Hi! Here is a habit that is nearly universal among Glock use, namely, pulling the trigger to de-cock the hammer after clearing. After reading everyone's comments in a previous forum post on the subject, I am convinced it is a bad habit that we as a community need to change. I suggest the new rule of “only decock the hammer when bedding down your Glock for serious long-term storage, otherwise, leave it cocked.”
Here are the common thoughts on the subject, and what I conclude from them, all summarized with the details that I think matter. One thing I ask is to please refrain from simply repeating “Triggger Pullled!!”, or some common opinion I already addressed without any additional intellectually constructive input. That’s not helpful. That being said, please fire away with all the good reasons whether I am correct or not.
Does storing a Glock with the trigger cocked cause the spring for the firing pin to wear out?
Finally, I am only human. Please point out all my many typos and vaguearies. If something sounds really wrong, it's probably because I typed it wrong.
Here are the common thoughts on the subject, and what I conclude from them, all summarized with the details that I think matter. One thing I ask is to please refrain from simply repeating “Triggger Pullled!!”, or some common opinion I already addressed without any additional intellectually constructive input. That’s not helpful. That being said, please fire away with all the good reasons whether I am correct or not.
Does storing a Glock with the trigger cocked cause the spring for the firing pin to wear out?
- After all, Glock factory manuals all say to decock the hammer by pulling the trigger every time you clear the gun. -> The consensus on the last forum was no, and I say no, for 2 reasons. 1: Guns, especially Glocks, are meant to be durable. Durable to where they still function after taking all kinds of unforeseen abuse. If storing the firing pin spring compressed (but within its range of motion) is enough to cause it fail, it is far from that level of durability, and we should see other cases of firing pin springs failing. 2: Mentioned in the previous form here, we have a case of good empirical evidence that firing pin springs can be cocked for 20+ years without reaching a point of failure.
- If you decock the Glock every time you clear it, you will form a very solid habit when clearing your Glock: remove the mag, rack the slide and check the chamber, point it in a safe direction and pull the trigger. The problem is that like any habit, this ends up chaining together into one single fluid action. Which when you forget the first step, turns into rack slide, check chamber, fire(?) Glock in a (hopefully) safe direction. Store a loaded mag in a pistol with an empty chamber? If you miss the mag, next time you check that gun, you will automatically fire that gun in the random direction you determined was probably safe. Not a great scenario. If you miss a round somehow in another way, you can also end up accidentally discharging the Glock. And while this seems unlikely, there are examples of it happening.
- Lastly, a habit of regularly pulling the trigger on a firearm you do not intend to fire is directly against one of the golden rules of gun safety “always keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot,” and so should only be practiced if absolutely necessary to the gun’s use. From what we’ve seen, it is definitely not.
- So one of the arguments for decocking is that it is convenient that a backwards trigger shows you a gun is unloaded(assuming normal operation and fail-safes), and that pulling the trigger can’t cause it to go off. To quote: “On sight you know it's safe to handle the weapon,” which is just the mindset that I think is so bad. If you missed that it has a mag in, you could start playing with it, rack the slide, and fire; thinking of it as unloaded. Given the perfect storm of worn and dirty parts, there could technically be an unfired round still in the chamber even with the trigger back.
- While I don’t think either of those dangers are particularly likely, my big problem is that this builds a habit of assuming a gun is unloaded without personally checking the chamber. Which goes again the near universal rule to check and clear an unloaded handgun yourself every time you handle it, even if someone else just did. In my opinion, the only position that allow you to assume a gun is unloaded just by looking at it, is when you directly see into the empty chamber, aka when the slide is locked back (or maybe with a cable lock or barrel flag). If that’s not a position you want to store your gun in, then you need to check and clear that gun when you pull it out of storage. Period.
- Store EDCs loaded, store non-EDC guns with trigger pulled so you can tell the difference: I mean if that floats your boat, sure. Maybe you need to tell your seven black Glocks apart somehow. But realistically, your EDC should be one of your most familiar go-to guns in your safe. If you don’t automatically reach for it when thinking EDC, I think that is a bigger problem.
- Pull back the slide slightly and release the pin where it can’t hit a round: As a safety feature (at least on mine), Glocks actually can’t do this. Also, if the round slide out with the ejector, there’s a good chance you’ll end up detonating the round in a partially open chamber. That’s really bad, but I’ll leave you to imagine what the results look like…
- Dry firing doesn’t hurt Glocks: Sounds legit to me. If it did hurt Glocks, there would have been lots of examples by now of it hurting Glocks.
- The one that no-one said, but people definitely think: I don’t have a good reason to decock my Glock, but the instruction manual said to, so my OCD compels me to do it every time: you probably should just get a handle of your OCD and accept the realization that the compressed firing pin spring is going to be alright. If that feels wrong, realize that if you store your AR-15 with the safety on, that means its hammer spring is also stored compressed.
- Neither decocking (dry firing) or failure to decock (compressed storage of firing pin spring) will damage a Glock.
- While either method is alright, decocking encourages bad habits that go against normal gun safety practices, without having any major benefits.
- Decocking before long term storage pays off the most in possible spring lifespan, while also not forming a regular habit by repetition.
Finally, I am only human. Please point out all my many typos and vaguearies. If something sounds really wrong, it's probably because I typed it wrong.
