Condition 1 - cocked and locked - technical question

[TomkinsSP]

[*]Having been in the Army, I'm VERY selective in the lessons I draw from what the Army does.

I may need to 'borrow' this, "Having been xx, >> xx does."

 

[GKC]

It always amazes me that people get freaked out over a cocked and locked 1911, but pay no attention to a Glock with a round chambered. I suppose it's because the cocked hammer on a 1911 is visible, and looks "scary." There are some who even have the trigger pull on a Glock reduced to less than many 1911 standard triggers. (I'm not picking on Glocks...the same could be said for many other polymer pistols.)

If I was going to carry my 1911, which I don't, it would be cocked and locked. I do carry my Shield 45 with a round in the chamber and thumb safety engaged...I guess that approximates "cocked and locked" in a striker pistol.

 

[shouldazagged]

Anybody up for a seance to check this out with the very late John M. Browning?

I can think of a lot more questions I'd love to ask him.

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

Permit a silly observation. The Army did not intend for any of its troops to go into battle with a 1911 as their primary weapon. 03's, Garand, BAR sure, but weren't the 1911s meant to be carried by officers and operators of crew served weapons?

Condition 3 would suffice for a loader or gunner on a tank or artillery piece. He only needs it in dire circumstance. Condition 4 (empty chamber, ask an NCO for the loaded magazine) is safest for Louies.

Make that 2nd Louies.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

 

[rwsmith]

I have a theory......

The 1911 was designed for COMBAT. You pretty much know when there are chances of encountering the enemy and I'll bet they were cocked and locked then. Not knowing when something would go down I'll bet that a lot of people carried them that way when there was no action. I don't know if that was regulation or not, but I'm sure it was done.

 

[richardw]

In the Corps we referred to locked and loaded. Whether rifle or pistol that meant a loaded magazine in place, an empty chamber, and the manual safety engaged. To do,otherwise could get you in line for an administrative hearing.

On those ocassions in Nam when any of us had to resort to the 1911 we had to disengage the thumb safety and rack a round into registration. Most of is cheated with the safety disengaged. I don’t know anyone who had a chambered round until needed. Maybe some did. I did not. However in combat as we faced there was time to rack the gun and remove the thumb safety. In the civilian environment I would rather be caught dead than not have a round in the chamber at all times. Of I do not I could easily end up dead.

And as for holsters some used the belt mounted flap holster, but Impreferred the chest holster.

 

[Hawker800]

Some who didn't carry condition one.
This is Why You Carry With A Round in the Chamber! | Active Self Protection - YouTube

 

[6518John]

Here and there in various articles in this and that magazine I see gunwriters discussing carrying a 1911 or similar guns cocked and locked as if that was the specifically designed mode of carry from the outset, in 1911, that John Moses Browning designed the gun for that exact mode of carry, etc.

Does anyone know if that is the actual truth?

I don’t know the answer, but do know I studied and photographed the original 1911 designed by Mr. Browning at his museum in Utah and the original does not have a slide safety, so it could not be “locked.”

Original 1911 on top above a prototype that was never produced.

 

[DeathGrip]

I don't recommend Mexican Carry with a 1911 in condition one.

 

[TomkinsSP]

Anybody up for a seance to check this out with the very late John M. Browning?

I can think of a lot more questions I'd love to ask him.

I can think of a few gun manufacturers who should be willing to finance this. Maybe the Old Man has some new ideas...

 

[richardw]

I don’t know the answer, but do know I studied and photographed the original 1911 designed by Mr. Browning at his museum in Utah and the original does not have a slide safety, so it could not be “locked.”

Original 1911 on top above a prototype that was never produced.

Not surpriseda at all. The Military has a propensity to empty safety devices on anything that goes boom or bang to keep the troops alive when they are not engaged.

 

[Gunsnwater]

It's probably in some manual but they are to long to search

From here. Not that this is "proof"

American Rifleman | Conditions of Readiness for the 1911 Pistol

Condition Three
In this condition the pistol contains a loaded magazine, the chamber is empty and the hammer is down. In order to fire the pistol, the slide must be cycled so that a cartridge is loaded into the chamber.
Condition Three is the method used by the U.S. military when the 1911 was the standard issue pistol. Due to the fact that relatively little training time was spent with the pistol, my guess is that our military believed this was the safest method. The downside of Condition Three is that it takes just a bit of extra time to get the 1911 ready to fire, which can be a bit disconcerting if one is already experiencing incoming fire. In recent years, this has also become known as the “Israeli Method” because Israeli police and soldiers who carry a single-action auto have adopted this carry method.

The Israeli thing again. They did that before they had a standard side arm. It was a manual of arms that worked across the board with whatever gun the soldier brought with them. Not every gun was drop safe.

 

[Beemer-mark]

MY army experience (short as it was ) at Fort Knox in 1975 is that no ammo was issued for the 1911 (or M16) even while on guard duty. Only the MPs were issued live ammo. So I guess condition one was sort of meaningless.

However, if I was in actual battle zone with shooting immediate, I think I would carry with a round chambered and cocked. Thus the purpose of TWO safeties.

 

[richardw]

MY army experience (short as it was ) at Fort Knox in 1975 is that no ammo was issued for the 1911 (or M16) even while on guard duty. Only the MPs were issued live ammo. So I guess condition one was sort of meaningless.

However, if I was in actual battle zone with shooting immediate, I think I would carry with a round chambered and cocked. Thus the purpose of TWO safeties.

That is true across the military. The guns get Locke up or in chained racks because they don’t want folks who know how to use them to get their hands on them until they order it.

 

[TomkinsSP]

MY army experience (short as it was ) at Fort Knox in 1975 is that no ammo was issued for the 1911 (or M16) even while on guard duty. Only the MPs were issued live ammo. So I guess condition one was sort of meaningless.

