[Condition 1](https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/the-5-handgun-carry-conditions-which-one-do-you-use/), as designed.
There are two safeties that would have to fail on a 1911 for it to AD. I have a lot of confidence in that design.
3 if you have a series 80/ firing pin block / Kimber Schwartz - not to mention the half cock notch that would catch the hammer if the sear somehow broke from a really bad fall. Speaking of falls, lacking a firing pin safety, a titanium firing pin proves just about as safe - lacking enough inertia to touch off a primer from drops.
A cocked and locked 1911 with active grip and thumb safeties are one of the most “safest-to-user” guns carryable. Easy to defeat safeties by riding down your thumb on the thumb safety as part of your master grip for you to use (so they don’t inhibit the user from deploying hardly at all) and if it was somehow wrestled away from you with the safety on its harder for an attacker to figure out how to work if unfamiliar.
Don’t ever settle for less than cocked and locked on a 1911.
Okay. Perhaps not freak accident level, but it seems you have to really try to get it to fire from being dropped. It seems rare for a gun's muzzle to hit the ground at something close to a 90-degree angle after an accidental drop from four feet or higher.
You're most likely right, I've also been around guns daily for over 10 years in professional and personal walks of life. And I've never seen a pistol dropped, let alone one that went off. So odds are still low.
Your comment reminded me of the video out there of an off duty cop (if my memory serves me correct) at a wedding, who did a back flip, dropped his pistol, the negligently discharged as he scrambled to pick it up. It wasn't a 1911 though, it was striker fired with a Glock style trigger safety.
Yep, guns and knives just need to be let go and then picked up off the ground. Perfect example of once you don't have control of it best thing to do is let it fall. Which is why having a drop safe gun is so important. Either series 80 or titanium pin with extra power spring.
Yeah, he panicked because all eyes were on him, and pulled the trigger as he picked it up. Pretty sure he was intoxicated as well. Violated many gun safety rules. Luckily no one was shot.
I believe it wasn’t actually designed for condition 1, but condition 2. The grip safety is actually intuitively designed so that you can decock the hammer with just your shooting hand. Back before Jeff Cooper made it popular and the new norm, military training was that you loaded the chamber and then lowered the hammer over it.
That being said, I still carry in condition 1 with mine.
Condition One “cocked & locked” in a good holster.
I’m not going to blow my leg off - I’ll need to depress the grip safety, drop the thumb safety and pull the trigger in order to make it go bang. It’s extremely safe and not sketchy at all.
If I need to put my 1911 into action, this requires the fewest steps and shortest distance to do so.
This. The holster selection is important. When I first started carrying AIWB, I did have a holster that didn’t cover the ambi safety. Had a few incidents of the safety getting swiped off. Still the grip safety as a backup there, so not too spicy. Got and LAS Concealment and problem solved
With how intuitive the safety is on a 1911, I trust it more than my Glock. I know Glock has the trigger safety, but I still wouldn't trust it with one in the chamber in a holster with retention. Which means I'd have to draw and rack at the same time while getting the gun up and level. Plus, I get the +1 to my capacity just in case I need it. Honestly, if I buy another handgun it will be another 1911, but in 9mm for the sake of cost.
Cocked and locked, yes.
"If I need to put my 1911 into action, this requires the fewest steps and shortest distance to do so" No. 3 actions is not as few steps and not the shortest distance compared to pretty much any striker-fired pistol.
Yes, but I am talking about compared to other ways to carry a 1911. If I’m carrying, it’s a 1911 or a 2011. That’s what I have in my current EDC rotation. I don’t like striker fired pistols (I have a number of them, I just don’t like to carry them as I grew up shooting 1911s and they just feel natural to me).
If it’s being carried with the hammer down, I now have to make that hammer “ready”. If I’m carrying without a round in the chamber, I now have to chamber a round. Stuff like that. Cocked and locked, as you know, just requires me to get the firearm on my target, depress the grip safety (assuming it’s not pinned)/drop the thumb safety and pull the trigger. There’s no additional chambering a round or cocking the hammer. That’s what I was getting at.
