Airgun safety - Consumers Should Demand Better

[AllThingsAI]

I just had an FX Crown fire while on safety (no harm done thank goodness)! This is 100% not acceptable and there is no room for excuses when it comes to ANY rifle firing while on safety. A safety should be an independent mechanical lockout mechanism that is not subject to “adjustment” or “fixing”. If this happened on a firearm it would be front page news. Air gun owners need to DEMAND better when it comes to basic safety related design. Having a valve leak or an O ring wear is one thing….a safety not working is a completely different matter! Someone is going to get seriously hurt, or worse!


I’m brand new to air Guns so my perspective is not tainted by any manufacturer (this was my first ever air rifle and the first time I touched the trigger to test). If a rifle fires while on safety or the rifle trigger can be adjusted by anyone (I did not touch any adjustments) to the point of safety failure then the gun has a serious mechanical design flaw. This is a huge liability for everyone involve.


As responsible gun owners, regardless of how it’s powered and regardless of brand, we need to keep this sport safe for everyone so it can grow and prosper for a long time to come. I’ve been shooting firearms for 40 years and I have NEVER seen anything like this.

 

[kkarmical]

 

[nervoustrig]

Do you have any idea yet how it happened?

I won’t be making any excuses for a random manufacturer with whom I have no affiliation but the details matter and it may help someone else avoid damage to person or property.

I was taught to always treat a gun as if it were loaded and keep it pointed in a safe direction at all times. The latter being because machines fail. And however statistically small those failures may be, I don’t want to be part of that statistically small number of casualties associated with that brand of incident.

For example, I’ve known a poppet to fail at idle. If a pellet were in the barrel at the time, it would be propelled as though it were fired. And no trigger/sear safety mechanism would prevent it. 

 

[JimNM]

...

 

[AllThingsAI]

I think the people who say their finger is their safety are missing the point completely! THATS OBVIOUS and it helps nothing! This was a deliberate functional test by me (with a clear chamber) and intended to see if the safety actually worked! Low and behold, it didn’t....NOT ACCEPTABLE.

So don’t just be concerned about yourself and your trigger finger, demand more from manufactures for the safety of everyone else that may not have the experience.

 

[DanielL]

Agreed. My Crown would do a similar dangerous thing. If you bumped the trigger when the safety was on, it would fire when you switched the safety off. It turns out the blocker set screw was not turned in deep enough. This should be set correctly at the factory.

The entire idea of gun safety is multiple layers of safety. Finger outside the guard. Direction of barrel. Unloaded and breech open...etc. That improves your chance of nothing bad happening but that doesn't mean they each individually are not important.

In my case the gun fired when there was no round in the chamber, but there could very easily have been. Many people have their airguns in the house and release the safety pointed in a "safe" direction (ie. not a person) but not necessarily in a direction where nothing will be damaged...ie. floor, wall, ceiling...window...

 

[biohazardman]

My Impact did the same but the adjustment was off because I made it that way. After the adjustments I put the safety on and checked to see if it was werqing. To my surprise it was not and the gun fired. I made a quick adjustment and all was well afterwards.

They should come from the factory or a vendor in a working condition for safeties sake.

 

[kkarmical]

I think the people who say their finger is their safety are missing the point completely! THATS OBVIOUS and it helps nothing! This was a deliberate functional test by me (with a clear chamber) and intended to see if the safety actually worked! Low and behold, it didn’t....NOT ACCEPTABLE.

So don’t just be concerned about yourself and your trigger finger, demand more from manufactures for the safety of everyone else that may not have the experience.

Maybe double up on the trigger pull lbs and see if that works.

My point is simple, if you have a match grade trigger at less than 2 lbs to pull, I would never trust ANY mechanical safety.

 

[AllThingsAI]

I think the people who say their finger is their safety are missing the point completely! THATS OBVIOUS and it helps nothing! This was a deliberate functional test by me (with a clear chamber) and intended to see if the safety actually worked! Low and behold, it didn’t....NOT ACCEPTABLE.

So don’t just be concerned about yourself and your trigger finger, demand more from manufactures for the safety of everyone else that may not have the experience.

Maybe double up on the trigger pull lbs and see if that works.

My point is simple, if you have a match grade trigger at less than 2 lbs to pull, I would never trust ANY mechanical safety.

I appreciate the point and I agree with you not to trust any mechanical safety...I was thought that when I was 5. The point is manufacturers need designs that do not have these failure modes....it’s unsafe! I have rifles that have 3oz triggers, and guess what....the will not fire when the safety is on, they certainly is a possibility it could fire if dropped (I bump test to death). I’m certainly not worried about myself and the way I handle Guns, I’ve been trained time and again. My point is I don’t want to see ANYONE get hurt because something like a mechanical safety fails on a whim because of poor design.

 

[thumper]

You should own an old FX. The safety was just a long grub screw that would eventually just fall out and get lost in the dirt. Not their first rodeo! LOL

 

[boscoebrea]

I get your point,some of my older rifles have No safety...I think when you generalize about a bad designs it is in fact a generalization...and a very good one and should be ingrained in shooters mind,treat all guns as loaded and keep your finger off trigger until you are ready to fire.

