A friend sent me this article in an email.
They were thinking the same thing I was.
The sheriff’s office reports that 26-year-old Sean Santana was in his backyard Saturday afternoon, about to spray the .25-caliber pistol with cleaning solvent when the gun fired and hit him in the left middle finger.
I immediately thought of my own .25
At the lower left is my Colt 1908 Vest Pocket .25 made in 1917. At this time the colts were being made with a magazine disconnect. This device means the gun cannot be fired unless a magazine is in place. I HATE these things as I think they make the guns they’re attacked to vastly MORE dangerous than without them. First up there are lots of situations where you might NEED to shoot the gun, and it will refuse to fire. (Most common being the magazine is not fully seated, or the safety is worn) If you’re defending your life this could mean your death. Of course also this device makes a gun “Safe” simply by removing the magazine. Leading to the counter-intuitive situation where you “unload” the gun by removing the magazine (but leaving a round in the chamber) if at any point you insert an UNLOADED magazine into the gun and pull the trigger the gun WILL fire. Last with this and many similar guns (This is essentially the first gun designed for the .25, so many other guns that were built after are very similar) to take them apart (for cleaning for example) you would need to remove the magazine and open the action to show clear. Then before you initiate the dissambly you would need to re-insert a *preferably unloaded* magazine and pull the trigger.
Skip a few of these steps or do them in the wrong order and you have a gun that’s going to go off. Of course this issue can happen even with firearms without a disconnect on the magazine. One must always remember the four rules
RULE I: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED
RULE II: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY
RULE III: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET
RULE IV: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET AND WHAT LIES BEYOND IT
Be safe people, and as a personal recommendation, if you own a defensive that has a magazine disconnect in place take it to a competent gunsmith and have it disabled, it just might save your life. My 1908 Colt will keep its disconnect as it is a collector’s piece, not a defensive arm, even tho that is EXACTLY what John Browning designed it for over 100 year ago.
That’s probably the thing that bugs me the most about my wife’s P22 – having to re-insert a magazine to drop the hammer for storage after a range session.
I have no idea why they felt the need to put in the mag disconnect on that gun. On top of all that, why doesn’t the manual safety work as a decocking leaver like every other walther on the face of the planet.
Say Uncle put a round into his basement floor for that exact reason. Thankfully nobody was hurt, but that’s exactly what happened. He was putting the gun away, had the slide locked back to see clear, and didn’t have an empty magazine handy, and didn’t feel like unloaded the one he had.
I’d have to search through my blog’s archives, but there was a story a couple of years ago about a “school resource officer” in Kalifornia who got attacked with a baseball bat from behind and knocked to the ground. When he pulled his gun on the attacker, the magazine fell out. Being Kalifornia, I’m pretty sure it had a disconnect, because he had to pull his backup gun before he was able to shoot his assailant (who apparently stopped in shock for a moment before moving to continue the attack, because the cop actually had time to pull his BUG).
I’ve noticed with every holster I’ve owned, for both my Kel-Tec and my Taurus, that even though it’s difficult it is possible to accidentally apply the right amount of pressure to the holstered gun in the right place to depress the mag release and unseat the magazine. That could end up getting me killed if either one had a disconnect – which is why I won’t carry a gun that has one.
The magazine disconnect is also one of two reasons why I would instantly trade my Ruger Mk III for a Mk II (or Mk I/Standard) if I got the chance (the loaded chamber indicator is the other reason). It’s bad enough having to pull the trigger to disassemble/reassemble it, but I really don’t like having to repeatedly insert and remove the magazine to do it.
Magazine disconnects are just a bad idea. I would hesitate to disable one, though. Doing so is lawyer food, pure and simple, if you ever actually have to use that weapon defensively. Even more so if, Diety forbid, you ever have an ND with that weapon.
I know a cop who’s drawn his duty gun from his duty holster (S&W4006 or similar) on the range and had the mag disconnect engage because his gun belt had been jostled during the day.
Yeah is the Ruger Mk series Loaded chamber flag the one that if you drop the gun on the flag it can touch off the chambered round?
As for lawyer fodder, get a lawyer who specializes in firearms law, and keep his card in your wallet next to your carry permit. Likely if you need to pull the permit you’ll also need to call his office. Just let him know all the safety concerns there are about the disconnect.
I’d say the ONLY angle another lawyer would have against you is if you did the modification your self, or had it done by anybody who doesn’t make their living as a gunsmith. That way if it really comes down to brass tacks you can call up the smith as an expert witness to certify that his work in no way makes a firearm unsafe.
It was, but they fixed it. The original design was a simple lever – the rim of the cartridge pushed the flag out. The problem was that it was a simple lever, meaning that pushing (or dropping it) on the flag pushed it against the rim. Since it’s a rimfire cartridge, that set the round off. The redesign made it a 2-part lever, adding a pivot point so that pressure on the flag wasn’t transmitted to the cartridge.
It would still be an uphill battle, and not one you’re guaranteed to convince a judge or jury to rule in your favour on – the bottom line for the judge or jury being that you (either personally or via a gunsmith) deliberately disabled a mechanism intended as a safety feature, and recognized by the “industry” as a safety feature. Your opinion of whether it’s really safe or not wouldn’t matter, and it puts you in the position of having to prove that you didn’t make the gun “unsafe*”. Why put yourself in that position when you don’t absolutely need to?
Oddly, considering the above, the courts don’t consider a gun sold without a mag disconnect any more dangerous than a gun sold with one. But if you disable it you suddenly have to prove it’s not more dangerous. Then again, we both know it’s not really a “justice” system.
* I know, I know. “Is gun, is not safe.”
If it comes down to all that you’re in such a hostile environment your ass is grass.
And at that point I’d be putting my house up for sale and calling Alan Gura and asking him to get the US Supreme Court on line 1!
It’s not really a Walther, though, right? I knew about Uncle’s ND in the basement, it is the reason I have a Homer Bucket full of sand next to the cleaning station and *never* take a loaded magazine down there with me. The gun came with 2 of the newer magazines that are metallic finished; we bought an older mag that is black anodized, and given the feed issues those mags have, I might just decommission it and use it strictly as a dummy mag-safety key.
As for the reason to include the mag safety, this is a gun with a frigging frame lock as well.
Colt Vest Pockets prior to 1916 didn’t have the mag disconnect. The Tansley Device!
It’s a recurring pattern with Colt too. The Pocket Hammerless started without it and ended with it. The Junior started without it and ended with it.
Even the FN/Browning version got sucked into it in later production.
Yeah I know they weren’t born with it. So that means that my hatred of the device is blessed by St. Browning. 🙂
Heard someplace that cops who make the purchase orders like magazine disconnects. I don’t know why – revolvers don’t have any such capability.
The best I’ve heard is a Mas Ayoob article where if an officer is struggling with a suspect he can dump his mag and have a disabled gun very quickly.
Of course that negates the value of an officer having a WORKING gun in a confrontation, and of course Mas fails to explain WHEN an officer should brick his gun.
I REALLY like the teachings I’ve read and watched from Officer Ayoob, but I STRONGLY disagree with him on that one.