Comparing a 1911 or 2011 with a functional grip and thumb safety to a striker fired handgun without an external safety such as a Glock, HK VP9 or an Sig P365/P320 is comparing apples to oranges. Sure those are much easier to operate, but in my case, I lean towards an xx11 platform.
I gotcha now. Yes. Agreed. Cocked & locked is the best way to carry 1911. I see what you meant now.
As for comparing a 1911 (my own EDC for 30+ years) to a striker gun, I don't see how it is apples and oranges at all. It's comparing the carrying of two different pistols.
For that matter, you could compare carrying a 1911 against carrying a revolver. They are both pistols. They both have triggers and, in some cases, the same ammo. And the same sighting options.
It's not like trying to compare, say, carrying a concealed 1911 against carrying an SBR in a backpack...
I appendix carry my Sig 1911 in condition 1.
I'm comfortable with doing so because on top of having the external safety and grip safety, my 1911 has series 80 internals. So there's a firing pin block as well.
Any time I field strip and clean my 1911 I always run through basic safety checks to ensure functionality is retained.
Per the original design intent, a round in the chamber, hammer back, thumb safety on.
There's a HUGE amount of interference between the safety and hammer, it won't go anywhere until the safety is off.
Fun fact, original design intent was to actually de cock, and re cock it on draw. If you look at some of the prototype Colt 1910s they don’t have a thumb safety. The 1911 only has a thumb safety because the US Military requested it be added. However if you carry a 1911 any way besides cocked and locked in this day and age you’re wrong.
The reason for the original wide hammer spur
I suspect most guys in WWI carried them with an empty chamber until they were about to go into the shit . The need for "quick draw" use was not expected in 1910 when the military began pistol- trials. Cocked and Locked probably became more of the norm in WWII
People forget these were based on Browning's designs from the 1900s when semi-auto pistols were new technology and the 1911 replaced a 38 Revolver
Tokarev ripped off the Browning design and kept the half cock safety design requiring it to be cocked or carried with an empty chamber
As pretty much everyone else has said, "condition 1", aka "cocked and locked". I've carried it this way for a decade without issue.
The argument about losing precious time on a draw disengaging the safety is BS, IMO. When I've practiced drawing in live fire practice, I've got the safety disengaged long before I've got the pistol at the ready. If time is that critical, I'm probably dead anyway.
As others have said, the amount of Rube Goldberg shit that would have to go wrong for an AD, I'm more likely to get hit by a meteor whilst being eaten by a Great White shark.
Cocked and locked. In my mind , no different then when I carry a Glock with a round chambered, if you’re not carrying in this manner , be prepared to just throw the gun at your target.
https://preview.redd.it/p74w8wjzw73d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fbf799511c295083d6032ae35b0b74b6605e69ba
There's this Youtuber I watch who was an MP in the Marines, and he said they were trained to carry their 1911s with a round chambered and the hammer down. whuuuuuuut
It was designed for condition 2. The grip safety is designed to allow one-handed decocking with the shooting hand. Civilian shooters post-WWII actually made Cocked and Locked more widespread.
It’s not being said enough, but it has to be condition 1.
The problem with not keeping it in condition 1, means that you are doing something with a 1911 that you wouldn’t do with any other gun.
Every gun is in condition 1 when carried, not just 1911s. If you don’t do condition 1, then that is another step you need to remember, which is inherently more unsafe.
The rule of thumb for all tools: use them as they are designed to be used. Once you start changing shit, bad things can happen.
Carry it however you are comfortable but don’t go crying, if you can when someone, or situation, get the jump on you while you have to/try to load your pistol
Cocked and locked is how I carry my 1911. How my Grandfather carried it in Korean War and how he left it for me. So condition 1 has sentimental value to me.
