Hammerless vs Striker fired

R

roxydad

Inactive
I am trying to come to grips with the difference between hammerless and striker fired. My wife's Ruger LCR is hammerless as is my Kel Tec P9. Does that make them striker fired? I thought a striker was nothing more than a concealed hammer or is a hammer, but in a different shape and size. I read a posting that said all bolt action rifles are striker fired. Now I'm confused. I need to be able to explain this accurately to my customers. Any info you can provide would be greatly appreciated. :confused:
 
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Hammerless revolvers actually have an unexposed hammer that fires the round.

Striker fired autos have a compressed spring that forces the striker forward to fire the round.

This is a very simple explanation of the differences between striker vs hammer fired guns. There are others on the forum that can better explain the technical differences between the two.

I am not familiar enough with the workings of a bolt action rifle to answer your question, but I would assume that it is some type of striker mechanism.
 
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Yes...it essentially moves straight forward rather than traveling in an arc as a hammer does. However, both have a firing pin that actually ruptures the primer.
 
Generally:

"Striker fired" implies that the main spring operates directly on the firing pin, as does the sear. By contrast, with a hammer fired weapon, the mainspring operates on the hammer, as does the sear, and it is the hammer (only) that operates on the firing pin.

"Hammerless" can mean many things. Sometimes it is a synonym for "striker fired." Sometimes it refers to a concealed hammer, such as the S&W Centennial or the Colt 1903 Model M. These latter firearms are "hammerless" only in the sense that you cannot thumb-cock the hammer.
 
If you ever pull the sideplate off a J-frame hammerless, such as my 442, you can see the hammer. It looks very similar to a regular hammer, but with a bit more wedge shape to it (to give it mass, I suppose, since it's shorter) and has no spur (since there would be no point).

Kind of fun to watch a function check, with the sideplate off, if you know somebody who could show you one.
 
I read a posting that said all bolt action rifles are striker fired.
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There is at least one exception to everything in the gun world, but that statement is generally true. It would, generally, be safe to say that all bolt-action rifles are striker-fired. (If some one knows of an exception, acknowledge the information and take it in stride.)

If you want to leave a little wiggle room in that statement, you could word it something like, "All common bolt action rifles are striker-fired."


I'm wracking my brain, trying to remember an example I know of, of a hammer-fired bolt action... but, can't remember what it was, for the life of me. :o
(The hammer was located under the bolt, and struck a rebounding firing pin.)
 
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