What if a Glock had a safety, would you buy one

[Daylen]

You need to remember that the majority of weapons used for the military are rifles and not handguns and the conditions these weapons need to be able to handle. Oh and the fact that military contracts go to the lowest bidder. So between cost, reliability, and ease to repair its no wonder the military uses external safeties. Besides, has anyone even adapted a trigger safety to rifles and would you really trust a nervous private to just a trigger safety? At least with the external safety he can leave it on safe until he's in a position that he's authorized to fire.

So just because the military does it one way doesn't mean that's the best way. Just that its the cheapest, most reliable, and accounts for the lowest common denominator. Or at least that's the goal of how the military does these things.

In regards to the thread, I voted that it wouldn't change anything. Personally I don't like how a glock feels in my hand, but I do like the safety feature. Personally I went one step further and got an XDm which has the trigger and grip safety specifically because I prefer this type of safety over an external safety.

Not everything goes to the lowest bidder, especially for design. The military has always REQUIRED an external safety in its arms. Those safeties did not get there by accident. Also, as far as cheap junk, 1911's and beretta's both are higher quality guns, with a price tags to go with it, than glocks. If price was the only factor the military would be using Glocks before they would use 1911's or the M9 and most likely they would use Hi-Points since those are really cheap. The only firearms I can think of that were chosen for cheapness were the grease guns used in WWII. I would hardly think of an AR platform as cheap or junk for idiots. An AK is cheap and was designed to be used by idiots.

 

[Alude904]

Own a couple glocks myself but i wouldnt if they had external safeties

 

[MKEgal]

I voted "no difference" because if they added another external safety I'd leave it disengaged (ready to use) unless the pistol was in storage.
I bought my Glock because I like the way it fits my hand, I like the reliability, and I like that the safety is disengaged by a natural action when I'm ready to shoot so I don't have to remember to do anything more.
If I ever have to defend myself, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be rattled, & several instructors have said that fine muscle control suffers from adrenaline, so I don't want a little lever to move.

Glocks already have a safety, the trigger! Don't pull it and the gun won't fire.

Glocks have 3 safeties - 2 internal, 1 external (built into the trigger).
If you want all that plus a grip safety, go to a Springfield XD.
But we all know that with any gun, the most important safety is the attitude of the owner.

I've had exactly ONE time that a gun I was holding fired when I didn't mean for it to fire. It had a very light trigger, so I'm extremely glad I'd followed the other 3 rules & nothing bad happened.
From then on, 'finger off the trigger' is highest priority, even over 'safe direction'. With finger off trigger, safe direction doesn't matter.

...the safety was the reason i went to glock. I want to pull the gun and shoot as quick as possible. Once less thing to think about in the heat of the moment... With my glock i am 99.9% sure that all i have to do is pull my gun and pull the trigger till it stops shooting.

+100

 

[j4l]

If you train and practice enough, it really IS a non-issue. Thousands of combat troops in action over these last few years.
How many-if any-instances of any of them finding themselves so rattled under duress,and under fire, who found they couldnt get their weapon up and running because of the safety of the weapon they were using? Im doubting very many.
Far more likely is the chance that one's hand is injured or less than functional at the moment.

 

[zack991]

I am not a fan of glock to begin with, they are reliable but they are ugly as hell and your just paying for the Hollywood name to boot. If I ever did buy one it would not matter to me if it had an external safety or not.

 

[SFCRetired]

Truth be told, isn't it mostly a matter of personal preference? I've got nothing against any weapon that goes "bang" when it is supposed to and Glocks have a pretty good record of doing that.

I carry either a Springfield Armory "Champion" model .45 (based on the 1911) or a Ruger P89DC because both of them feel right to me. The Ruger is a decocker and is, to me, just a very nice, reliable, pistol. I carry both of them with a round in the chamber and, in the case of the SA, "cocked and locked".

Practice with both of them at the range feels comfortable and I am confident that, should the stuff hit the fan, I will be able to meet the threat.

Were I to ever get a Glock, I would put in a lot of practice until I felt as confident with it as I do with the two I have.

 

[Aknazer]

Not everything goes to the lowest bidder, especially for design. The military has always REQUIRED an external safety in its arms. Those safeties did not get there by accident. Also, as far as cheap junk, 1911's and beretta's both are higher quality guns, with a price tags to go with it, than glocks. If price was the only factor the military would be using Glocks before they would use 1911's or the M9 and most likely they would use Hi-Points since those are really cheap. The only firearms I can think of that were chosen for cheapness were the grease guns used in WWII. I would hardly think of an AR platform as cheap or junk for idiots. An AK is cheap and was designed to be used by idiots.