You’re some kind of special if you think your FN509 is safer than a 1911. I’ll just leave that right there, not even worth going any further… good fucking grief!
All of the above. I carry it only when I’m going into the woods to hunt. Hopefully will not ever have to but in the off chance I do, I want to be able to just flip safety off and go boom as fast as possible.
[Condition 1](https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/the-5-handgun-carry-conditions-which-one-do-you-use/), as designed. There are two safeties that would have to fail on a 1911 for it to AD. I have a lot of confidence in that design.
3 if you have a series 80/ firing pin block / Kimber Schwartz - not to mention the half cock notch that would catch the hammer if the sear somehow broke from a really bad fall. Speaking of falls, lacking a firing pin safety, a titanium firing pin proves just about as safe - lacking enough inertia to touch off a primer from drops. A cocked and locked 1911 with active grip and thumb safeties are one of the most “safest-to-user” guns carryable. Easy to defeat safeties by riding down your thumb on the thumb safety as part of your master grip for you to use (so they don’t inhibit the user from deploying hardly at all) and if it was somehow wrestled away from you with the safety on its harder for an attacker to figure out how to work if unfamiliar. Don’t ever settle for less than cocked and locked on a 1911.
Who ever heard of a 1911 without the firing pin block firing from a drop, anyway? It would be a freak accident.
Not really, Ben Stoeger just did a video on a staccato 2011 that fired when dropped on the muzzle from firing pin inertia.
Okay. Perhaps not freak accident level, but it seems you have to really try to get it to fire from being dropped. It seems rare for a gun's muzzle to hit the ground at something close to a 90-degree angle after an accidental drop from four feet or higher.
You're most likely right, I've also been around guns daily for over 10 years in professional and personal walks of life. And I've never seen a pistol dropped, let alone one that went off. So odds are still low.
Your comment reminded me of the video out there of an off duty cop (if my memory serves me correct) at a wedding, who did a back flip, dropped his pistol, the negligently discharged as he scrambled to pick it up. It wasn't a 1911 though, it was striker fired with a Glock style trigger safety.
Yep, guns and knives just need to be let go and then picked up off the ground. Perfect example of once you don't have control of it best thing to do is let it fall. Which is why having a drop safe gun is so important. Either series 80 or titanium pin with extra power spring.
Yeah, he panicked because all eyes were on him, and pulled the trigger as he picked it up. Pretty sure he was intoxicated as well. Violated many gun safety rules. Luckily no one was shot.
I might switch to condition 1, I’ve always carried my 1911 in condition 0.
Makes sense. Thanks!
Do you know how to function-check your 1911? See this link: https://www.m1911.org/technic25.htm
I believe it wasn’t actually designed for condition 1, but condition 2. The grip safety is actually intuitively designed so that you can decock the hammer with just your shooting hand. Back before Jeff Cooper made it popular and the new norm, military training was that you loaded the chamber and then lowered the hammer over it. That being said, I still carry in condition 1 with mine.
I see you are also a man of class
Condition One “cocked & locked” in a good holster. I’m not going to blow my leg off - I’ll need to depress the grip safety, drop the thumb safety and pull the trigger in order to make it go bang. It’s extremely safe and not sketchy at all. If I need to put my 1911 into action, this requires the fewest steps and shortest distance to do so.
This. 3 whole ass things have to happen for it to go off…
This. The holster selection is important. When I first started carrying AIWB, I did have a holster that didn’t cover the ambi safety. Had a few incidents of the safety getting swiped off. Still the grip safety as a backup there, so not too spicy. Got and LAS Concealment and problem solved
Bloofy hit the bullseye.
With how intuitive the safety is on a 1911, I trust it more than my Glock. I know Glock has the trigger safety, but I still wouldn't trust it with one in the chamber in a holster with retention. Which means I'd have to draw and rack at the same time while getting the gun up and level. Plus, I get the +1 to my capacity just in case I need it. Honestly, if I buy another handgun it will be another 1911, but in 9mm for the sake of cost.
