Garand Thumb Drop Test

[Crawl]

Haven't seen this posted yet, but I also never get updates from the app anymore. Please let me know if this is a repost.

Garand Thumb did a drop test with unsurprising results. Turns out that the firing pin in 70 series 1911 have a lot of momentum.

What do you think happened to the CZ75? I'm guessing the single action hammer hooks broke. Is it because tool steel is softer than OEM CZ hammers??

https://youtu.be/RMTe87kATmU?feature=shared

[SI VIS PACEM PARRABELLUM]

Tool steel is commonly hard stuff but when you intentionally abuse something like these morons then yeah you can get it to break. 1911's with the standard military lockwork or "series 70" internals should never be considered drop safe. There's just nothing locking the firing pin in place.

[czgunner]

Tool steel is commonly hard stuff but when you intentionally abuse something like these morons then yeah you can get it to break. 1911's with the standard military lockwork or "series 70" internals should never be considered drop safe. There's just nothing locking the firing pin in place.

I don't think they are morons. They are recording real world scenarios of what guns do if dropped. Everybody says they don't drop guns, but drop safeties were developed because people got shot when guns were dropped.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[Crawl]

Tool steel is commonly hard stuff

I think when you're doing a drop test, whether they make sense or not, anything can happen to any part. Firing pin blocks were invented because the market demanded them at some point. It follows that the market wants to see the results of design changes.

I'd still like to understand what broke on the CZ75. It was still safe, and it still functioned, but it was a disappointment nonetheless.



Stonebridge Gun Works says that the OEM P10 firing pin is significantly harder (RC 70, I THINK) than S7 Tool Steel (RC 55ish).

Not sure if this is true, and, if it is, I'm not sure if it's true for hammers and/or sears. Granted, the CGW parts are heat treated. Also, if it's true, I'm not sure if it matters. Maybe it only mayyer with regard to the wear of the portion that engages the trigger.
 


Regarding 1911s, my understanding is that Dan Wesson uses a lighter firing pin along with a heavier spring. It should decrease the already minimal risk.

[JMWalker]

I wonder if it's due to GT using one with the competition package installed which he specifically mentions.  I don't know the exact differences between the competition vs pro but CGW clearly states, " Not recommended for self-defense, range use, and law enforcement/military applications."

[SI VIS PACEM PARRABELLUM]

Tool steel is commonly hard stuff but when you intentionally abuse something like these morons then yeah you can get it to break. 1911's with the standard military lockwork or "series 70" internals should never be considered drop safe. There's just nothing locking the firing pin in place.

I don't think they are morons. They are recording real world scenarios of what guns do if dropped. Everybody says they don't drop guns, but drop safeties were developed because people got shot when guns were dropped.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

What they are doing is not really real world at all. yes guns get dropped but not repeatedly as they are doing. The drop safety like any part can be damaged and rendered inoperable through mishandling/abuse like this and this really in no way means the gun isn't drop safe. If you drop a gun it should be immediately cleared of any live rounds and thoroughly inspected for any damage before being put back into service.

[SI VIS PACEM PARRABELLUM]

Tool steel is commonly hard stuff

I think when you're doing a drop test, whether they make sense or not, anything can happen to any part. Firing pin blocks were invented because the market demanded them at some point. It follows that the market wants to see the results of design changes.

I'd still like to understand what broke on the CZ75. It was still safe, and it still functioned, but it was a disappointment nonetheless.



Stonebridge Gun Works says that the OEM P10 firing pin is significantly harder (RC 70, I THINK) than S7 Tool Steel (RC 55ish).

Not sure if this is true, and, if it is, I'm not sure if it's true for hammers and/or sears. Granted, the CGW parts are heat treated. Also, if it's true, I'm not sure if it matters. Maybe it only mayyer with regard to the wear of the portion that engages the trigger.
 


Regarding 1911s, my understanding is that Dan Wesson uses a lighter firing pin along with a heavier spring. It should decrease the already minimal risk.

