16ga.com ~ View topic - Safety

Member Joined: 15 Mar 2007 Posts: 601 Location: Virginia

What's so hard about getting into the habit of pushing off the safety before shooting? It seems to me that with an auto safety the shooter only has to worry about whether it's off, not whether it's on. I've never lost a target or quarry because I had an auto safety.

One other thing, we're only talking about break-open guns. I don't know of any pumps or semiautos that have automatic safeties, and those are the ones that would be safer with them!

Dan

Joined: 26 Apr 2010 Posts: 3181 Location: NCWa

You've been watching too many driven shoot movies Very Happy

. Nobody carries a gun like that in the field.

My first shotguns were pumps and autos which don't have automatic safeties. It makes no difference to me whether a double or O/U has auto safety or not.

I grew up with a single shot hammer gun and transitioned to an automatic safety with no issues. I've never considered an alternate and when the gun hits my shoulder the safety switch is pushed to off.

I would rather not have auto safeties on any shotgun. I am down to only a Beretta 686 with an auto safety.

Kinda think that if I want the safety on, I can do that for myself. I have never had a problem with an auto safety, would just rather that they didn't exist.

My Tobin has an auto which refuses to kick back all the way when gun is opened . Totally screws up getting cocked fully etc . It isn't the firing sequence , it's the reloading sequence . Can't remember to thumb back the safety 1st no matter how hard I try . Brain just knows the gun shoulda done it !

Member Joined: 06 Nov 2005 Posts: 328

When I was a wee tkye, my Grandfather only shot pointed birds and only closed his gun while flushing a pointed bird. He didn't need a safety.

As I have gotten older I have tried to emulate him. Of course being older the pleasures of hunting have changed and I no longer have a need to bag game.

So I no longer have a need for a safety either. In target shooting I haven't needed a safety either.

Member Joined: 15 Mar 2007 Posts: 601 Location: Virginia

I prefer manual safeties for safety reasons and have had all of my double gun auto safeties deactivated..

The reason is that I own rifles, pistols and shotguns which have manual only safeties - bolt, single shot, pump, semi-auto and, yes, lever - if my double guns had auto safeties they would function differently than my non-auto safety guns. Since ALL of my guns have manual safeties I am always aware that I must engage the safety. I learned when SCUBA diving, sky diving and flying that "always the same procedure" is safer than "what do I do now?".

I started my wife with a semi-auto with a manual safety. When she bought her double with an auto safety she noted that they worked differently and she wanted them to work the same so we had the auto safety deactivated. Now there are no auto safeties in our house.

*Last edited by fin2feather on Fri Mar 13, 2015 8:00 am; edited 1 time in total*

Member Joined: 30 Nov 2011 Posts: 1700 Location: Minnesota

I too have all types of safeties on various guns. I didn't even know you could have both auto and manual in one gun til I got an Elsie. From my firearms safety teaching days, our definition of a safety was, a mechanical device that WILL fail. In other words, don't rely on it. ever. Muzzle control trumps a safety.