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To: seeker41
A very, very, VERY important thing which has gone unmentioned, is that the Double Action autos have safeties that work BACKWARD...and one needs to THINK about it a lot...which won't easily happen under stress. When they first became popular, pros I knew carried their D.A.s hammer down on a live round...safety OFF. Why bother...when the 1911 still works. Jeff Cooper said a D.A. autopistol is a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. If you're arming LE personnel, then perhaps there's a case for choosing it. For one's self...no. Just don't pull it without shooting it. Don't wrestle people with a pistol in your hand. Don't manipulate it...like dealing with hammer-drop "safeties" around other people, in a crowded street. Keep it simple...and don't wake it up until you want it to sing. It's YOUR gun...not the municipality's. You are not there to straighten out the neighborhood...just to suddenly protect yourself. If need be...you can always go out and win a World War with it...in any climate....if you have the ammunition.

I suspect that the "down to up" safety is the real reason people like Glocks. If they were steel, maybe even I would carry one. Maybe.

Just like most people intuitively know how to work a D.A. revolver...they automatically snap the safety DOWN when drawing (bringing into battery) a Single Action Browning design. If my Dad hadn't carried a Walther PPK in the OSS...I would have worried more about him than I did. When we both went to the S.A. Browning High Power 9mm (Belgian), we were both relieved. We needed penetration, and lots of rounds...and it was our very best possible choice. It points like a Luger, but feeds everything, "all" the time.

Working the 1911 seems to be more genetic than anything. Click-Boom. That's it. I also wish my H.P.'s had a Grip Safety...which I'm very fond of...although John Browning didn't want ANY safety on them. The military made him do it.

For all the respect and use I have for revolvers...carrying a .38+P square-butt Chief w/ Winchester 158gr. Hollow Point Lead most of the time, when not working (having promised The Colonel before his passing that I would no longer carry a gun for money)...the M1911A1 seems to exist inside one's body...like an internal organ...waiting to be told to work...as designed...simply. Also....45ACP is big and fat and of slow, low pressure...so the tolerances necessary for them to work are wide...and rather "reliable." But remember...a revolver's "six for sure" is hard to beat, for all its drawbacks.
167 posted on 10/05/2002 12:40:22 PM PDT by PoorMuttly
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To: PoorMuttly
sigh...so much to learn so little time. Thanks again for the nice discussion. I'm researching today, probably will go to a range and let some FR HAT members instruct me on the various choices mentioned on this thread. I want to find that "perfect" pistola for me before purchasing.
170 posted on 10/05/2002 1:19:46 PM PDT by seeker41
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