And yet a lot of the production does go to the lowest bidder. At least the lowest bidder that the military feels still puts out enough of quality. One example would be the orange parachute knives. The original design called for the actual blade to be what popped out when the button was pressed, but the manufacturer messed up and put it on the secondary tool and the military just went with it.

Also the military looks at more than just initial buy-in cost. The Baretta has fewer moving parts to break and is easier to work on compared to various other models. I mean hell I've had to clean the baretta multiple times and compared to my XDm the internals are so much simpler (basic tear down is the same, but the XDm has far more internal springs and what not compared to the baretta, which leads to more parts that can become worn out, fail, etc. Oh and SF really doesn't like metal spring rods thanks to people shooting them into the ceilings or accidentally at other people while cleaning). And then there's the cost of maintaining what they have currently vs the cost of switching to a different platform (not cheap given just how many guns and parts we're talking about). But yet the baretta has had issues with the slide developing cracks along the side of the slide as it doesn't have any metal over the top of the barrel and when you go through the M9 class the instructor often points out this area to inspect for any cracks as it is a known issue.

Though I never said that the military uses cheap junk (hell the military regularly pays retarded amounts of money for "approved" gear even if you can get the EXACT SAME item from a different vendor for less; so if anything it's expensive junk ). I said that they often go to the lowest bidder that meets their requirements and that they often look to build for the lowest common denominator. It might not be the cheapest item, but depending on what we're dealing with that doesn't mean it's the best either.

If you train and practice enough, it really IS a non-issue. Thousands of combat troops in action over these last few years.
How many-if any-instances of any of them finding themselves so rattled under duress,and under fire, who found they couldnt get their weapon up and running because of the safety of the weapon they were using? Im doubting very many.
Far more likely is the chance that one's hand is injured or less than functional at the moment.

And just how many of our troops regularly draw a pistol from the holster in a combat situation where the attacker is less than 7 yards from them? Instead their gun is already out, is generally a rifle, has the safety right by the thumb (in regards to rifles, the baretta has it at the back of the slide, but the AF carries with it off of safe and instead relies on that initial double action as their safety), and their targets are generally farther away. Now compare that to a citizen who has their gun holstered, isn't in a warzone (where you're on edge actively looking for that hostile), and their assailant is much closer. You're talking about having to recognize and react to a threat in a much different manner than a military member deals with in combat. And so many people don't want to deal with a safety while also trying to draw the weapon; especially given that not all safeties are right by the thumb and it is just one more thing to have to deal with when you're already at a disadvantage (their weapon out vs you having to draw yours) and amped on adrenaline/fear.

 

[DoubleAgentMan]

Owning two of them it wouldn't make much of a difference as long as the trigger safety is still there. I would probably only engage the manual safety when it is cased though lol.

 

[rushcreek2]

Just have to weigh in here. I prefer Glock for their dependability,"on-line" condition ONE, and upgradability.

If I were younger , and had young children around - I might feel differently about the lack of a thumb safety.

 

[SFCRetired]

Just have to weigh in here. I prefer Glock for their dependability,"on-line" condition ONE, and upgradability.

If I were younger , and had young children around - I might feel differently about the lack of a thumb safety.

There is another key factor right there. Children are curious and if you think you can hide something from them for long, you're kidding yourself. Were I younger and had small children about, I would have as fool-proof a gun safe as I could afford.

I would also start training those children as soon as I could reasonably expect them to understand. That is what my uncles did with me many years ago and their lessons still stick with me. Of course, some of their lessons consisted of the Board of Education being applied to the Seat of Knowledge (with my parents' permission).

 

[SouthernBoy]

The ATF classifies the Glock as double action because they are the government. The government is stupid. Glock calls their guns "double action" because they sell their guns to governments that want a single action gun, but only if it is called a "double action" gun. And all the makers of guns that copy the Glock action and call their guns double action are doing the same thing.

Now a 92D is a true DAO. A Glock may be double action in name, and the firing pin may be partially cocked with the trigger but from the perspective of the user it works exactly like a single action gun and works exactly unlike a double action gun. On a double action gun like a 92D, you could put a snap cap in the chamber and pull the trigger to your hearts content without ejecting that thing. With a Glock "safe action" (which is what they originally called it before trying to get into government trials for a "double action" gun), or with a single action, you gotta eject the round each time because the trigger cannot cock the gun, which was the whole point of a double action.