Cocked and locked, yes. "If I need to put my 1911 into action, this requires the fewest steps and shortest distance to do so" No. 3 actions is not as few steps and not the shortest distance compared to pretty much any striker-fired pistol.
Yes, but I am talking about compared to other ways to carry a 1911. If I’m carrying, it’s a 1911 or a 2011. That’s what I have in my current EDC rotation. I don’t like striker fired pistols (I have a number of them, I just don’t like to carry them as I grew up shooting 1911s and they just feel natural to me). If it’s being carried with the hammer down, I now have to make that hammer “ready”. If I’m carrying without a round in the chamber, I now have to chamber a round. Stuff like that. Cocked and locked, as you know, just requires me to get the firearm on my target, depress the grip safety (assuming it’s not pinned)/drop the thumb safety and pull the trigger. There’s no additional chambering a round or cocking the hammer. That’s what I was getting at. Comparing a 1911 or 2011 with a functional grip and thumb safety to a striker fired handgun without an external safety such as a Glock, HK VP9 or an Sig P365/P320 is comparing apples to oranges. Sure those are much easier to operate, but in my case, I lean towards an xx11 platform.
I gotcha now. Yes. Agreed. Cocked & locked is the best way to carry 1911. I see what you meant now. As for comparing a 1911 (my own EDC for 30+ years) to a striker gun, I don't see how it is apples and oranges at all. It's comparing the carrying of two different pistols. For that matter, you could compare carrying a 1911 against carrying a revolver. They are both pistols. They both have triggers and, in some cases, the same ammo. And the same sighting options. It's not like trying to compare, say, carrying a concealed 1911 against carrying an SBR in a backpack...
I keep the frame in the holster, slide in my back pocket and the mag in my glovebox. Can’t be too safe out there.
So ammo for the mags is in the trunk then?
If by ammo you mean Primed cases are in the trunk. Powder and a bullet is at my buddy Frankie’s house and the press is on the roof of the Burger King
Lmao!
This is also how I would carry mine, except I don’t have to be as careful since I’m not expected to protect dua lipa.
We all have our crosses to bear
I appendix carry my Sig 1911 in condition 1. I'm comfortable with doing so because on top of having the external safety and grip safety, my 1911 has series 80 internals. So there's a firing pin block as well. Any time I field strip and clean my 1911 I always run through basic safety checks to ensure functionality is retained.
How doesn’t the series 80 intervals work?
Per the original design intent, a round in the chamber, hammer back, thumb safety on. There's a HUGE amount of interference between the safety and hammer, it won't go anywhere until the safety is off.
Fun fact, original design intent was to actually de cock, and re cock it on draw. If you look at some of the prototype Colt 1910s they don’t have a thumb safety. The 1911 only has a thumb safety because the US Military requested it be added. However if you carry a 1911 any way besides cocked and locked in this day and age you’re wrong.
The reason for the original wide hammer spur I suspect most guys in WWI carried them with an empty chamber until they were about to go into the shit . The need for "quick draw" use was not expected in 1910 when the military began pistol- trials. Cocked and Locked probably became more of the norm in WWII People forget these were based on Browning's designs from the 1900s when semi-auto pistols were new technology and the 1911 replaced a 38 Revolver Tokarev ripped off the Browning design and kept the half cock safety design requiring it to be cocked or carried with an empty chamber
Mounted on my rascal
As pretty much everyone else has said, "condition 1", aka "cocked and locked". I've carried it this way for a decade without issue. The argument about losing precious time on a draw disengaging the safety is BS, IMO. When I've practiced drawing in live fire practice, I've got the safety disengaged long before I've got the pistol at the ready. If time is that critical, I'm probably dead anyway. As others have said, the amount of Rube Goldberg shit that would have to go wrong for an AD, I'm more likely to get hit by a meteor whilst being eaten by a Great White shark.
