A wee bit late
*
Completely off topic ... but ...
First, go look at the most awesome How Things Work animation ever.
Next, I’ll put what you just saw into words:
When John Browning designed the 1911 pistol, he put half a set of gear teeth on the top of the barrel (the locking lugs), and a toggle link lever underneath. The inside of the cover slide has matching gear teeth. When loaded, the barrel is locked to the slide, two gears meshing making one assembly, and that assembly - the whole top half of the gun - is pushed forward against the frame stops by the under slung recoil spring. This is important: the top half of the pistol is held in position by a spring. When you fire the 1911, as the bullet goes down the barrel forward, recoil starts pushing the barrel and the slide backwards. As this assembly travels past the toggle link, the link pulls the back end of the barrel slightly downwards, and the gear teeth unmesh, exactly like undoing a zipper. The toggle link stops the barrel from recoiling further, but the cover slide - which is also the bolt face and firing pin assembly against which the recoiling cartridge pushes - continues to travel backward, slowing down via recoil spring compression, while ejecting the spent case, recocking the hammer, and loading a new cartridge from the magazine. It’s really a neat little machine.
The problem is, that the barrel and slide of a 1911 actually wobble around a bit on their frame, held in place by mild spring tension. If you push your hand against the muzzle end of the pistol, you can shift the barrel/slide back a tiny bit. And a tiny bit of back shift is all that is needed to “take the gun out of battery” and keep it from firing. Revolvers do not do this. Semi-automatic pistols that use rotating breech locks do not do this. Grasshopper action Lugers do not do this. But 1911s do this.
The autopsy results on Brown are showing that he was shot with his hand on the muzzle end of the gun, which corroborates officer Wilson’s story. They were fighting over the gun. Was Brown pushing on it, or pulling on it? We’ll never know. But if he was pushing, then not having a 1911 probably saved officer Wilson’s life. Which is pretty much a first time thing for that old warhorse.
on 10/22/2014 at 12:03 PM
” one problem here might be being able to find such a group who actually don’t want things to go up in flames”.
No Money,Power or Votes in that shit so Hells No they wont want honest watchdogs.
1) I’d say the reports conclusively prove that Brown was NOT surrendering as initially reported. The initial reports now stand as proven lies. Now what do the race baiters and Black Bigots have to say?
I’ll say that Black on White bigotry is now more prevalent than White on Black bigotry. Grow up guys if you actually want real equality. If you don’t, The Klan will use your own stupidity and bigotry as a recruiting tool. Clean up your act if you don’t want to go back to Jim Crow.
2) Bassem Masri (the name’s a hint) is one of the Ferguson protestors and he’s so proud of his bigotry that he posted this video on line. He actually doesn’t talk about white people much, but he sure hates Jews.
Breitbart covers it too:
Ferguson Protesters Chase CNN News Reporter Off Live BroadcastP.S. During my recent transcontinental road trip, I briefly was lost in the Ferguson area. During that time, I had it explicitly explained to me that they don’t like white people. I did not remain in the neighborhood to sing Kumbayah or discuss it.
It has been brought to my attention that the 1911 is NOT unique being disabled in this way. Several other models of pistols will also go out of battery if the barrel and slide are pushed back a little bit.
Well, on the one hand, JMB’s locking lug design has been widely copied and used on hundreds of different pistol designs.
On the other hand, I have it only on “I heard once” that a Luger will not do this until the grasshopper unlocks. Never held on, can’t provide proof. I don’t have any pistols that use a rotary lug design. I love the idea, and it’s probably more accurate to boot, but it’s only a guess on my part that they won’t not fire in this circumstance. My idea is based on that rotary lug being a worm gear, and a worm gear only works in one direction. You can spin the worm shaft to turn the gear, but you can’t turn the gear to spin the worm shaft.
On semi autos, you might want to double check some of your stuff.
A minute experimenting with a 1911 confirms that moving the slide back about 3/16” will prevent the gun from firing. Interesting point, but I’m not ready to give up on Old Slab Sides yet.
Besides, virtually every 7.62mm , 9mm, 40 and 45 caliber semi auto pistol I’ve ever seen that uses a short recoil set up shares the characteristic that when the slide moves back, the pistol can’t fire. I’d have to check the Luger P08, because when it fires, the entire top of the gun moves back a little before the toggle unlocks and pops up. Regardless of the locking system, in every case, nothing happens until the barrel and slide have moved backwards a short distance which also causes the disconnector to engage so that the hammer/striker can reset.
It’s an inherent characteristic of the disconnector. Otherwise it would be possible to fire the gun when the barrel and slide weren’t locked in the battery position.
Additionally, past some point in the slide travel, either the hammer can’t rise because the slide is literally on top of it or the trigger mechanism can’t release the striker because the parts are so far out of alignment until the slide returns to battery. There may be some differences with gas operated pistols like the Desert Eagle, but there is still a disconnector between the slide and the trigger mechanism.
That’s what I’ve seen with the Mauser 9mm Broomhandle (cam lock on the bolt), Ruger LC9 (cam lock pulls barrel clear of slide), Czechoslovakian Cz52 (double roller lock), 1911 (as discussed), Tanfoglio Tz75 (copy of Cz75, cam lock similar to LC9 and Browning Hi Power) and a few others. I really don’t know about the Glocks (never looked at them much, I don’t like the trigger), but I do know they use a cam lock to disengage the barrel from the slide and that the striker has to be reset as well, leading me to believe that they too use some sort disconnector.
Hey - there is an additional story to go with this Ferguson mess -
Obviously - the ‘gentle giant’ didn’t fall far from the family tree - and his violent end was predictable.
Yeah, isn’t that choice? Fighting over who has dibs on the gibs; his death has become a source of income for them. Which they then steal from each other. Classy.