Too many mechanical systems placed because people are careless or untrained becomes a lawyer trigger...but should in fact protect users.

A great number of guns can become dangerous because of people trying to lighten their guns triggers....

Enough people have chimed in about their experience about Badly adjusted triggers that we all should take Note of this condition...all triggers and safeties should be tested before a gun is "sent out".....and also by the buyer before he or she uses said gun.

You have done a service by bringing this topic up...and hopefully the manufactures and sellers we also give their point of view.

I have some very light triggers that I would not feel safe to let a novice use...there should be no border line between safe and unsafe..which puts me in the position to adjust the pull on some triggers in order to make them safer for others to use.....

 

[FX-USA]

We appreciate you bringing this to our attention and completely agree for the need for safety on all rifles. Please contact our customer service as we would like to ask a few questions and make sure we understand what went wrong. We appreciate everyone's help and concern, and I can personally assure you that in my 6 years of being involved with either selling or now being a part of FX that I have never heard of an instance of this happening outside of a user adjusting it. Please call us at 1-866-639-0772 (or email your contact details to [email protected]) and we will have one our techs ask some questions and get the serial number so we can ensure this is corrected.

- Jonathan

 

[AllThingsAI]

You should own an old FX. The safety was just a long grub screw that would eventually just fall out and get lost in the dirt. Not their first rodeo! LOL

And yet the latest generation of rifles still have problems...not acceptable. The firearms industry solved this problem in the 1800’s. No excuse for faulty mechanical safety design. Consumers need to be made aware so we can keep others from getting hurt.

 

[Michael]

This topic was temporarily locked because there was a rash of "bandwagoneers" that jumped in with extremely slanderous comments (which will not be tolerated).

I encourage you all to discuss this topic in a constructive and non-slanderous manner.

Thanks

-Michael

 

[AllThingsAI]

Thank you Michael, it’s an extremely important topic that needs to be discuss openly without fear of being slandered. Why are we as consumers expected to send something back to be “fixed” or “adjusted” when it comes to a feature like a safety? I love great customer service, but the point is it should never happen in the first place. In my mind, as an engineer, a feature like a safety should be A mechanical lockout mechanism that is inherently failsafe by design (no adjustments by me or a factory worker) I have Jewel triggers that will adjust down to 3oz for competitive shooting....the safety doesn’t stop working when I adjust, why should Airguns be any different. 


My intentions here are only good...if we can keep just one person from having an accident then it’s worth it!

 

[RobR]

Straight out of the FX handbook. 

 

[ImpactX]

Not gonna make any excuses. But I learned from shooting firearm. Always treat your gun as it is loaded and never relay on the safety. Airgun is no different. All the safety switch really does is move a lever to block the trigger from being pull. Sometime it doesnt engaged on the trigger to lock it and the gun can still fire. So never relay on the safety. Best safety is keep your finger off the trigger.

 

[Rodeo]

It is a "catch-22". No gun should leave a manufacturer without meeting reasonable safety standards. We as consumers also want to be able to adjust our guns to our liking. There are a lot of guns that can become unsafe thru an owners efforts at improving them. Ultimately safety is a combined effort. Manufacturers are responsible for PRODUCING a safe product. Consumers are responsible for USING it safely.

Kudos to the OP for having the forethought to test his rifle. Kudos to the manufacturer for quick response and willingness to take care of the issue.

 

[FuzzyGrub]

Outside of the particular issue you are having with this gun, I'd rather have a trigger that has a wide range of adjustment and be responsible to test it, than to be forced to have a purely "safe" gun, with little or no adjustability. Every airgun manual I've seen with adjustable triggers has that same warning.

 

[AllThingsAI]

It is a "catch-22". No gun should leave a manufacturer without meeting reasonable safety standards. We as consumers also want to be able to adjust our guns to our liking. There are a lot of guns that can become unsafe thru an owners efforts at improving them. Ultimately safety is a combined effort. Manufacturers are responsible for PRODUCING a safe product. Consumers are responsible for USING it safely.

Kudos to the OP for having the forethought to test his rifle. Kudos to the manufacturer for quick response and willingness to take care of the issue.

Just curious, are you requesting the ability to adjust the safety in your gun? Or are you just referring to adjusting your trigger? I personally call myself a trigger snob and will always buy a rifle or trigger group with an adjustable trigger. I personally see no reason to adjust anything as it relates to a manual safety....these should be completely independent systems like every trigger I have ever seen in the firearms world. No amount of trigger adjustment will affect the performance of the manual safety. I’ve had hundreds of adjustable triggers triggers in my day and No amount of trigger adjustment will keep a safety from functioning. That wouldn’t be acceptable...what if someone drops their rifle? If the trigger is too light the sear will disengage from the hammer and it goes off....what prevents this?


Maybe someones son was trained to use an air rifle properly but while getting ready to shoot a squirrel off hand something scares him and he drops the rifle....cocked, pellet in chamber, on safety ( he did everything the right way)....and the gun goes off because the manual safety failed.