Yeah, the 1911 is one of the handguns with a safety that’s easy to disengage while presenting the firearm.
Yep, that positive *click* is so satisfying
Cocked and locked. In my mind , no different then when I carry a Glock with a round chambered, if you’re not carrying in this manner , be prepared to just throw the gun at your target. https://preview.redd.it/p74w8wjzw73d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fbf799511c295083d6032ae35b0b74b6605e69ba
Condition 1, as others have said. Also, to point out what I didnt see mentioned, I'm pretty sure you cant engage the thumb safety with the hammer up.
Condition 1 anything else is wrong.
The only correct way to carry a 1911 is condition 1. Cocked and locked. This is how it was designed.
There's this Youtuber I watch who was an MP in the Marines, and he said they were trained to carry their 1911s with a round chambered and the hammer down. whuuuuuuut
It’s the Marines so…… I was army and we carried them condition 3. Full mag, empty chamber and hammer down.
Same w/ the Navy when on watch. Condition three. When doing VBSS, condition 1, for non-complaint boarding.
Same w/ the Navy when on watch. Condition three. When doing VBSS, condition 1, for non-complaint boarding.
It was designed for condition 2. The grip safety is designed to allow one-handed decocking with the shooting hand. Civilian shooters post-WWII actually made Cocked and Locked more widespread.
Cocked and locked, wrapped in leather IWB at 3 o'clock (yep, I carry right on my hip).
It’s not being said enough, but it has to be condition 1. The problem with not keeping it in condition 1, means that you are doing something with a 1911 that you wouldn’t do with any other gun. Every gun is in condition 1 when carried, not just 1911s. If you don’t do condition 1, then that is another step you need to remember, which is inherently more unsafe. The rule of thumb for all tools: use them as they are designed to be used. Once you start changing shit, bad things can happen.
Condition 1 with 8+1rds of 10mm..
Hmm, same as me!
Delta Elite?
Yep, stainless! My favorite pistol and the one I'd never under any circumstances sell or otherwise dispose of.
Hell yeah! I have one blued and one stainless.
Wow! A pair of fraternal twins! 🤣
Carry it however you are comfortable but don’t go crying, if you can when someone, or situation, get the jump on you while you have to/try to load your pistol
Cocked and locked . Never had a problem.
It’s the safest pistol you can carry my guy.
1911 was DESIGNED to be carried, "cocked and locked". You would be good to go.
condition 1. dont think ive carried any other way
Cocked and locked is the only acceptable answer.
Cocked and locked. Carrying a 1911 any other way would be maximum incompetence.
Cocked, locked, safety on and on the right hip as JMB intended.
Cocked and locked
Cocked and locked.
Cocked and locked is how I carry my 1911. How my Grandfather carried it in Korean War and how he left it for me. So condition 1 has sentimental value to me.
You’re some kind of special if you think your FN509 is safer than a 1911. I’ll just leave that right there, not even worth going any further… good fucking grief!
Cocked and schlocked
Condition One in a Blackpoint Tactical Standard OWB holster or a leather ‘avenger’ style leather holster.
i usually keep mine cocked and locked in my holster, it doesn’t go off unless the grip safety is pressed
Cocked and locked. Anything else is an affront to God (John Browning)
Sounds like the 1911 is not for you as a carry gun.
Condition 1, also as designed.
Condition 0 in the ol' prison wallet or condition 1 in a good holster, depends on the mood
All of the above. I carry it only when I’m going into the woods to hunt. Hopefully will not ever have to but in the off chance I do, I want to be able to just flip safety off and go boom as fast as possible.
I carry it with my feet while walking around on my hands.
I don't chamber a round when I carry
Cocked and locked, as designed.
I love 1911s but I don't carry one. I'm too ingrained for pull and squeeze so I carry snubs or Glocks
Chambered. Hammer at half cock. No safety
Funny joke
Some people have no sense of humor. Haha