Hammer down on a loaded .45ACP

  • Thread starter Thread starter PreserveFreedom
  • Start date Start date
I thinking carrying a 1911 hammer down is a bad idea. As several have mentioned, it takes fine motor skills to cock the hammer. You may fumble it. You may not have your weak hand to cock the hammer, because it may be busy fending off the bad guy. In which case you'll have to cock the hammer with your strong thumb. And look what happens to your grip when you cock the hammer with your strong thumb: you have drastically weakened your grip on the gun, just at the moment while you're struggling with Mongo. Bad idea.

Finally, cocking is significantly slower and much more error prone than wiping the safety off.

I see no good reason for carrying an M1911 hammer down on a loaded chamber, and several reasons not to. Carry it cocked and locked or carry something else.

M1911
 
Yes radom, you are correct. There is pin incorporated in the receiver that lifts a plunger out of way to allow the firing pin to move forward. The FireStorm as far as I know does not have this feature. Kimbers do not have this feature. I do not believe that SA has it either, although I believe Paraordinance does. Now common sense has to reign here some where. If you push the firing pen forward and nothing comes out the front, how the heck do you think the dang thing fires? It must be struck by the hammer with enough force to penetrate the primer. A drop on the hammer with will cause the round to go off as advertised. Carrying it in this manner is dangerous to all around you. Sorry, but that is the way I feel.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PreserveFreedom:
Ed, I don't think it would. By the way it looks on the inside, the hammer would have to bounce and land back down hard enough to shoot a spring loaded firing mechanism forward with enough momentum to ding the primer.[/quote]

I think if you do a little more research, you'll find that a 1911 without the firing pin block (newer PO & Colt pistols) can indeed fire if dropped on the hammer with the hammer down. If you'd like to correspond with someone with actual experience with that happening, try Mac Scott at SM&A www.colt380.com, he's mentioned it to me a couple of times in discussions about Series 70 vs. Series 80 1911 pistols.
 
Thanx for all of the replies! I can see now how if the hammer was snagged and dropped in the less than half cocked position it may discharge. I can see how it may take more effort to cock it than it would to click the safety down. But looking at my pistol, I still don't see how a blow to a rested hammer with this design could transfer to the primer. As I read in another thread.....and was well worded..."The firing pin is shorter than the channel that it rides in."
 
Well - right or wrong, I'd guess a reloader could experiment with primer-only round or two and end the speculation - or is there already significant testing available on this subject?
 
Preserve Freedom, think about this. Have you ever seen the sets of 4 or 5 hanging steel balls set in a row (each touching)? When you take one end ball and set it in motion, it contacts the next ball and the force is transferred through the others and ultimately causes the other end ball to swing. This is the type of energy transfer which can happen with the hammer down. I hope this post makes some sence.
 
Why don't you just get a round of primed brass, ease the hammer down, then hit the hammer with a rubber hammer. Better wear ear and eye protection, just in case.
 
As an engineer, maybe I can shed a little light on one aspect of this issue. As long as the hammer is resting against the slide and does not have any room to travel farther forward, then I can not see any way that the inertia of dropping a gun on the hammer could cause it to fire. If you drop a gun on the hammer, the firing pins inertia is going to try and make it travel AWAY from the primer, only if you drop it on the muzzle, would inertia cause the firing pin to possibly strike the primer. But on modern 1911's the firing pin is physically prevented from moving forward anyway unless the trigger is pulled.
 
I don't think inertia would propel the firing pin forward from a blow to the hammer, but the transmitted impulse would. Think about croquet, or billiards, or those swinging ball executive toys where an immobile ball abuting another ball is struck, and the transmitted impulse propels the ball. Put a pencil in the barrel of your unloaded pistol with the hammer down, and strike the hammer a sharp blow, see if the pencil is "shot" out.

[This message has been edited by stanmog (edited September 13, 2000).]
 
I just put a primed shell (no powder or bullet) in my Para Ordinance P13 and wailed away on the dropped hammer with my leather mallet. Nothing happened. I then smacked the hammer repeatedly with a heavy plastic mallet. Again - nothing. I followed up on this experiment by repeatedly striking the front (barrel end) of the pistol with the leather mallet. Once again nothing.

Now I have to confess, the P13 has a firing pin block that only releases the pin when the trigger is pulled, so this may have not been a fair trail. Perhaps I'll try this again on a 1960's vintage 1911 from Colt.

I carry condition 2 and for the last five years of CCW, I've not had an accidental discharge due to ANY reason.
 