Glock wouldn't have been able to get away with it if it was a revolver. Imagine this, A revolver that you first have to cock the hammer 90% of the way, and then the trigger cocks it the next 10% and releases it. And then sell it as a competitor to the S&W 642 as a "double action only" gun of the same type. In reality, it would be more of a competitor to single action revolvers.

As for the subject of the thread, I prefer guns without safety levers. I like my guns to be simple in operation.

Glocks are Double Action Only. This has come up many times on other sites so I took the liberty of calling Glock within the past year to speak to a technical person. He assured me that yes, Glock was classed as a DAO pistol.

 

[matt2636]

Glocks already have a safety, the trigger! Don't pull it and the gun won't fire.

i dont think you can say it any better. you can have all the safties in the world on a weapon and still have a ND. following your weapon satfty rules are more inportant than a external lever on the side.

 

[Felid`Maximus]

Glocks are Double Action Only. This has come up many times on other sites so I took the liberty of calling Glock within the past year to speak to a technical person. He assured me that yes, Glock was classed as a DAO pistol.

Glock can class the Glock as whatever Glock wants to class it as. But neither mechanically nor functionally speaking is the Glock trigger the same as the mechanism in a double action only revolver.

At once there was a time where the only handguns that mattered were revolvers. There were revolvers with single action triggers, which you had to cock each shot before the trigger would fire the gun. There were revolvers that were double action, meaning that the trigger would cock and fire the gun and you didn't have to cock the gun first before the trigger functioned.

At that time, double action and single action had clear meanings. Then people started using semi-auto pistols. You might say they were like a double action revolver in that each pull of the trigger will fire the gun without having to take a separate step. But the trigger didn't cock the hammer, the slide did. The trigger mechanism itself was actually very similar to a single action revolver, whereby the slide basically did the work of the finger that cocked the hammer. That's why later guns like the Beretta 92F were called double action. On the 92F, you could decock the hammer, and the trigger would by itself fully cock and fire the gun, but the slide also would cock it. In this case, the trigger worked almost in the same way as the double action revolver trigger, except that not only could you cock the hammer by pulling the trigger or manually using your fingers, but the slide could cock it just like with the "single-action" semi-autos.

On a double action only revolver (S&W 642 for instance), the trigger cannot be kept in a cocked condition or cocked by hand. The 92D worked in the same way, where you could neither cock the hammer by hand nor would the recoiling slide leave the hammer in a cocked state.

A Glock may be classed double action, but it does not work in the same way as these other mechanisms do. For one thing, a Glock doesn't have a hammer, having a striker instead. But even beyond that, its striker cannot be cocked by the trigger alone.

But it's all just a name. There is obviously a difference, even if they call them the same name. It has gotten to the point where the label "double action" is basically meaningless. It only really has meaning if you are talking about a revolver.

Heck, even a double action pistol like the 92F has a trigger mechanism that is different from a revolver. In a revolver, not only does the trigger cock the hammer, but the hammer also rotates the cylinder when it's cocked. So in a way, a revolver trigger mechanism does even more.

A Colt single action army is clearly single action. An S&W Model 10 is clearly double action. An S&W 642 is clearly double action only.

But is a 1911, M9, 92D, SIG DAK, H&K LEM, Springfield XD, Kahr or Glock double action or single action? Well, their manufacturers all claim they are something, but obviously they are not identical in operation.

Classing a Glock as Double Action has serious advantages, when the government is only accepting double action guns as candidates for their replacement guns.

Also, here is an interesting tidbit about how well a partially cocked striker in Glock works as a safety mechanism:
http://www.americancopmagazine.com/articles/xd/index.html <--

There is a degree of controversy over how much the striker spring is "pre-loaded." Critics say since the Glock's is only partially loaded it is safer than those that are fully compressed. Springfield commissioned a study by the prestigious independent consulting firm, Tioga Engineering of Wellsboro, Pa., to compare the systems of the Glock and XD. In both designs, the firing pin block or safety is the key element, but their test showed that a primed case fired 100 percent of the time in a Glock when the striker was released from the 62 percent normal preloaded level.

 

[since9]

The last news story I read about a glock involved three people accidentally shooting themselves in spite of the gun's three built-in safeties.

I'm a fan of my firearm's 6-lb trigger pull and proper holstering.

 

[ixtow]

If one understands how their gun works, and they should, then knowing how a Glock works precludes the desire for it to have a manual safety.

Learn how Glocks work and you won't care about this anymore.

