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F.O.A.D. F.O.A.D. is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Feb 2013
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Default Speaking of polymer ...

On 3/24/13 5:04 PM, J Herring wrote:

The trigger pull on the P250 is also pretty long, as it's double action only. The safety is a
trigger safety, but I don't see myself carrying the thing with a round in the chamber.


Ahh, an adaptation of the famous GLOCK trigger safety, which isn't a
safety at all. Pull the trigger, the gun goes BANG! A real safety
prevents the firearm from firing, even if the trigger is pulled.

Trigger safety.


Here's an article about "trigger safeties."

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/...-safety-issues


In the late 1990s, U.S. employees expressed concerns to the Austrian gun
maker regarding the Glock 22

Glock markets its weapons as "safe action pistols." But internal company
documents reviewed by BusinessWeek—and reported here for the first
time—reveal that in the late 1990s, company employees in the U.S.
expressed concern about the safe performance of the Glock 22, a model
commonly used by American police officers.

If these documents had surfaced in injury lawsuits filed over the years
against Glock, they could have created potentially serious liability
trouble for the company, according to plaintiffs' lawyers. "Documents of
this sort were requested in pretrial discovery by us and by lawyers in
other cases," says Daniel G. Abel, an attorney who helped represent the
city of New Orleans in an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit against the
gun industry in the late 1990s. "These documents should have been
disclosed in discovery. There is no excuse—no legitimate excuse—for
their not being disclosed."

Glock's general counsel, Carlos Guevara, said in a written response:
"Glock pistols are remarkably safe and reliable, historically and
currently, and are of exceedingly high quality.…When involved in
products liability cases, we respond to discovery requests following the
rules of the jurisdiction, evidentiary rules and practices, and pursuant
to the laws of the United States and orders of the courts."

Safety has long been a point of contention for Glock of Austria. Unlike
most handguns, which have external on-off safeties, Glock pistols are
equipped with internal mechanisms that prevent firing. These internal
safeties are disengaged merely by depressing the trigger.

** The ability to fire immediately, without worrying about an external
safety, is one feature Glock has stressed as an advantage when selling
its guns, especially to police departments.**

Skeptics see this feature in a different light. The Consumer Federation
of America has cited the Glock's design as one reason the gun has been
the subject of dozens of lawsuits filed after unintentional shootings,
including a number by police officers. The company has won or
confidentially settled most of these cases without acknowledging any
liability.

Paul F. Jannuzzo, Glock's former top executive in the U.S., says in an
interview that, overall, the company's pistols are as safe as comparable
handguns—and more durable. "The one problem," he says, "was [the Glock]
would go off sometimes when it wasn't supposed to."

Occasional Jamming

Another problem that surfaced in the 1990s and persisted for years
thereafter was occasional jamming, Jannuzzo says. In 1998 he and other
Glock officials in the U.S. discovered guns that failed to fire
properly. "These malfunctions were very difficult to clear and could not
be cleared with the normal 'tap, rack' drill," stated a Feb. 12, 1998,
memo from American employees to Glock founder and owner Gaston Glock
entitled "Performance of G 22s." "Law enforcement officers see this type
of stoppage as a serious failure and one which has life-threatening
implications," the memo added. "If these were received by the FBI or DEA
[both Glock customers], they would immediately suspend the contract and
demand a retest or other action."

The memo described tests on eight sample guns that were fired more than
2,000 times in all. "In particular, we are concerned with the difference
in the poor test results in the U.S., compared with the better results
achieved in Austria," the memo told Gaston Glock. The company
manufactures parts in Austria and assembles guns for the American market
at a plant outside Atlanta.

Four days later, on Feb. 16, Jannuzzo followed up with a letter to
Gaston Glock. Jannuzzo disputed the contention by company executives in
Austria that the malfunctioning pistols needed a "breaking-in period,"
after which they would work properly. This notion "flies in the face of
the Glock pistol's reputation as being the best shooting semi-automatic
'out of the box,'" Jannuzzo wrote.

In an interview, Jannuzzo adds: "It was a problem, and it was much more
of a problem than they [executives in Austria] wanted to admit.…They
never knew which guns were going to break."

Guevara, the Glock general counsel, disagreed: "Each pistol undergoes
numerous quality control checks throughout the manufacturing and
assembly process.…Additionally, the firearms industry is highly
regulated in the United States (and internationally), and Glock fully
complies with all rules and regulations with respect to every aspect of
Glock's business, including sales."

- - - -

Have fun, and report back when your 30 years of military experience with
firearms results in a BANG! accident.