Opinions?

I got a little nervous letting the hammer down by hand with my Sig Sauer P220. I figured out I'll keep one in the chamber for carry with the safery on and the hammer down. Will pull the hammer back with my thumb and release the safey when I need to fire.

Do you prefer the Double/Single or Single Action Only?

The pull is pretty light on my pistol.

Adding that kind of fine motor movement to the process of drawing and firing is a bad idea in my opinion.

If you aren't comfortable carrying a single action gun cocked and locked, you need to get a double action pistol.

[This message has been edited by TMoney2007 (edited 8/24/2009 1:31a).]

I'm not too familiar with the P220, but carrying a 1911 with a loaded chamber and the hammer down is a BAD idea, safety on or not. Very good way to get a negligent discharge. Nothing wrong with carrying cocked and locked... that's how those pistols were designed to be safely carried.

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Do you prefer the Double/Single or Single Action Only?

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I don't have a preference, at least not in a range gun. For carry, I don't use either one.

I'm not familiar with their SAO P220, but since it's a modern design and most likely has a firing pin block, I have a feeling that it is perfectly safe to carry hammer down. I agree that it is inherently unsafe to manually lower a hammer, which is why semi's with hammers will have either a de-cocker or a locking safety lever.

If you decide that it is ok to manually lower the hammer on a live round, then you should get a "clearing barrel", which is a metal container with a trapping medium like sand and into which you point your muzzle while lowering the hammer. At least if you ND, you won't put a round through something important.

You can't engage a 1911 thumb safety with the hammer down. The mechanics of the system prevent it. Carry cocked and locked for single action. If you have a hammer drop on a pistol and don't mind the slight accuracy drop of a double action first shot, that's the safest way to carry those (sans Glocks). If you don't trust the safety on your pistol, get a different model. Those fractions of a second that you're fumbling with the safety, hammer, slide could cost you your life.

My preference is double action. My Sig P245 is a double action and has a de-cocker on it, so having to let the hammer back down isn't an issue. However, it still takes quite a "thump" for a primer to fire off...

Carry cocked and locked!!

It is how they were designed to be carried.

the little lever that is not your slide release on your 220 is your decocker.

it is 100% safe to use regardless of the condition of your chamber

on a handgun w/o a decocker the safest way to drop the hammer is to clear the chamber and let the hammer down.

you can certainly walk down a hammer to a half cock on a loaded chamber but you are inviting disaster.

i wouldn't want it carry a gun hammer down on a loaded chamber


that is all

Forgetting the question......I prefer SAO.

Carrying a SAO with the hammer down kind of defeats the purpose of having a SAO. If it was me and for some reason I couldn't trust the safety and had to carry I would just carry with an empty chamber. In my opinion it is much easier to draw and work the slide with adrenaline flowing than it is to fumble around for the hammer. Plus easing the hammer down is unsafe.

Oh yeah and I prefer DA/SA. You can always just cock the hammer on my sigs for SA and decock it when you're ready to go back to DA.

Negligent post

[This message has been edited by GAC06 (edited 8/24/2009 9:27a).]

I perfer SA/DA.
The SA has its place though.
I wouldnt carry a SA only with the hammer resting on a live chamber. Half cock would be OK, but doesnt really make sense.

I have no problem walking the hammer down on a loaded chamber. If you are following gun safety protocol this should not be an issue.
If the hammer were to slip, its slowed momentum probably wouldnt be enough to fire.

It's also not an issue if you use a de-cocker like most decent SA/DA pistols have.

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You can't engage a 1911 thumb safety with the hammer down. The mechanics of the system prevent it.

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Thanks for correcting me, I didn't realize I typed that.

Both my centerfires are DA/SA, and they both have hammers and decockers. I prefer hammer fired handguns, as opposed to striker fired, probably mostly nostalgia, and it is easier to see the gun is cocked so you know what to expect from the pull.

I keep my 1911 chambered, and the hammer back to the first click (to keep the hammer off of the pin) just like my leverguns.

pulling the hammer back, in my opinion, is easier than tripping the safety.

to this day, I have never used the safety on the 1911.

Single-action semi-auto pistols are meant to be carried cocked and locked with one in the pipe or with an empty chamber.

When you attempt to drop the hammer with a round in the chamber, you risk having your thumb slip off, thereby causing the weapon to discharge, the slide to cycle, and your thumb to be badly injured or removed.

Be careful.

TexasRebel, you know that's not the purpose of that half-notch, right? It's there to prevent the hammer from coming all the way down when you lower it manually. It's not a safety notch as most people think. You're actually safer with it fully cocked and the thumb safety engaged.

Tx4guns,

that is in complete contrast to the Marlin Owners manuals. (Page 2 - "Full and Half Cock Hammer Positions)

and the Uberti Manual for my 1873 (no link)...on this one, the 1/2 cock is the load position, but there are actually 3 clicks, one is about 1/8" back to keep the pin from resting on a primer.