I am not a Glock Fanboy. I <3 my 1911. I just study how anything mechanical works. Glocks have inherent safeties in the nature of how they operate. Adding more FUD would make the gun needlessly complex with no positive result. Just another button/switch you have to flip in order to use the thing. In my book, that's bad.

The more I look at Glocks, the more I like them. I subscribe to the AK-47 school of mechanical design.

"It's cleverness lies in it's contempt for cleverness."

The accidents one hears about that involve Glocks do not stem from the weapon being unsafe. It stems from the social advertising of the gun as a status symbol among hoodlums. They do stupid things with their guns and then claim 'it just went off.' Glocks are popular among that kind of people. It's not the gun's fault that degenerates and dumbasses like them...

 

[silver]

tell that to the majority of our armed forces who use weapons with external safeties

you can also flip it around too... If you cant activate a safety then you need more training.

The majority of our armed forces are issued pistols with safeties. I believe those special forces groups that are allowed to request team pistols generally request glocks or sigs (yes some do go for the 1911's), and neither of those have manual safeties. I don't think a de-cocking lever on the sig counts as a manual safety. Furthermore I have yet to see any accounts where SF groups continue to carry the Berettas if they have a choice. Please correct me if anyone has information to the contrary.

And on topic, i will not carry a gun with a manual safety. I don't have a problem using them for plinking, target shooting or anything else, i just don't want my life to depend on remembering to sweep a thumb safety under extreme stress.

 

[Aknazer]

The majority of our armed forces are issued pistols with safeties. I believe those special forces groups that are allowed to request team pistols generally request glocks or sigs (yes some do go for the 1911's), and neither of those have manual safeties. I don't think a de-cocking lever on the sig counts as a manual safety. Furthermore I have yet to see any accounts where SF groups continue to carry the Berettas if they have a choice. Please correct me if anyone has information to the contrary.

And on topic, i will not carry a gun with a manual safety. I don't have a problem using them for plinking, target shooting or anything else, i just don't want my life to depend on remembering to sweep a thumb safety under extreme stress.

I would like to point out that the USAF Security Forces carry their Baretta with it off of safety but not cocked (no need with it being a true DA/SA gun) and the "safety" is pretty much only used as a decocking lever and as a feature when turning in your gun at the armory. The checking in/out of a pistol pretty much goes like this: get gun, go to clearing barrel, make sure it is on safe and unloaded, load a mag and chamber a round, take the gun off of safe, holster weapon (to check in the weapon it's pretty much these same steps but in reverse). And in regards to the special forces, from what I hear they prefer to carry a .45 which is why they don't carry the Baretta if they have a choice (the standard issue Baretta is in 9mm; though I'm sure there could be more to it than just the size of the round).

Note that I'm just talking about how they carry for base defense (even in the U.S.). I don't have any experience with them in a deployed environment so I can't comment on how they operate while deployed. I've had to pull augmentee duty at a couple different bases which is how I know how the AF SF carry for base defense.

 

[LibertyDeath]

I won't buy a pistol with a safety and that's one reason I own a Glock. I feel its just one more delay if I need to use it quick.

 

[Claytron]

The majority of our armed forces are issued pistols with safeties. I believe those special forces groups that are allowed to request team pistols generally request glocks or sigs (yes some do go for the 1911's), and neither of those have manual safeties. I don't think a de-cocking lever on the sig counts as a manual safety. Furthermore I have yet to see any accounts where SF groups continue to carry the Berettas if they have a choice. Please correct me if anyone has information to the contrary.

And on topic, i will not carry a gun with a manual safety. I don't have a problem using them for plinking, target shooting or anything else, i just don't want my life to depend on remembering to sweep a thumb safety under extreme stress.

interesting though, how people who worry about having to flip a safety off never think that maybe they might need to pick up a different firearm WITH a safety, not know how to use it, and then be in trouble...

ill admit thats one reason i love my glock, but manual safeties have their merits and with practice should be a non-issue

 

[Aknazer]

interesting though, how people who worry about having to flip a safety off never think that maybe they might need to pick up a different firearm WITH a safety, not know how to use it, and then be in trouble...

ill admit thats one reason i love my glock, but manual safeties have their merits and with practice should be a non-issue

The Navy Security Forces carry with their pistol on safe and are trained to take it off of safety while drawing it. But that is still one more thing that "could" go wrong in a high stress environment. I mean it's completely possible for your finger to slip off of the safety with all of that adrenaline pumping through you and if you're slightly shakey due to the situation.