So loaded, chambered, cocked and unlocked.

Why do I ask this? I pulled out my Hi-Power for the first time in like 12 years or so. I am finally getting around to chasing a bit of an extractor issue with it. I get to things……just sometimes in a geological time frame. .


Anyway so as I am screwing with the gun and running it at the range it REALLY hit home that there was/is a time where nobody would ever suggest carrying a HP safety off yet the stock HP trigger is frankly pretty atrocious for a single action. It has plenty of take up and the break is fairly heavy. It’s not a horrendous trigger especially by my standards to be sure but it really brought home that we are all perfectly fine running around with short travel, light weight trigger striker fired guns with no safety (beyond the internal/drop stuff). It’s nothing for us to grab a Walther PDP or P320 etc. etc. yet I feel like most folks would look at me like I was a lunatic for carrying an HP safety off.

I’m not judging or calling out I’m just making an observation about how times have changed.

Striker guns make me nervous enough. If I wanted to go BHP safety off, it would only be with a trigger guard sheath in place, IWB with the 550 cord looped over my belt.

Yeah carrying a 7+ pound SA pistol chambered, hammer back, with the safety off sounds insane to do (and I never would). But a 4.5 lb striker with no manual safety is fine

Israeli carry was/is a thing for a reason (chamber empty, safety off).

BTW OP have you removed the trigger/mag safety disconnect safety yet? Helps with the trigger a bit IME. It's easy to do.

Times have changed. I obviously wouldn’t, nor would you, but I get your point. I don’t carry strikers appendix unless it also has a manual safety. I prefer hammer guns for appendix otherwise.

I kinda jokingly laughed in one of the 320 threads because somebody lambasted Sig over the drop safety stuff(they earned the derision imo for how they handled it). I then pointed out I could/have/and do buy and carry guns with no FPB. Why so much angst towards the 320 yet my Valor will fire like a SOB if dropped at the right height and angle?

Life ain’t fair, the internet is a cruel mistress, and people don’t apply rational thought equally across the spectrum.

quote:

Yeah carrying a 7+ pound SA pistol chambered, hammer back, with the safety off sounds insane to do (and I never would). But a 4.5 lb striker with no manual safety is fine

Yep kind of my point. I am just as “guilty” of that mindset as anybody else. I’ll happily grab that Smith & Glock PDP and carry away but I wouldn’t even think about imagining carrying the HP cocked and unlocked. I just find it odd how our “monkey brains” work sometimes.

quote:

BTW OP have you removed the trigger/mag safety disconnect safety yet? Helps with the trigger a bit IME. It's easy to do.

I have and no it wasn’t. Pins were super tight in mine and the trigger had to come out. Worth it though as I HAAAAAATTTTEEEEE magazine disconnects. Truth be told if this was a gun I ever saw as anything more then a pretty range toy I’d have left it stock as that’s just the kind of guy I am with things like this.

quote:

Times have changed. I obviously wouldn’t, nor would you, but I get your point. I don’t carry strikers appendix unless it also has a manual safety. I prefer hammer guns for appendix otherwise

I don’t carry appendix period but I personally would definitely run something with a hammer if I did. I am not naive enough to think we NEVER cross a pistol muzzle across some part of our body now and then but appendix crosses lots of stuff I REALLY don’t want holes in. My ass is fat enough to take a few rounds and be fine. . Hell I might not even notice.

quote:

yet my Valor will fire like a SOB if dropped at the right height and angle?

At least series 70 1911s tend to go off muzzle down. I’ll take that vs a muzzle up shot the 320 issue had. Honestly though in 2025 I simply expect everything to be drop safe barring older designs etc.

I don’t know, that Shadow 2 killed the shit out of that RSO in Arizona a few years back.

My favorite appendix is my HK LEM guns. They are kind of perfect for carry. P2000SK LEM whatever variant that is. HK always confused me with their numbering system.

Honestly I have been moving from mostly appendix to mostly Upper Hand OWB with speed clipz at 3-4 o’clock. I’m becoming a scaredy cat as I get old.