Hammer blocking safeties/transfer bar safeties have been around in revolvers for more than a century now so they're nothing particularly new.  Without going into the convoluted world of different tool steels and hardness ratings the reason for their use in firearms has been harder and longer wearing parts.
I find the damage to the CZ in no way disappointing. The firing pin block did it's job and the gun didn't fire. Look how many times they dropped it. How long should the parts stand up to that kind of misuse? I'd say it did just fine and now it needs some repair not due to any fault of it's own.  Maybe the hammer was damaged and maybe the sear was damaged or possibly even both. Regardless if one of my guns hit the ground I wouldn't use it again till I gave it a good going over and was sure nothing was damaged.
Yes DW does use lighter FP's and heavier springs and Springfield Armory does the same. There may be others but I still would not consider an unblocked firing pin drop safe. That's not to say I think the gun is unsafe and I've carried many series 70 1911's over the years.

[M1A4ME]

I remember seeing some info decades ago, when this drop stuff popped up in magazines, etc. that the way to take care of your 1911 was a titanium firing pin and a new firing pin return spring every so often.

I'll bet the firing pin return spring in my 1917 made Colt 1911 is over a hundred years old.  No idea how many rounds have been through that gun before I got it or how many times it's been dry fired.  Gun works like a charm as intended.  Not sure they worried much about drop tests in those days.

Not sure how much "soft" primers figure into this either.  Every M1 Garand, M14/M1A, M16/M4/AR15 puts a dent in the primer when a round is chambered because they don't even have a firing pin return spring, or firing pin block mechanism.  Military primers are said to be "harder" than civilian primers and even many service rifle shooter that reload rely on the military primers for their reloads.

I'm always amazed at the way people find to abuse a firearm.

[Crawl]

...The drop safety like any part can be damaged and rendered inoperable through mishandling/abuse like this and this really in no way means the gun isn't drop safe...

This is a fair point. It WAS drop safe.

I'm still interested to know what broke because I work on all my firearms myself.

[Crawl]

I'm always amazed at the way people find to abuse a firearm.

It became a hot topic again after the Sig P320 debacle.

I think the best point here though is that, even in the remote chance someone drops his pistol, no one is dropping his pistol more than once.

Most likely, it gets dumped out of a bag or pushed off a table top.

[SI VIS PACEM PARRABELLUM]

...The drop safety like any part can be damaged and rendered inoperable through mishandling/abuse like this and this really in no way means the gun isn't drop safe...

This is a fair point. It WAS drop safe.

I'm still interested to know what broke because I work on all my firearms myself.

Well as I speculated above maybe the hammer hooks were damaged or the sear or maybe even both. I guess you could post a reply on their YT channel and ask that question and see if they respond.
I work on all my guns as well and I have complete faith in all the CGW parts I've installed.

[Crawl]

Pretty sure I DID post the question, but he has far too many followers now to get through.

I know a guy he called for expertise regarding parallax error, or the lack thereof, in the EOTech optic, but it doesn't seem worth trying to use a favor just to ask about this. CGW would be a better avenue if I cared THAT much, I think.

[Motorcop]

I wasted several minutes of my life watching this Garand Thumb video and was not at all impressed except for the absurdity of the event.  There are far more realistic and scientifically acceptable procedures for accomplishing what they were trying to do.  All they really accomplished was to cosmetically ruin a bunch of relatively nice handguns in a poorly done experiment.  Years ago when I was still working for a large police department we tested several confiscated handguns for drop safety, but the tests were intentionally made to be repeatable.  The pistols were locked up tight in a vise and free swinging weights struck the hammers from a known distance.  The weights also struck the muzzle of the firearm from a known distance.  Without some form of a fixture in a drop test you can almost never guarantee that a firearm hammer will be struck in the same fashion from gun to gun as noted in the Garand Thumb video.  The test is no longer valid at that point except for entertainment purposes.

We also discovered in our testing that in many instances of a weight striking the muzzle of a semi-auto pistol the barrel would be forced out of battery before the hammer could fall.  Does this mean the pistol is "drop-safe"?  That would depend on the evaluator at that point. 

I have worked around firearms for my almost all of my adult life and spent 33+ years in law enforcement.  In all that time I never once dropped one of my pistols....not once!  If you drop a loaded firearm you shouldn't be carrying or using one, it's that simple.  I never once saw one of our officers drop a pistol, nor any of the multitude of recruits I worked with.  I also trained the recruits I worked with and seasoned officers to never tell someone with a firearm to "drop it"!  That is just asking for an unwanted discharge to take place.  If someone had a bottle of nitroglycerine in their hand would you tell them to "drop it"?  I don't think so.

So at this point I am still not sure why people get all wrapped around the axle on drop safe handguns.  No handgun is completely drop safe in my estimation unless ot is unloaded...period.

Rick H