Ah yes, I well remember the National Guard troopers called up and on duty "guarding" the City after 9/11 (without magazines in their rifles).

 

[Sevens]

It always amazes me that people get freaked out over a cocked and locked 1911, but pay no attention to a Glock with a round chambered. I suppose it's because the cocked hammer on a 1911 is visible, and looks "scary." There are some who even have the trigger pull on a Glock reduced to less than many 1911 standard triggers. (I'm not picking on Glocks...the same could be said for many other polymer pistols.)
.

To be fair however, let's point out that Glocks and basically all other true striker-fired tupperware guns) simply do NOT have 100% of the energy stored like a cocked 1911 pistol does. Pulling a Glock trigger ADDS energy to the striker before releasing that stored energy, and letting the striker smack the primer.

We may agree that if outdoorsmen or concealed carry citizens walked around with double action revolvers... there would be many an eyebrow raised if the hammer were cocked for single action fire. Sure, no manual thumb safety on the revolver, but the concept of 100% stored energy in that hammer is much like a 1911 -- while nothing like a Glock.

 

[Wise_A]

Whether Browning intended the gun to be carried a certain way is irrelevant. Guitarmakers are not musicians.

However, during my time in the United States Army I never saw anyone carry a 1911 that way, the typical military flap holster is not really appropriate for Condition 1 carry, and the training videos/combat videos I saw always showed 1911s being drawn and racked for fighting/shooting.

I think we had this conversation once before.

One is that the Army--by which I mean the Department of Defense--is unnaturally conservative. They came to the statistical conclusion that soldiers on bases shot themselves accidentally more often than they needed to defend themselves, so in a lot of places, empty chamber/hammer down was the norm.

Number Two concerns the needs of the soldier and the nature of the pistol in such a use. The DoD presumes that bases are "safe" since they control (theoretically) who goes in and out. So if you needed to use your sidearm on-base, you should have some warning. Combined with #1, then, Condition Zero makes sense. The other part of that is that a pistol is a piss-poor weapon. If attacked elsewhere, then there are all manner of other things to call for, shoot, and throw at bad people. There's plenty of time to make the pistol ready in case the situation becomes dire enough that it's needed.

Out and about in bad places--I'd bet a lot of 1911s were in Condition 1, however.

---

Now consider the needs of the citizen.

We are rarely-to-never in a place that's as safe as the DoD views a base. When we go out, we're on patrol. We don't know where the bad guys are going to come from, or when. We won't have time to make our pistols ready. And we won't have armed friends, rifles, LMGs, and grenades to help us. Our pistol is our first--and usually last--lethal force tool.

Now let's consider the safety aspect the DoD concerned itself with. The highest gun-grabber estimate of deaths from gunfire annually is about 30,000. Let's presume that all of those people were good, honest, law-abiding citizens (we know the overwhelming majority are not).

The most conservative estimate for the number of defensive gun uses is 300,000 per year. Other estimates run as high as 2.1-2.5m, but let's stick with 300k because it's the most pessimistic number.

We are 10 times as likely to use a gun for defense, as we are to die by one--and that's using the most conservative numbers. That's radically different than the way the DoD views the situation. Hence, we should favor a gun that's in a state of immediate readiness, over one that is maximally "safe".

Ah yes, I well remember the National Guard troopers called up and on duty "guarding" the City after 9/11 (without magazines in their rifles).

In my neck of the woods, the guards would get robbed of their rifles. At gunpoint. Regularly. But hey, better that than *shudder* one of them defending themselves.

The Israeli thing again. They did that before they had a standard side arm. It was a manual of arms that worked across the board with whatever gun the soldier brought with them. Not every gun was drop safe.

I was kind've shocked to learn this--I'm young and American, so I've always just had this weird presumption that a gun would be well-designed--but there are a ton of pistols that have such miserable safeties that it's faster and easier to draw and chamber than it is to draw and get the safety off.

As in, in some cases, de-activating the safety not only took longer, but also required two hands.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy5e30ynJn4[/ame]

 

[Old cop]

When our department went through transitional training to the new Glock 23 it included carrying condition one, chamber loaded. One officer in my command decided, for reasons known only to him, that he would only carry condition three. I called him into my office and he admitted that he was carrying w/an empty chamber. I sent him to the range for retraining, gave him a memo w/a direct order to carry in condition one, as per our training, and had his sergeant follow up w/frequent, unannounced handgun inspections b/c he was putting his life, as well as the life of others in jeopardy. I should write a book . . . .

 

[johngalt]

In the Corps we referred to locked and loaded. Whether rifle or pistol that meant a loaded magazine in place, an empty chamber, and the manual safety engaged. To do,otherwise could get you in line for an administrative hearing.

On those ocassions in Nam when any of us had to resort to the 1911 we had to disengage the thumb safety and rack a round into registration. Most of is cheated with the safety disengaged. I don’t know anyone who had a chambered round until needed. Maybe some did. I did not. However in combat as we faced there was time to rack the gun and remove the thumb safety. In the civilian environment I would rather be caught dead than not have a round in the chamber at all times. Of I do not I could easily end up dead.

And as for holsters some used the belt mounted flap holster, but Impreferred the chest holster.

A small point - the thumb safety on a 1911 can't be engaged unless it is cocked. Seems strange to be cocking an unloaded pistol just to engage the safety.

 

[Muss Muggins]

My recollection from my fascination with this issue in the 70s and 80s is that the WWI manuals indicated carry was recommended with rounds in the magazine, magazine inserted, no round chambered. So, Condition 3: Chamber empty, full magazine in place, hammer down.

And that is due to the U.S. military's policy that a sidearm is not a primary attacking or defensive weapon. If you got down to having to use your pistol, a lot of things went bad wrong . . .