magazine disconnect

Micheal no doubt there were those cases to, that is why there is a warning on blow dryers not to use them while in the tub or shower, someone, somewhere at one time did it.

Bentcursor often times in a struggle over your own gun both hands are tied up either holding onto the gun or holding the gun and fighting at the same time. You were trained to hit the mag release, let go of the gun and in theory while the bad guy desperately tried to make the gun work you drew your BUG and finished the job. Oh by the way the training also included push the button, let go of the gun, create distance and get to your shotgun in the car just in case you did not carry a BUG.

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Originally Posted by tacman605

Well guys you laugh but that was one of the intended purposes, according to LE marketing, years and years ago.

The officer was involved in a struggle hits the mag release either dropping the mag entirely or just enough to activate the disconnect and the suspect could not fire the weapon. There were I believe two actual cases involving S&W 59's if I remember right. Both situations ended with the officer drawing a BUG and shooting the suspects.
The same type marketing stated that if you carried a traditional DA/SA firearm that with the safety engaged that if the suspect gained control of your weapon the would not be able to figure out how to release the safety giving you time to draw a BUG or end the confrontation another way. It did not take long for BG's to figure out the safety features.
Another feature told to LE was that no longer would you have to put your weapon in the lockbox simply drop the mag rendering the weapon useless and put the mag in the box. It took about a 10 seconds to realize that there were still mags on your belt that could be used against you.

The Hi Power's mag disconnect was at the time touted as a modern marvel so to speak.

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That's very interesting, I never knew that. I guess it would be a lot easier to quickly train an officer how to use the mag realease in a situation such as this rather than spend numerous hours and money on training weapon retention from a variety of situations. With that said, I've seen individuals in FOF classes who are pretty well trained in weapon retention get overwhelmed with multiple attackers and could have used the disconnect. Still not for me but I understand the purpose behind it now.

If I was struggling over the gun with a BG, I'd pull the trigger. The the round will go off and he will either be hit with the round and fall or run away or the round will miss and scare him enough to let go. The other possible outcome is, the round goes off, but doesn't scare him, whether he is hit or not. He still manages to get the gun away from you. But chances are, he grabbed the gun itself, not your arm causing the gun to malfunction when you fired. Even if he manages to get the gun, he's going to have be be gun savvy enough or trained to know a malfunction needs to be cleared. This will buy you time, while he's clicking the trigger on a spent casing. If you have a knife, cut him up and do your best to retrieve your gun . If you carry a BUG, draw and shoot.

Magazine disconnects are designed for people who don't have the knowledge or have a slipping memory. There have been many cases where people drop the mag out of a gun and think it's unloaded. Other than that, mag disconnects serve no real useful purpose in my opinion.

I have no real opinions either way about magazine disconnects; some of my handguns have them, some don't.

As far as the BG grabbing my gun and me dropping the mag to prevent the gun's use, I think I'm gonna be too concentrated on maintaining possession and ripping his eyes out and bitting his ears off to worry about finding the dang mag release. Get it?

As always, we should note that LEO encounters are not necessarily applicable to the circumstances presented to the civilian defender.

The other point is that as a result of removing the mag disconnect safety from the two guns I have that had them, the trigger was noticeably improve as a result of the adjustment.

If you are seriously concerned with a H2H battle for control of your firearm, Israeli carry is a way to deal with that. Since I train in FoF, if I'm close enough to grapple with a target, the firearm isn't in play.

There are a few well known cases of a disconnect saving an officer's life. There are also a few cases of it backfiring. If one chooses a disconnect for this role, you better darn well know how to use your hands or an edged weapon to cut a guy off of you and you better train often to get a fresh mag in that gun or draw a back up. It's not as simple as dropping the mag and we'll live another day. We still have to deal with the threat.

Personally, they're not for me, though I do see where they have a limited role. Unfortunately, it requires training for proper employment and even more unfortunate is that most people that carry don't train often at all and most departments that issue firearms with mag disconnects don't invest in proper training due to budgetary constraints, while most officers don't seek outside training... Which is extremely unfortunate as I can link numerous videos where an officer may still be alive today.

Realistically, I think if you carry a handgun you better man up and invest time and money into training. Not just trainng in how to shoot a handgun, but how to fight with a handgun. These are two very different things. If one is worried about weapon retention, the reasonable thing would be to not rely on a mechanical device but your own training. Invest in edged weapons training for handgun retention as well as hand to hand.

If that's too much for you (generally speaking) then be content with the fact that there's about .0001% chance you'll ever be forced into retaining your handgun. It's quite unlikely to occur, even for an officer. I train for it, but I train for everything as I'm silly like that.

I think it's very unlikely for this to be a concern for a civilian carrying concealed. But, you just never know. You may be leaning over a counter at a gas station and the dude behind you decides he'd like a new handgun. Maybe not?

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Originally Posted by tacman605

Well guys you laugh but that was one of the intended purposes, according to LE marketing, years and years ago.

<snip>.

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Note the bolded word.

Back from losing my old ISP and crashing a computer.

I dumped the one on my High Power because it kept the magazine from falling free. Of course anyone with the slightest knowledge of a stoppage drill knows to slap the butt to put the mag back in. "Safety"? Sheesh.

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Originally Posted by sdprof

Note the bolded word.

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Law Enforcement agencies typically don't have something to sell. That is called a release or even an after action report. He was not talking about S&W using this info in an ad.

What tacman605 (a contractor in Iraq that is also a firearms instructor) is talking about is factual information that provided an unbiased account of how the magazine safety played a part in saving the lives of the officers involved. This is NOT a sales pitch in any way.

I leave my guns the way they were made. The mag disconnect has good and bad points. From a product liability view, if you start doing ' work' on your guns you might be the one left holding the bag. The OEM can easily blame you for what may go wrong.

I don't like mag disconnects. Unlike a cop I don't intend to willingly get close to a known bad-guy.

(And if a bad guy gets close to me, I am not going to try and restrain him, I'm going to try to disable him. Last I heard, it is frowned on when cops try to poke out eyes, kick to the crotch, bite, scratch, stab, or any other things on my list of actions that I will do to save my life.)

I definitely do NOT thing that mag disconnects are good for the military. In those types of situations I would want the extra round during a mag change. If I were to get in a hand-to-hand fight with the enemy, I would hope that one of my guys would join in the fight.

My opinions. They are worth what you paid for them.

i dont have a use for a magazine disconnect. my carry gun had one. removing it was the first thing i did when i brought it home. i had heard about them causing light strikes on certain models.

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Originally Posted by 9mmHP

Well I am not a fan of a gun with a magizine disconnect I was thinking there could be an upside...Say you had to draw on a BG and he somehow grabs your wrist and you are struggling for the gun. Well if you could reach your mag release and drop the mag and than the gun and draw your BUG than it could be a lifesaver. Just a thought what do you guys think?:confused:

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Personally....I think that's too much thinking in the heat of the moment. I'm not a fan of magazine disconnects either. No pros from my standpoint. You eject the mag for what? Save your life? Already too late at this point IMO. I'm more a fan of the chambered round going off when the trigger is pulled with or without mag. Save it for the perp or save it for yourself.

I personally don't see an upside to the mag safety. There have been cases where a bullet was stopped by a cigarette lighter. That doesn't mean I want all the shirts I buy from now on to have a lighter sewn into the breast pocket.

Personal preference, all my guns have no mag disconnect.