An interesting topic!!!!!
After the introduction of the PSP/P7 in the Bavarian police at the end of the 1970’s/early 80’s we had a couple (basically too many) incidents, which can be summed up as accidental discharges, together with other necessary updates, which had to be done, after problems showed up in the daily service.
I’d like to split them up in 2 groups
a) technical reasons
b) handling and training disadvantages.
a) basic problem was, that the early P7 was not safe for ac’s when falling down. I was on the spot, when that happened to a colleague next to my locker. He unhooked his holster from the carrying-plate and let the gun inside the holster, (with covered trigger) fall down. The gun hit the frame of his locker with the grip-cocking-handle, semi cocked the firing-pin and released a shot, when the firing pin travelled forward by the force of its spring, leaving the colleague (and me) standing in the locker-room without colour in our faces. The holster looked at the front like a tulip-blossom, the FMJ-bullet travelled through the metal of the locker, ricocheted from the floor, entering upward in the locker again and leaving it for one more,(but not the last one) time for hitting the wall, back and out through the top of the locker and ending its journey in the ceiling…… That brought our commander to complete excitement (couldn’t you leave your fucking index-finger out of the trigger-guard!!!!!) until I explained him, that no one engaged the trigger, which could be proven by the condition of the holster. He slowly calmed down, wrote a report and we made a few nice pictures with a little rest of the colour from the locker at the front side of the grip-cocking-handle, which proved the situation. That was one of I would say minimum a dozen or more incidents like that, which finally lead to the installing of a firing-pin-securing-bar (don’t know, how to call that correctly, I’ll show it to you physically during your next stay). After that, the firing-pin could only hit the cartridge’s primer, when the trigger is fully pulled back.
The next problem was the good chance of loosing the inserted magazine. The magazine-catch on top of the rear lower frame was useless in daily service, as soon you sit down in some chair, car-seat or you hit a door-handle while walking by, the magazine was unlocked and very often lost. Some colleagues prevented that in securing the magazine-housing with inserted mag with tape, which is also not too wise….
Next step was to mount a complete different mag.-release at the underside behind the mag-housing, no improvement, than to enlarge the grip panels to accommodate the mag.-release, no improvement, than to change the direction to engage the mag-release from “down” to “up”, a little improvement, but not satisfying and finally to engage the mag release “pressing up, press in and press down”, now no more magazines were lost, but most of the colleagues were completely fucked, when they tried to make a mag-change…..
Additionally the trigger was changed because of heating-up-problems, when a higher number of shots were fired, not so easy, look at topic before because of mag-change!!!!!!!
b) In the early times the training was (if it wouldn’t be so sad) not more than a joke!!!. You got 2 boxes of rounds, burned 100 shots somewhere downrange without any supervision or advises and than they thought, you are properly trained…… The basic problem is a handling-problem, which needs to be automatized, cocking the gun and leaving the index-finger straight, until you want to shoot a round. Generally the fist closes with all fingers, that means “trigger-pull” and “boom”! We had also fatal situations, when the P7 was abused as a tool, i. o. to smash a window, if the shot was fired because of the technical disadvantages described above or manual trigger-pull was in my opinion generally not to verify.
Under the line: In the early years the P7 was a really difficult and not safe tool, that changed by the years because of the updates and adequate training, so finally the P7 was a good companion in service not only for me…..
