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From: optilink!cramer@uunet.UU.NET (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: magazine safety
Message-ID: <35543@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 13 Jun 91 01:59:43 GMT
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Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA
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In article <35459@mimsy.umd.edu>, baechler@liasun4.epfl.ch ((Emmanuel Baechler)) writes:
#   As far as I know, the origin of the controversy with the magazine
# safety, is that it makes the trigger of the Browning GP-35 so horrible
# that it is unusable. This is why the first thing to do, when you
# receive one, is to remove that safety.

At least current Browning Hi-Powers (as the GP-35 is called here)
have very good triggers.  I have read that the FBI's Hostage Rescue
Teams use Hi-Powers, with the magazine safety removed, principally
for the reason of improving the trigger.

#   I am not sure that this safety is really useful at all. Considering
# a handgun as safe, simply because the magazine is a way, looks to me
# as the best way to prepare an accident. The safety rule which consider
# that a gun is loaded and chambered as long as you do not prove the
# contrary by onpening the slide (and lock it open) and looking at the
# barrel (and dropping the magazine) makes much more sense, IMHO.
# Finally, grip safeties, firing pin safeties or Colt-like security
# looks much more useful to me than the magazine one. 
# 
# Emmanuel Baechler

So how complicated is it to remove?  Is this really the sort of thing
you want a gunsmith to remove?  How hard is it to re-install?  I've
already had one bad experience with a gunsmith working on a Colt
Government Model trigger -- it would be nice if this were the sort of
change I could do myself, and reverse myself, if there were no real
trigger improvement.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
They can have my urine sample when they pry it from my dead, cold fingers.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to
teenage boys." -- P.J. O'Rourke, _Parliament_of_Whores_