During my early LEO career, we had a number of rookies come to us, fresh from the academy, that needed to be trained. What usually happened was that 2 regular partners would be be split up for a month and each would be assigned a rookie to be trained. I did ok on this particular assignment, my partner not so much.

We were required to wear flap holster that essentially covered the weapon from view. One evening after OD time at 2300, I met my regiular partner for a beer or6 or 7. When he arrived, I noticed that he appeared to have aged several years in just 2 weeks. Needless to say, I inquired about his health and he replied.

" Partner you ain't going to believe this. I took that dumb *** rookie to the range to see if he could shoot. We got our ammo and went to the shooting line and then removed our revolvers from the holsters to empty the duty ammo and replace it with wadcutters, which the department provided for $00.50 for practice.

I looked over at my rookie to check on his range safety, and to my disbelief , the rookie removed his model 19 with the hammer locked back in single action mode. When I came back from the moon, the rookie told me that he had observed veteran officers carrying 1911's cocked and locked and he thought it was NEAT and he had been carrying it that way for a week"

The rookie didn't make it off probation and the partners were reunited with a few chinks in our armor. The next few months were much better....and safer.

My first significant experience with revolvers was as a young cop in the early 1970's, having recently returned from Vietnam. I don't recall anyone carrying a DA revolver with the hammer cocked, but I do remember several who firmly believed that there should never be a round in the chamber under the hammer (apparently a bit of wisdom left over from the 19th Century days, Colt single action army, etc).

A surprising number of young cops actually believed in the myths of the "quick draw", probably too many western movies and TV shows while growing up. Had a few laughs watching some of them at the range.

The .357 magnum was rapidly overtaking .38 Special and the older .44 Special revolvers (quite a few of the old timers still carried them), and a lot of guys did all of their range qualifications with .38 wadcutters, then loaded up with magnums for duty use. Those who would listen and learn were shown just how much difference in point of impact vs. point of aim that meant (frequently a foot or so at the 50 yard line).

I retired from law enforcement in 1995, just a few years after semi-auto pistols started replacing revolvers in most cops' holsters. Today, judging by the BDU trousers, combat boots, tactical load-bearing vests, and other TACTI-COOL **** I see young cops sporting around with, I suspect there are more than a few constantly debating the relative merits of the newest, coolest, gotta-have-me-one of this that or the other.

Trust me, if I'm not showing my age I am sure feeling my age.

After retiring from my PD with 25 years service, I went to Kosovo as an international police officer for 2 years.

This was a UN mission and each contingent from each country was responsible for their training. The Americans scheduled a firearms re-familiarization and I served as a firearms instructor for the week.

Our duty sidearms were Beretta 92s. One day, an officer from CA came to the line. I glanced at this officer's holster and he was carrying his Beretta with the hammer back. I'm guessing that most readers here are aware that there is NO provision for cocked and locked carry with the Beretta. After I eased the hammer down, I asked him what he carried at his department back home. His reply was "Glock."

After I left Kosovo, I went to Afghanistan, where I was a police advisor. We had security that watched over us while we supervised training. All of us had Beretta 92s. One morning, one of the security guys, a young fellow from Belgium, went walking by and guess what-he was carrying his Beretta with the hammer back! I eased his hammer down and went and talked to his supervisor.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

A friend of mine is a retired LEO. He once told me about the time he had to remove an obnoxious drunk from the women's room of a local bar. As he tried to wrestle her out of the stall, he caught a quick glimpse of blued steel and wood in her purse.

He grabbed the purse, yanked it out of her hand and backhanded it out of the stall. After she was cuffed he went to recover the purse and he pulled out a fully loaded, cocked .41 magnum Smith & Wesson! He told me his heart almost stopped when he saw the gun and I believe him!

We had a 25 year day man shoot through the dash board of a cruiser. Seems that he would pull up his duty belt and inadvertently cocked the hammer on his model 64. He noticed it while seated in the cruiser and drew the gun to bring into the station because he didn't know how to decock it without pulling the trigger.

Everyone attended roll call training on "how to."

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Made it, Ma! Top of the world!

Those were the good old days!!!

For the last month I have been watching Adam 12. They do 2 shows back to back and its been close to 50 years since I watched that show last.

I do note that trigger discipline was bad in some of those shows.

Have seen officer Reed with his finger in the trigger guard a few times, some with the hammer cocked. Also saw a officer, I do not remember who running with the hammer cocked and as far as I could tell he might have had his finger in the guard.

As that show is supposed to be based on real cases, cocked and locked revolvers could have easily happened!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

That must have been one heck of a woman to be so drunk to cause a bathroom bar disturbance all the while carrying a cocked .41 magnum in her purse! At least give her points for good taste in revolvers.

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Possum—The other white meat!

