American Handgunner Jul/Aug 2011 - Jeffersonian

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photo by Ichiro Nagata
an external hammer. And I assume a
firearm such as the PSA has an internal
hammer. I understood an internal
hammer meant the gun was always
cocked, and you had a light trigger
pull, and a dropped gun might easily go
off. The internal hammer guns always
struck me as being inherently unsafe,
unless you trust safeties — which I
never have.
Recently, I read a description of
modern striker-fired handguns as being
like staple guns: You squeeze the staple
gun trigger or handle, which cocks the
staple-striking bar and also releases
the striker at the end of the stroke.
Thus, a modern striker-fired trigger
pull is much like a double-action-only
(DAO) revolver trigger, but probably
lighter, with the trigger pull cocking
and releasing the firing pin to strike the
primer, if I’m understanding this right?
This sounds pretty safe to me. So, am
I correct in believing the striker-fire
design of a Glock, for instance, is considerably
different than the “strikerfired”
design of the P.S.A. .25?
Bill Sims, Capt, USAF (RET)
Via e-mail
Tuff_8 in line.indd 1
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4/15/10 1:37 PM
Well Bill, they are actually virtually
identical in concept and function, but
there are differences. A striker-fired gun
simply means there is no hammer at all
inside. When you rack the slide, you
cock the firing pin (or striker), compressing
a spring behind it. A sear holds
the striker back, against the spring
pressure. When you pull the trigger, it
moves the sear, releasing the striker
(firing pin), allowing the compressed
spring to smack the striker against the
primer of the cartridge, firing the gun.
The slide cycles, reloading the chamber,
and cocking the striker again.
Some guns, like Glocks and a few
others, pre-cock the striker when the
slide is cycled, then allow the trigger
pull to cock the striker a tiny bit more
to the rear just prior to being released,
offering a sort of double-action mode.
There are no hammers involved in the
classic sense. But, indeed, both the
P.S.A. and more modern designs can
correctly be called striker-fired. RH
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