Regarding safety effectiveness, I think that most old single action pistol did not have effective safety -- most safety design did not lock the firing pin. Some locks the hammer (C96), locks the sear (Luger), locks the trigger (T14? I cannot remember), or some combination of these, but they did not lock the firing pin. So, on those SA pistols, many users load the magazine, but did NOT load the chamber until they wanted to use it. That's a good safety measure which compensated the ineffectiveness of the safety.
However, C96 was an exception. It got a fixed magazine, its normal operation did not allow loading the magazine without loading the chamber. The usual practice was to load the chamber, optionally lower the hammer down, and put the safety on. Always has a live round in chamber, and its safety only locks the hammer... The importance of safety on C96 is obvious.
No wonder Mauser kept changing the C96 safety design with a lot of energy. This gun was more dangerous than other pistols of its time.
But also because it always has a live round in chamber, its emergency handling was good.
That's my thought on this. Actually, matching Japanese assessment well.
|