No More Safety For Me

So I was doing some draw and dry fire practice today with my EDC (PT145) and got to thinking. Maybe I just havent pratcied with it enough but it seems like having to swipe the manual saftey off adds quite a bit of time to my draw/site/fire motion. Now by quite a bit of time we are talking maybe a quarter to 1/2 of a second but in a deadly force scenario that half a second could mean a lot. Since my trigger has a decent amount of take up on it and the gun has a firing pin block I think I am going to try carrying it with the manual saftey off for a while and see if I cant get used to it.

1/2 second seems like a lot. You should be sweeping it off as you raise the gun, which IMO shouldn't add much of a delay at all.

Now, I personally prefer no safety because I don't want to forget to turn it off, or go through the motion but not actually get it off and then freeze up when the gun won't fire, but I don't think it's a speed issue.

I agree.

As a military police officer I wanted to eliminate any fine motor movements from my draw in the case of an emergency. I started doing this after one day at the range, during a practical weapons qual I forgot to slip the safety and was late in getting my shots off. The instructor told me if I did that in the real world it "would make me a dead man." So I began to flick the safety off when I went out on patrol, and flick it back on before going somewhere like the NEX or back to HQ.

Now, on my personal Beretta (Px4 9mm) the safety is a smaller switch, when shooting from the holster or dry firing my thumb merely grazes over the safety about 1/4 of the time. So I've done away with it and now carry condition one, hammer down safety OFF. This is only when the weapon is on my belt under my direct control, when it goes on the headboard for the night or in the safe 9for whatever reason) the safety goes back on.

If your firearm has a manual/external safety, use it. Develop the muscle memory through a lot of practice, and you won't have to even think about it when you draw your firearm.:image035::comeandgetsome:

With a good holster, it shouldn't matter carrying with the safety off. Pocket carry, even in a holster, I would probably leave it on.

It depends on the weapon. Some of these SA autos, I would highly suggest you guys carry with the safety 'on'

Clicking off the safety shouldn't take any time off your shot at all! When you draw your weapon, as soon as your muzzle is down range and just as you're pressing in to your target "click", off comes the safety, your arms reach full extension (depending on stance), you're acquiring your sight picture as you move your trigger finger to the trigger and "press" the trigger... bang! All in one fluid motion.

No lost time at all! :wink:

Rollo, I think you are making a wise choice.

They put the safety on it for a reason, I would suggest using it and practice a lot with it. I don't like any pistol with any sort of manual safety on it due to that fact. I am a violator of my own rules about safeties on guns in Afghanistan right now. I don't use the safety at all on my M9 because my hands are kinda small and I can't sweep it off with one hand. I just use the half cock on it to keep the pressure off the firing pin incase i drop it.

My EDC rotation is between a 1911 and an XD. The difference in holster presentation speed doesn't exist. If the pistol has a safety switch, I would use it. Turning off the safety should be part of the presentation, like retsupt said, it shouldn't be an issue.

That is one reason that I like the Springfield XD series. It has built in safeties, but as soon as you properly grip the gun you are ready to go. No need to remember disengaging a manual safety. On the other hand, it is all in what you practice. Muscle memory is the key. I know that I do not practice enough and I carry an LCP or a 357 revolver most of the time. I haven't worked out the clothing thing yet.

I'd be very careful if I were you. The PT145 is an SA/DA gun, and no de-cocker.

Maybe its just years of carrying a 1911, but I always feel for a thumb safety. Even on my Glock 27.

I've always thought that the benefits of having the safety on out weighted the risk of the fraction of a second that I may benefit from with it off.

If you want to carry a weapon W/out a safety get a weapon designed to be carried as such. Walking aroung W/ a SA weapon in condition zero is an ND waiting for a place to happen.

That said, I take no issue W/ carrying a DA/ SA in DA mode W/out the safety

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Originally Posted by varob

Maybe its just years of carrying a 1911, but I always feel for a thumb safety. Even on my Glock 27.

I've always thought that the benefits of having the safety on out weighted the risk of the fraction of a second that I may benefit from with it off.

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That's funny. I habitually thumb-sweep my Glocks too. They don't seem to mind... :smile: