Double Action - Single Action and all the other crap.
This is a pet peeve of mine and I am going to rant about it here just because I can.
The single action and double action phrases owe their origins to revolvers, black powder revolvers at that. The first revolvers were single action. You had to manually cock the hammer and this simultaneously cocked the hammer and rotate a fresh charge hole in the cylinder inline with the hammer and barrel. When you pullet the trigger (a single action trigger) it simply release the hammer firing the gun
A double action was a great advancement for revolvers you could simply pull the trigger and the action of pulling the trigger alone would both cock the hammer (cycle the cylinder) and then at the finish of the pull release the hammer firing the gun. Double action in that it both ready the gun to fire and fired the gun in one motion.
The key to double action is that nothing is require to fire the next cartridge you simply pull the trigger again. This includes if the charge hole was empty or has a dude cartridge. Nothing is require to be able to pull the trigger again and make the hammer rise and fall.
Now we try to apply this to a semi-auto handguns and thing can get really really messy, but I am going to simplify all that. Not that anyone is going to listen to me. If a semi-auto is truly double action then the operator should be able to pull the trigger and the hammer/striker go click (possible boom if there is a cartridge in the chamber); then even if there was no cartridge in the chamber, or a dude cartridge present, the operator should WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING ELSE! pull the trigger again and the hammer/striker should go click again. If you cannot repeatedly cause the hammer/striker to cock and fall on a faulty cartridge or empty chamber with uninterrupted pulls of the trigger then your gun is NOT DOUBLE ACTION. IMO.
Certainly many of those trigger system that do not fall into my definition of double action probably also do not fall into the classical definition of single action either but they are certainly closer to single action than double action when compared to those phrases as applied to revolvers. Call them what ever you want safe action, ultra safety assurance I don't care just don't call them Double Action.
This comes to mind as my new Kahr CW9 was advertised as Double Action Only and its not. Its a single action only, the gun relied on the cycling of the slide to reset the striker trigger.
The argument that it's double action because is does two things cock (or complete the cocking of the striker in the case of Kahrs and Glocks) and then release the trigger is BS if it relies on the slide cycling to be able to do it again. It must be able to repeated cock and release the hammer/striker on an empty chamber or its not double action.
IMO
The single action and double action phrases owe their origins to revolvers, black powder revolvers at that. The first revolvers were single action. You had to manually cock the hammer and this simultaneously cocked the hammer and rotate a fresh charge hole in the cylinder inline with the hammer and barrel. When you pullet the trigger (a single action trigger) it simply release the hammer firing the gun
A double action was a great advancement for revolvers you could simply pull the trigger and the action of pulling the trigger alone would both cock the hammer (cycle the cylinder) and then at the finish of the pull release the hammer firing the gun. Double action in that it both ready the gun to fire and fired the gun in one motion.
The key to double action is that nothing is require to fire the next cartridge you simply pull the trigger again. This includes if the charge hole was empty or has a dude cartridge. Nothing is require to be able to pull the trigger again and make the hammer rise and fall.
Now we try to apply this to a semi-auto handguns and thing can get really really messy, but I am going to simplify all that. Not that anyone is going to listen to me. If a semi-auto is truly double action then the operator should be able to pull the trigger and the hammer/striker go click (possible boom if there is a cartridge in the chamber); then even if there was no cartridge in the chamber, or a dude cartridge present, the operator should WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING ELSE! pull the trigger again and the hammer/striker should go click again. If you cannot repeatedly cause the hammer/striker to cock and fall on a faulty cartridge or empty chamber with uninterrupted pulls of the trigger then your gun is NOT DOUBLE ACTION. IMO.
Certainly many of those trigger system that do not fall into my definition of double action probably also do not fall into the classical definition of single action either but they are certainly closer to single action than double action when compared to those phrases as applied to revolvers. Call them what ever you want safe action, ultra safety assurance I don't care just don't call them Double Action.
This comes to mind as my new Kahr CW9 was advertised as Double Action Only and its not. Its a single action only, the gun relied on the cycling of the slide to reset the striker trigger.
The argument that it's double action because is does two things cock (or complete the cocking of the striker in the case of Kahrs and Glocks) and then release the trigger is BS if it relies on the slide cycling to be able to do it again. It must be able to repeated cock and release the hammer/striker on an empty chamber or its not double action.
IMO