Since nothing starts the week off like drama, let me brush the silky coat of the Llama and parade it around a bit.
So, there’s been a bit of a disagreement on carrying the Apex FSS for self defense because some people claim it is an unsafe trigger. I don’t see it this way, so I’m going to hash out my feelings here in this post and let people battle it out in the comments. Here’s the catch, Tam herself claims to consider it unsafe, and in my world “Tam said so” is not an appeal to authority logical fallacy. This means there could be something I am not considering, hence this write up to whip up some drama and expose any inconsistencies in my logic.
Quickly, let’s talk about saftieafying a firearm. Is gun, is dangerous and while that’s funny it’s both true and applicable to any number of items we deal with every day. Cars, power tools, booze, ex’s, etc. The thing is, we balance the amount of added danger with the benefit and if you’re smart, you put things in place that increase safety while not interfering with operation. That being said, you won’t find any guards on my table saw. Sure, it might help keep you decimally fingered, but it also prevents you from sawing wood in half worth a damn.
When it comes to guns though, the balance between safety and operation is even more contentious. You want the big, scary gun to go bang, just not at inappropriate times. At the same time, when you need the gun to go bang, you don’t want to have to solve a Lament Configuration’s worth of doodads first.
The balance point is personal. I get tickled when I see people hop on their soapbox and proclaim that anything less than x pounds of pull is untrustworthy for any carry pistol, period, end of discussion as if trigger weight was the only thing to consider. Different firearms have different safeties that mitigate different factors, and it’s folly to issue blanket statements about what is or is not safe.
Another key factor is what you are comfortable with. I consider it bad form to not carry one in the pipe, but if you’re freaked out over that, I’m not going to disown you from the gunnie community. Not everyone has the same risk tolerance as I do nor does everyone share your aversions.
Now that we’ve got all that out there, here is my issue with claiming the FSS is unsafe. In my M&P and Glock, pulling the trigger disables all the safeties and the gun fires. Period. Boom. If you don’t want the gun to go off, don’t pull the trigger. Now, Tam is correct that the striker in the M&P is fully tensioned so it does not have the added safety of requiring the energy from the pull to be applied to the trigger, but honestly, that’s splitting hairs. Trigger pulled? Gun goes off!
There’s a striker block that is disengaged when the trigger is moved backwards. Doesn’t matter how much tension on the striker there is if the block is in the way. The way I see it, there doesn’t appear to be any reason the FSS would interfere with safety insofar as dropping the pistol or jostling while carrying is concerned.
I could completely understand a hair trigger being a bad idea. A trigger set to mere ounces could easily be set off by a sudden bump. In fact, I consider some of the race guns I see at USPSA to be unsafe because I’ve watched shooters accidentally double & triple tap. The FSS, however, is still 5# of pull (according to their site). There’s no more chance of the trigger being pulled by its own inertia than the stock trigger.
If there’s a fear of a foreign object getting in the trigger guard during holstering, I’m confused as to how a stock trigger would prevent an undesired discharge where the FSS would not. The muscle action to holster is gross motor and I don’t think your arm could discern the difference between the travel distances of the trigger while shoving the pistol down. Besides, during competition, the trigger is considered safe enough to be used on a gun that is actively being handled yet somehow, that safety disappears when it’s being kept tucked away, untouched. That’s the part that’s confusing me.
Is there a legal issue? I’m sure there is as any prosecutor is going to look for anything they can hang you with, be it a different trigger, hollow points, the fact that you ‘train’ to kill people… I mean shoot competition, etc. I find my trigger to be less of a worry because it’s not like the police will take my pistol apart to see if there were any modifications to make it more deadlierish so that they can put me away. And if they did, well hell, they’re already looking for anything to pin on me and I’d fully expect them to make something up.
In my opinion (and please, correct me where I am wrong if I am), there is no added danger to carrying a trigger that simply feels different in the way it operates. It doesn’t change the fact that the striker is fully tensioned and it keeps the trigger travel safety, albeit by replacing it with the Glock like trigger-in-a-trigger versus the hinged monstrosity from the stock. Because the weight is the same, I don’t see issues with the trigger being actuated by inertia. Foreign objects would trip the stock trigger the exact same way they would with the FSS minus the fact it’d be about 1/8” sooner.
What part am I missing? What is it that makes the FSS unsuitable for self defense?
Arguing over what might happen is pointless
In fact, I consider some of the race guns I see at USPSA to be unsafe because I’ve watched shooters accidentally double & triple tap.