The Browning HP was engineered to be carried cocked and locked, that's the way it should be carried. I don't see this as a difficult question.

I remember being at a gun range/store near Springfield VA back in 2018. One of the dudes working there was carrying a DA/SA Sig Sauer P229, holstered, round chambered, with the hammer back. Even though I knew the answer, I asked if the P229 was one of the SAO models. He said "nope, double action single action," I asked if he was concerned about the lack of a safety in single action mode with a chambered round. Of course he smugly points to his head, and says "here's my safety." I looked at him like he was crazy for doing so, left and never returned.

I understand your point regarding striker fired guns, but they are engineered with the requisite internal safeties, and are meant to be carried with a chambered round.

Like I mentioned at the beginning, we should carry guns the way they were engineered to be carried.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig Sauer: For Hire:
The Browning HP was engineered to be carried cocked and locked, that's the way it should be carried. I don't see this as a difficult question.

+1
This is why I waited for someone to state it more eloquently than I would.

Would I carry a BHP cocked and off safe-Nope.

When I was policing, our duty gun the P226 DA/SA it has a pretty heavy DA. The powers that be, decided a single action 1911 was too light of a trigger and we wernt allowed to carry them off duty. It was having the olde chief retire before we could get a Glock (striker) being allowed for off duty. That was around 2004.

My dad has my BHP, and if I had it and carried it I’d carry it cocked and locked like it was designed to be carried by the maker. (I’d also remove the mag disconnect) just like I carry my 1911.

I've been making this point for years.

Glock caused a fundamental shift in the idea of what is "safe".

Prior to Glock we had SA Cocked & Locked (1911), DA/SA with Cock & Lock (CZ75), DA/SA with Decocker (Sig Sauer), DA/SA with Decocker Safety (Berretta 92 and most 3rd Gen Smiths), and Squeeze Cock (HK P7).

In every case there was either a manual safety lever, or a heavy DA pull to avoid ND's, or a manual cock to get it into SA.

Glock put the "safety" on the trigger, thereby meeting the requirement for a "safety lever" for militaries and gov't agencies that insisted on it. The striker was partially cocked so the trigger pull was considered "double action", but is really "1.5 action", or maybe even "1.25 action". The safety does not meet any definition of a "safety" in an engineering sense, since it is defeated by pulling the trigger normally.

As a newcomer with no prior experience designing firearms, Gaston Glock looked at the requirements and met them to the letter with a very simple and reliable design. But it still has a 5.5 lb trigger and the trigger safety doesn't do a whole lot to prevent ND's, but it does appear to prevent some so it does no harm and does some help.

Once Glock was firmy established, "experts" insisted that manual safeties will "get you killed" because you will not be able to defeat it under stress. But I really haven't seen any scientific studies comparing MS to non-MS guns proving this. Nor have I seen any reports of LE officers getting shot first because they forgot to "unsafe" their pistol. And no duty Shotgun or Semi-Auto rifle lacks a safety and that hasn't been an issue. Then after a while the essential DA-ish striker action that made Glock acceptable to LE agencies gave way to fully cocked SA strikers because the trigger "feels the same as a Glock".

And now we have Level 3 retention holsters with a button and a flipping hood, both of which we have to manipulate to unholster the pistol. How can anyone do these holster manipulations under stress? Training? But I thought "training" would not be enough to defeat a manual safety under stress? Yes I know that lever 3 holsters are intended to prevent gun grabs, but still, they are complicated and require training and practice to use correctly.

So now we have the P320 which is the final result of all this which is effectively no different than many of the above guns cocked and unlocked in SA. The p320 has a light short solid trigger with no "safety" and a fully cocked striker. Somehow this is "safe". And we have to put the thing in a Rube Goldberg holster that requires us to defeat TWO MANUAL SAFETIES to get the pistol out. How in the hell did we get to this place? It is truly absurd.