There is no reason that the 1911 half cock feature cannot be used the same way.

[This message has been edited by TexasRebel (edited 8/24/2009 3:19p).]

There are lots of reasons why the halfcock feature on the 1911 shouldn't be used as a safety position.

I haven't seen both mechanisms close up before, but there's a fair chance that the mechanism on the 1911 wasn't designed to be safe in that position whereas the marlin was.

the colt manual does not back that

it is really a non-issue though...

Without the grip safety depressed, there is no way (without modification of course) for the firing pin to strike the primer. The grip safety not only disables the trigger, but also removes a barrier from the firing pin.

[This message has been edited by TexasRebel (edited 8/24/2009 3:59p).]

There is a very small amount of metal keeping that hammer in half-cock position. It's there to prevent it from falling to the firing pin stop if you accidentally short cock it and take your thumb off the hammer.

You drop that pistol with a loaded chamber on the hammer in half-cock position, it's gonna give, and the round will most likely fire. The full cock has much more metal and a thumb safety to back it up to prevent the sear from moving. On half cock, your sear is able to move freely.

Carry it how you want, but that's not how it was designed to be carried, and it's for sure not how the military manual instructed G.I.s to carry their sidearm.

Regardless of whether it's ok to carry it that way, why would you carry it half-cocked as opposed to fully cocked? Honest question - what's the basic reasoning behind that?

the hammer, should it strike the pin will not give it enough inertia to contact the primer.

I am more used to a single action revovler, and am more comfortable with drawing a hammer while unholstering than finding and dropping a safety while not looking. On a 1911 the half-cock makes it a little bit simpler to catch the hammer with your thumb...

The half cock position provides a notch for the sear to fall into...the trigger won't budge using normal pressure (excessive pressure will break, but you can't design for every fool). The full-cock position puts the sear on a shelf that it is designed to slip off of.

The hammer will no quicker break in half cock than full cock when dropped, and the inertia-pin block will prevent the pin from reaching the primer if the grip safety is not depressed.

With a little research today, I found that the inertia-pin block may not be on all 1911 replicas... interesting.

Knowing more about the inertia pin block on mine, now. I will probably just drop the hammer all of the way.

My question is this and follows Browning's thinking...

If the hammer isn't ever meant to be used, why is it such a prominent feature on all 1911's?

I'm moving more toward the DAO from the DA/SA. I would never carry a SAO.

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I am more used to a single action revovler, and am more comfortable with drawing a hammer while unholstering than finding and dropping a safety while not looking. On a 1911 the half-cock makes it a little bit simpler to catch the hammer with your thumb...

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Just use a high thumbs grip and your firing hand thumb will automatically come to rest on the safety everytime. It also gives faster follow up shots since both your hands are as high up on the gun as possible.

Both hands?

I shoot my 1911 like a peacemaker...

1 hand, shoulders parallel to the shot, locked elbow...

bad form

My SAO is a P 220 Carry. It does NOT have a de-cocking lever.

I am not certain it has an automatic firing pin block safety.

Nevertheless, I am carry it with one in the chamber and the hammer DOWN and do not think I need to worry about the time it takes to pull the hammer back and am not worried that dropping it on the ground will cause a discharge.

"The P-220 was one of the first semi-automatic pistols to incorporate an automatic firing pin block — this means that the pistol, unless cocked and fired by the trigger, and trigger only, would not go off accidentally, such as by dropping."

http://everything2.com/title/SIG+Sauer+P-220

My question is: DO YOU THINK DROPPING IT WOULD CAUSE A DISCHARGE?

Would you carry it with the hammer down and one in the pipe? Seeing the hammer up just makes me nervous even though the safety is on.

my question is whats the point of having a SAO if you carry it with the hammer down? Thats way worse than having a DA. It defeats the purpose.

^This.

Don't buy a SAO gun to carry if you aren't comfortable with carrying it cocked and locked.

If you are in love with the 1911 get a DAO 1911...

There isn't anything wrong with double action or single action as a carry weapon IMO. I'd prefer DAO for concealed carry. If I were an LEO, I would probably carry a single action gun.

I think it would be best to minimize the number of moves I have to make, or at least minimize the amount of effort required.

Disengaging the thumb safety takes much less effort than cocking the hammer, and I'd imagine you could disengage the safety and get a shot off significantly faster as well.

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Both hands?

I shoot my 1911 like a peacemaker...

1 hand, shoulders parallel to the shot, locked elbow...

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Unless you just shoot your 1911 on the range exclusively, you really should look into using this grip. Even shooting single handed your thumb should ride the safety.

To the OP, carry it condition one (round chambered, hammer back, safety on) or buy a da/sa model. No offense, but unless you have no sense of gun safety whatsoever, you are much more likely to have a ND dropping the hammer without a decocker than carry in condition 1.

This thread dumbfounds me.

I have never seen so much stupidity in one thread.

MensaAG, the way you are carrying your pistol is unsafe and not the way it was designed to be carried. It does have an internal firing pin safety, but even that is negated when you PULL THE TRIGGER to let down the hammer. If you ask for trouble long enough, it will answer.

TexasRebel, I dont call people out in public forums, but I hope noone that reads what you have written remembers a single word.

Cocking the hammer on the draw is faster than "tripping" the safety? There are thousands of competition shooters out there waiting to take your next training class...you will make millions.

Let me see if I have this strait...in a defensive situation you are going to draw your pistol and (if you are not well trained and practised) possibly have your finger on the trigger (a well tuned 3-4 pound trigger at that) while you are cocking the hammer? What if your thumb slips? What if you fumble the draw? That single action trigger will fire...that was an aimed shot, right? What if you make it out of the holster and get it cocked? You gonna run around now with an off-safe pistol just waiting to see what happens next? It wasnt safe to carry cocked and locked, but you will carry it in the most stressful seconds of your life cocked and unlocked?

There is no comparison between the design of the 1873 Colt SAA, the 1911, and modern Marlin rifles. Each has a half-cock notch for different purposes. To make the comparison is rediculous.

The 1911 Grip Safety does NOT block the firing pin. It blocks the hammer & sear. The FP is blocked by a plunger pin activated by the trigger bar. This is called the Colt Series 80, as in 1980. Wanna guess why they added it?

The Series 80 improvement is on most, not all, 1911 clones made after Colt introduced it. None before it.

The half-cock on a 1911 hammer is there as a sort of safety net to catch the hammer in case the sear tip breaks during cycling. You are right about only one thing: the hammer wont break. The sear will. If the sear tip were to break, the hammer could follow the slide forward and fire the pistol out of battery. (That's bad.)

Metalurgy in the late 19th Century and early 20th was not up to our Moon Shot standards of today. Sears broke then, and now. My last one made it almost 4000 rounds.

The half-cock notch was never intended as a place to safely store the hammer over a loaded chamber for people who's parents didnt pick them up enough as children. To do so is unsafe, and stupid. You risk injury to yourself and everyone around you when you lower that hammer to half-cock. (Remember that Series 80 thingy? And the Grip safety? You just disabled both of those to lower the hammer...)

It is very twisted logic to think that the pistol has a hammer, so it must be OK to lower the hammer in order to cock it later. All pistols back then had hammers. Folks sort of liked them. The pistol was designed with an external hammer for several reasons; they worked better than the internal hammers of the day, had more mass to more reliably strike the primer hard enough, and most importantly, primers back then where very hard and it was not uncommon to have one not fire. The remeady of the day was to recock the hammer and try again. Tap, Rack, Bang was not the proscribed Immediate Action Drill in the 10's, 20's, 30's...hell, not till the 70's.

If any of you dont like light trigger pulls, then get a Double Action Only. I'm sorry, but what I have read in this thread is not only stupid but dangerous. Guns are the most fun and enjoyable tools and toys that we can own. But if you are not going to use them the way they are designed to be used, then you are a danger to yourself and everyone around you. They dont abide negligence, carelessness or even thoughtlessness.

MensaAG read this article: http://www.americanhandgunner.com/FTR1107.html

It is written by an expert about your pistol. Your handgun was designed to be operated in a certain way. If you are uncomfortable with that, get some practice, or sell it. The 220SAO was designed to emulate the 1911 in every way but one. It cured the 1911's greatest flaw, which is that you cant load and unload with the safety on. Do you have the manual? Read it, or get one and then read it. Sig will send you one for free.



[This message has been edited by Puryear Playboy (edited 8/25/2009 3:47p).]

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The 1911 Grip Safety does NOT block the firing pin. It blocks the sear.

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that's funny, the mechanics of my 1911 prove you wrong... If the grip safety isn't depressed, the inertia pin block is in place, and the firing pin cannot strike the primer without breaking a 3/32 steel plate.

I posted a link to a Colt 1911 manual earlier in this thread, and guess what... it suggests the shooter use the grip that I've always used.

The manual also displays the half-cock safety as having two functions.

...unholstering and pulling a hammer back before putting your finger on the trigger isn't really all that hard.

If the 1911 was meant to always be either unchambered or "cocked & locked" there would be no hammer...there would be no need for one... simple as that. NOTHING was put on this gun for asthetic appeal.

If you can't relax the hammer on a firearm without a discharge...please put the gun down and step away.

you keep carrying with a hammer ready to fall, I'll keep carrying with a hammer than can't put enough energy out to ignite the primer... it may take 40 years, but we'll see who gets a AD/ND first...

in fact, I'm betting my life on it.