Friday, April 20, 2012

What media bias?



Here's a guy who injured himself with his Remington Model 11-48. The forensics lab that tested it said it would discharge when dropped on the butt with the safety on or off. They also measured the trigger pull at ~39 ounces, which is awfully light for a factory trigger; so light, in fact, that I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that was not the factory trigger pull weight and that somebody had gone to "lighten it up" with an Arkansas stone.

Speaking to gun safety in general, there's a reason that hunter safety courses since the days of yore have cautioned against things like climbing up to the deer stand with a loaded weapon: A lot of mechanical safeties are fairly recent inventions. S&W revolvers didn't get hammer blocks until WWII. Colt 1911s didn't have firing pin safeties until the Series 80.

Complaining that a 1920s firearm may not have been drop safe when you were actively ignoring two or more of the Four Rules of firearm safety is like complaining that you drove your Ford Model A head-on into a brick wall and the airbags didn't deploy.

Paw-paw's treasured heirloom shotgun may have been built before the first product liability lawyers slithered onto dry land and, as a consequence, might not be as insensitive to rough handling as GI hardware or newer commercial firearms. Remember that the most important piece of safety gear is the trigger nut, and it should always be torqued to proper specifications.

20 comments:

Garrett Lee said...

"Trigger nut?"

I like it! Does adjustment require a standard torque wrench, or a specialized custom one?

Tam said...

Some apparently require a 3-foot cheater bar. ;)

Critter said...

this whole hooha reminds one of the Toyota "unintended acceleration" fiasco and the much earlier Chevy truck "roll over go boom" debacle.

Carteach said...

"The most important piece of safety gear is the trigger nut"

I have never really wanted a Tattoo... but damn.....

That is GOOD stuff!

Julie said...

Remember that the most important piece of safety gear is the trigger nut, and it should always be torqued to proper specifications.

now that needs to go on a t-shirt

Weer'd Beard said...

I think we all remember the great Glock PR push where there were claims of loaded glocks being tossed out out helicopters and off cliffs without an unintended discharge....not to mention all the crazy torture tests where they buried, froze, castrated stabbed, and sodomized glocks...and still they worked.

That wasn't that long ago. One can assume that if somebody dropped their heater out of the hay loft that it just might go "bang" when it landed.

But this is no different than when you hear about somebody doing something stupid in fly-over country with a gun, a pointy head in the big city will ask "Was the Gun Registered, and did this person have a license?"

See also
http://xkcd.com/988/

"Progressives" seem to think that the world stated when they were born, and the whole universe is Manhattan.

Yet they chide Creationists for thinking the Dinosaurs were killed in the great flood.

jimbo86 said...

"Complaining that a 1920s firearm may not have been drop safe when you were actively ignoring two or more of the Four Rules of firearm safety is like complaining that you drove your Ford Model A head-on into a brick wall and the airbags didn't deploy."

Sums it up perfectly.

.45ACP+P said...

Some of those trigger nuts require a slugging wrench and an 8 pound maul to tighten down. Repeated whacks with the maul required. Even after sufficient whackage to render homoginized it may require more torque to make some of them safe.

og said...

I only know a few experienced gunsmiths I would trust to do a trigger job. This is my biggest fear in buying used firearms, and it is why I am ultra careful in function checking them when I do. You never know what gomer has messed with them.

Frank W. James said...

Tam: I think the Remington Model 11-48 was a mid-1950's introduction.

I have a Model 48 and a couple of Model 1100's. I'm pretty sure the Model 11-48 came between the two.

Still I agree completely with your summation on the trigger weight. I as well don't believe for an instant that is the trigger weight it came with out of the box...

All The Best,
Frank W. James

NotClauswitz said...

Jeeze Topical! I was just looking at an 11-48 in .410 from the distant Jurassic era, an action copied from the model 11 (Browning Auto-5) and introduced in 1949, expired in 1968. Kinda neat but never a haior-trigger gun unless actively monkey-wrenched with a 2-foot cheater bar.

Jeff said...

My bet is on a dremel.

It takes a lot more effort, and at least a bit on knowledge, to seriously screw something up with a Arkansas stone.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Oh crap! My Remington Model 11s are even OLDER. I'm in great danger!!! Thanks for telling me, phew.

Scott Gelber said...

I own two 11-48s, one in 28-gauge and one in .410. Neither have 39 ounce triggers (mine are closer to 64 ounces than 39 ounces), so I agree with Tam that Bubba got stoned.

Ted N said...

Meat servo=pilot.

Just wanted to toss that out there.

ASM826 said...

Loaded gun. Pointed at something you did not intend to shoot.

Even if this was the gun was defective, all that should having have happened was a "click".

Will said...

Weer'd:

The chopper pilot who tossed the Glock? (for NYPD evaluation, IIRC)

Glock hired him. I took an Armorer's course from him at SHOT, back in the mid 00's.

Ken O said...

Why would any Yahoo, in the Swiftian sense, want to lighten the pull on a ahotty?

Oh Joy! said...


I only know a few experienced gunsmiths I would trust to do a trigger job.


What's the worst that can happen?
At worst, the gunsmith fucks it up and has to buy or make a new trigger assembly so he can fuck it up again..

Being a rank amateur, I've performed a few according to to do's, and the results were invariably satisfying.

I drop and whack*-tested my ~40 ounce Mosin trigger job.

To be truthful, it's possible that it would cease to be drop safe in a different temperature, but at room one, while greased to the tits the trigger never went off even while smashing it buttplate first into the floor.

Tam said...

Frank,

"I think the Remington Model 11-48 was a mid-1950's introduction."

I probably should have been more clear with my segue from the 11-48 to old guns in general. :o