pistol dates to the 1930s but inexplicably not everybody agrees it to be a "safer, more modern design" than the 1911. I would suggest the military should have re-considered the M53 Remington (Model 51's big brother) when retiring the 1911 but that's sounding awkward about now . . .

An equal problem to the falsehoods are the false and unquestioned assumptions, repeated just as loudly and often. "It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you know that just ain't so."

I laud your having done the homework on the 1911. Collecting data in well-designed tests is the only way to really know. Just because something makes sense and grandpa believed it does not qualify it as "knowledge."

[Rick Hodges]

AMEN, Gentlemen!

[Gunor]

In regards to discharges - Interesting to know when the society change from AD to ND - Accident to Negligent.

Geoff in Oregon

[Tackleberry41]

Russians always tended to do things 'different'. When it came to army troops most were uneducated conscripts, so couldnt be counted on to do things the right way.

Never seen anything put to paper when the gun first came out. Nor seen any sort of russian manuals as to what was right or wrong. Designing the tokarev without any screws, okay maybe a good idea when your going to issue it to people who dont know which end of a screwdriver is for holding and which is for using. Does make it convenient when you dont need anything but a stick and a some patches cut from a t shirt to clean it.

Only way I have heard of a tokarev being carried was without a round in the chamber. Half cock does seem a pretty safe option, yea you can drop it at such a such an angle and it go off. Only way you could make it totally safe is add in all those extra firing pin blocks in modern designs. Even if it had been in use when the tokarev came out doubt the russians would have put them in the gun. Extra expense and complexity, way easier to tell a recruit to carry it without a round chambered. .

[cuzinbruce]

Old DA revolvers could discharge if dropped. That was the motivation for the S&W hammer block introduced in WWII on the Victory Model