This event ushered in the adoption of DAO revolvers for the NYPD. Having a cocked Model 10 behind some young fellows ear whose alleged crime was throwing light bulbs was the beginning of the end.
My old train station, but I was out of the Bronx by then.


https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...bbByWHKuQEoOL_

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Sure you did

What might be called bad trigger discipline today was considered proper technique back in the 60's and 70's. Watch those old Adam 12 shows closely as the young cops draw their revolvers from the Safety Speed clamshell holsters, which required reaching through the trigger guard with the trigger finger to open the holster; trigger finger was inside the trigger guard from the time the weapon was drawn.

My training, both military and police, included keeping the trigger finger extended and in contact with the front of the trigger guard until ready to fire. We practiced "staging the trigger" for double-action shooting, a process that includes pulling the trigger sufficient to rotate the cylinder and raise the hammer fully, then final sight picture and trigger squeeze to fire. We also practiced single-action shooting regularly, and part of the range qualification was deliberate single-action shooting, with and without a barricade rest, at 25 and 50 yards.

It was the late 1980's to early 1990's before such things as keeping the trigger finger outside the trigger guard until ready to engage, or holsters with covered trigger guards became the new standards. This was largely due to the use of striker-fired semi-auto pistols (Glock, etc) without manual safeties; it took several years of unintentional, accidental, and negligent discharges to complete these changes.

What was state of the art 30, 40, and 50 years ago is no longer acceptable practice!

I am reminded of a story about an old Texas Ranger carrying a cocked and locked Colt .45 pistol. When asked if that wasn't dangerous he replied that if it wasn't dangerous he had no use for it!

When I learned to shoot in the late 60’s SOP was, as soon as your firearm starts to “clear leather” your finger was placed on the trigger. That was the hardest thing I had to Unlearn when I returned to shooting after a 10 or so year lay-off.

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Always Stay Strong!

"As that show is supposed to be based on real cases, cocked and locked revolvers could have easily happened!"

EXCEPT, there is no "locked" position!!!! The only saving grace is the fact that S&W revolvers, and most others, have to have the trigger pulled fully to the rear to fire. My firearms instructor at the police academy would demonstrate this by loading his M13, pointing the revolver downrange, cocking the hammer, and tapping the trigger with an ink pen. The trigger would trip, the hammer would fall, but no shot would be fired, thank to that good old hammer block!!!

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

I just learned something. I did not realize the hammer block would do that with a cocked revolver. I though it only prevented accidents like drop fires or the hammer being hit at rest.

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Possum—The other white meat!

I'm dating myself when I say that no one in our department was carrying a 1911 when I was working the street.

Rookies had to qualify with their duty weapon before graduating from the academy and we had some great range officers training each new batch.

A big concern for me as an FTO was situational awareness.

Lobo...that was Charlie Miller.
Along with the 1911 being cocked and locked..the
grip safety was tied down with a piece of leather.
In addition, He packed it "Mexican Carry" near front
of his pants now referred to appendix carry.

One OhhFF!! moment I remember as a new cop was on nights, riding by myself. I noticed a car parked behind a warehouse about 2AM. It was a convertible with the lights off and I could see what looked like two people so I decided to check it out. I pulled up behind them and as I was walking up to the car I saw that both the driver and passenger had large popcorn bags over their head with the eyes cut out. Now I'm no detective but this seemed out of the ordinary even for Houston. I had both of them place their hands on the dash. I was scanning around the vehicle with my streamlight and saw that the driver was wearing and empty holster....."Ding!!" Empty holster I thought..OHHH...FFUU!!! I actually already had my revolver out at let both of them know in a very polite manner the consequences of any overt moves. I had called out my location and a backup unit arrived. I found a 4" mod 29 under the drivers seat. The driver had slipped it under the seat as I pulled up. Lucky for me his intent was to hide it, not engage. The bags over the head? Apparently these two knuckleheads had bought some fake pot and had hatched a plan to go and get their money back. That however didn't explain the real pot and warrants they had. This was early 80s. Little OT but the above story reminded me of it

I have done that demo using an unsharpened pencil. Unloaded gun, pointed at the ceiling. Drop pencil down barrel, pull trigger. Pencil hit the ceiling. Same pencil, tapping trigger with another pencil, hammer drops, pencil doesn't move.

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Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

It was not the hammer block that prevented firing. It was the rebound slide. The gun would not have fired if the hammer block was missing. When the trigger is tapped like that and releases, the rebound spring pushes the rebound slide and the trigger forward very rapidly. It is ahead of the hammer. The rebound cam on the rebound slide prevents the hammer from going forward far enough to fire.
S&W's recommended way to uncock a loaded revolver is to pull the trigger slightly while holding the hammer, and then release the trigger while easing the hammer forward. The rebound slide will then reach the rebound position blocking the hammer from reaching firing position.

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Regards,
Lee Jarrett