I like my Manual Safety P320's because they feel and function like double stack 9mm 1911's. With a Wilson Grip Module the similarity is obvious. If you look at Sig's website you will see more 320's are becoming available with Manual Safeties - X-Ten, Legion (CA model), and various others. I think the message now is "The P320 is safe if you are safe with it. If you you can't be safe with it, get a manual safety model".

I am starting to think that Ernest Langdon has been right all along. DA/SA with decocker, 8 lb DA and 4 lb SA is ideal. Alternatively, HK LEM. Just need some slimmer options...

I carried a P228 for years, because I liked that DA trigger. Even now, I’ve transitioned to primarily the P365, but all of mine have the manual safety. I will occasionally carry a cocked and locked SAO gun. I don’t hate on people who carry Glocks, etc, obviously tons of folks carry them safely. But it’s just not for me, I like that “extra” safety.

I toted around a BHP for a little while. I love the gun, it just “fits” my hand.
I also carried an 1911 while in the Marines, and was taught by some pretty serious instructors.

From day #1 I was taught to carry the weapon with one in the chamber, cocked, safety on. As Im drawing the weapon from the holster, Im thumbing the safety off, and acquiring the sights & target.
Things have changed a little, now they are acquiring sights & target, then thumbing the safety.

Seeing that this was in the Marines, I don’t know how many hundreds and hundreds of times we practiced the draw and acquire and pulling the trigger… it became second nature.

1995 I started caring a DAO pistol, then a striker fired.
Outside of going to the range and practicing, I haven’t carried a BHP or 1911. Yet after all those years, I still thumb the rear left side of the slide on a Glock.

Why don’t I modify this action?
Why should I? Chances are, Im going to carry the BHP when I retire.

Would I carry a BHP / 1911 with the safety off?
NOOOOOO!
That trigger is too light for my taste.

No Way! Mine had some work by Novak’s and I’d never dream of carrying it with the safety off.

One of the many I regret selling.

Bob

^ @straightshooter1, I hear you there, sir - Novak BHPs are marvelous. I have let one go myself (in favor of some other shiny thing that had my attention) and may need to rectify that.

Cocked-and-locked / “Condition 1” for me and the BHP as well as the 1911; no other carry-method works (for me).

It was kind of a rhetorical question. Of course I or you should carry cocked and locked. My point was a stock Hi-Power has a fairly heavy, fairly long travel trigger and if I were to ever carry one I certainly would carry C&L. It just perplexes me that while I or you wouldn’t think of carrying sans safety we will certainly carry a 4.5 pound short travel striker trigger without a thought.

The whole 320 kefluffle sort of brought this home for me as I was tinkering with my HP.

Or to put your question in a slightly different way. If a tabbed trigger (Glock dingus) was offered for the HP would the manual safety be necessary? Because the trigger dingus solves everything right? lol.

Times and rationales have shifted over time. Not necessarily in a more rational defendable direction.

Granted it has a heavy trigger pull weight but the release/short amount of pull on a sao hammer is not something I would want to take a chance with. With striker fired guns, for the most part, the trigger pull is longer even though lighter, so it would take more effort for it to "go off" than a sao pull.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:

<Snip>

I am starting to think that Ernest Langdon has been right all along. DA/SA with decocker, 8 lb DA and 4 lb SA is ideal. Alternatively, HK LEM. Just need some slimmer options...

Great post, and I'm kind of reaching the same conclusion. I carry/handle a gun in the real world a lot more than I actually shoot it. IMO just based on frequency/probability the scale should tip towards safety over maximum shootability, especially when the system is still quite shootable.

Am I faster on the clock with a 320? Absolutely. But it's measured in terms of tenths of a second compared to a P229 or P226, which requires a much more deliberate trigger pull, has an exposed hammer that I can block when re-holstering, and doesn't have pre-loaded springs just sitting there trying to make the gun go off. So while there is a performance price to be paid, it's a small price, and worth it in the long run, IMO.

I doubt we see agencies going back to DA/SA without some fundamental doctrinal shift. Especially with the pricing on current DA/SA guns compared to strikers. But for an individual I think there are some huge advantages.