Cocked and locked is the ONLY way to go. Even when I had DA/SA autos (HK and Witness) I carried them cocked and locked. It's kind of like having a pistol for home defense and putting a trigger lock on it. NO DARN GOOD! Anyway, as with any pistol configuration, PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. At least until you're completely comfortable carrying it that way. Spend lots of time at the range and the usual nervousness of drawing a cocked and locked pistol will disappear. Good luck.

------------------
"Charlton Heston is my President"

Danny45
NRA Life Member, NAHC Life Member, Buckmasters Life Member
 
CidatelGrad hit the nail on the head-if you decock a chamber-loaded 1911 enough times, eventually, the hammer will get away from you and you'll have an unintentional discharge (negligence).
It's been said before, and bears repeating; there are 2 types of gun owners-those who have had an ND, and those who will have an ND.
If you're not comfortable carrying a 1911 cocked and locked, then carry it with an empty chamber and full mag, and practice getting into battery fast. Or carry something else, like a good revolver.

------------------
Shoot straight & make big holes, regards, Richard at The Shottist's Center
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="arial,helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Danny45:
Cocked and locked is the ONLY way to go. Even when I had DA/SA autos (HK and Witness) I carried them cocked and locked. It's kind of like having a pistol for home defense and putting a trigger lock on it.
[/quote]

Why would you carry a DA/SA auto Cocked and Locked...Why not just buy one that is decock only...I would feel an increased sense of safety with having to shoot the first round in the chamber in DA, and then the rest in SA. I think there would be too much of the risk of cocking but forgetting to activate the thumb safety and then snagging the trigger. A LEO buddy of mine, had a trigger snagging problem with his glock. Had a brand new duty holster that was real stiff, went to put his glock in the holster and the trigger snagged on the thumb break. Took one in the leg...Ouch...
 
The only 45 I've experience with is my Ruger P90DC "decocker" so thus I don't understand this "cocked and locked" discussion. Yes, I must find a friend with a "normal" 1911 and try out these options.

Question though,
Am I safe carrying this decocker with a round in the chamber and the hammer "decocked"? If I should need to draw and fire, the first round is a long double action trigger pull.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Solitar:
Question though,
Am I safe carrying this decocker with a round in the chamber and the hammer "decocked"? If I should need to draw and fire, the first round is a long double action trigger pull.[/quote]

Don't carry a "decock only" pistol cocked. You should only carry it decocked, especially because you don't have a manual safety that you can engage and leave the gun cocked. You snag that trigger when it is cocked, and OUCH!!! The first shot will be DA, but if you practice you can get used to it. All the shots that follow will be SA.



[This message has been edited by MattyMatt (edited September 30, 2000).]
 
Hope I'm not repeating something someone else said, but Cylinder and Slide [ see url at http://www.cylinder-slide.com/sfs.htm ] makes a thing called the Safe Fire System (SFS) which is a little bit of "cake and eat it too."

In essence, for around $175, C&S replaces the current firing system on the 1911 with one that activates the thumb safety and 3 other safeties by simply pushing the hammer down. To fire you release the thumb safety, the same way you would with any 1911. When you do that the hammer comes back and you are in condition one.

It's just a little safer version of cocked and locked without adding any hand movement other than the same hand movement you would use to disengage the safety on a standard 1911 which was cocked and locked with the hammer back.

It may in fact make access to the gun easier if it is in a pocket, you want to remove it and the hammer hangs on something.
 
Since there's absolutely nothing wrong with the current proper way to carry the 1911, C&L, I fail to see why I'd want to consider spending $175 on "improving" the gun. If C&L makes you uncomfortable, perhaps the best avenue is to consider a different pistol design.
 
Guys what the firing pin safety is for in the Series 80 Colts is to stop the firing pin from flying foward under the following condition. If you drop the pistol straight down onto the muzzle onto a hard surface, from a height of around 4 feet or better. The gun will fire one round straight down into what ever it struck. It will not cycle the action due to no resistance to recoil against and also the fact that the thumb safety is probably on, and it locks the slide. What causes the gun to fire is that the firing spring over comes its inertia and flys foward and strikes the primer firing the weapon. Remember Newtons law whcih says that an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon, by some outside force. Well you can blame it on Newton. The newer Colts, Paraordnance's have the firing pin safety. The Series 70 and back Colts, Springfield Armory's and Kimbers do not have it.

7th

7th

------------------
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL POLICE, KEEP THEM INDEPENDENT.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top