Ryan has a great review of the Arcus 98DA
For as much as I love the 1911, the hi-power never really blew my skirt up, so I’ve never considered buying a REAL Browning, but with the number of surplus copies of the Browning I’ve always been interested, but given that NO version of the Hi-Power is Massachusetts approved, and all but the oldest versions are C&R eligible I haven’t been able to entertain that interest.
One of the cheaper Browning “Copies” are the Arcus Pistols out of Bulgaria, and the DA variant looks pretty cool.
I really like how this one has a manual of arms similar to the CZ-75 (itself a Browning-Inspired Design) where it can be carried cocked-and-locked like a classic Hi-Power, or you can carefully lower the hammer after loading and carry the gun with the safety off and a DA pull for your first shot.
The safety is still like a Hi-Power or a 1911, or a CZ-75 where it blocks the hammer’s travel, meaning once the hammer is down the safety cannot be physically moved, this means you will never draw the gun decocked and find the safety accidentally got bumped on.
Still with these designs you need to use caution decocking the gun, as if your finger slips the gun WILL discharge. Still if you take all the necessary precautions and don’t get complacent when doing this, it really isn’t an issue.
I carry my CZ75 decocked, I still haven’t had a susprise bang. I still decock it with a safe backstop.
Yeah if I carried my CZ-82 (its a great gun, I just think my other carry guns are better), I’d carry it with the hammer down too. Since I NEVER put a gun in a holster without press-checking it. Looks like I can do it without cocking the hammer of my blowback guns, can you press-check a 75 without cocking the hammer?
If you can, it REALLY improves the safety as you just need to decock the gun once every time you load it, and go like Weer’d and just toss your loaded gun in the safe at the end of the day. But if you need to lower the hammer every time you press-check the gun, I’d get a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with playground sand as a cheap and safe bullet trap to muzzle every time you thumb that hammer down.
I don’t press check every morning, but the gun also doesn’t come out of the holster. If you press far enough to see you will move the hammer onto the half cock notch.
Cool, thanks. Don’t think I could NOT press-check a gun I was about to carry. I’ve certainly be surprised a few mornings when I forgot that I had cleaned the gun the night before.