Hello, I am having some confusion about striker fired guns on a gun with a hammer, you can either cock the hammer and pull the trigger, or just pull the trigger and the hammer will be raised and dropped but im not understanding the 'cocking' process on striker fired, when you put in a new magazine and rack the slide to put a round in the chamber, is it now 'cocked', as in the striker is back under pressure and a now lighter trigger pull will release it? or is a striker fired gun never 'cocked' even if you rack the slide, that is that the striker is always 'released' until you pull the trigger no matter what, and pulling the trigger tensions and releases the striker i was curious because, how would you decock a striker fired pistol, you would have to remove all the rounds and dry-fire it, and that cant be right?? I am interested in getting my first center fire gun, i was really liking the ruger sr9
It depends on the gun. Glocks are almost fully cocked. The striker is moved to the rear a little before release. Sigmas differ a bit as the striker is a little less cocked and has to be cocked further before release. The Walther/S&W P-99 has a "decocking" button on the slide that allows two different feels to the trigger. One like the Glock and one like the Sigma.
there are quite a few combinations just as robocop said... there are even some striker fired pistols that allow for multil\ple strike capability like the taurus line. most of them do cock the striker back for at least a portion of the strikers travel. the difference shows up in the trigger pull. glocks and XD's and walther PPSs and the like having decently short and light trigger pulls, the walther P99 offers two different trigger pulls just like a DA/SA hammer fired pistol, and some of the taurus line offers a half-cocked (single action they call it) shot for the first round chambered, and then subsequent follow up heavier "doubleaction shots" as the trigger has to reengage the whole cocking mechanism. most striker fired pistols do need to have the trigger pulled to "decock" them before you take them apart. i know the S&W M&P pistols dont require this step as there is a lever that drops striker tension for you during take down. perhaps the walther P99 doesnt require you to pull the trigger either, as it has a decocking button, but i dont know for sure...
Think of most striker operated pistols to be sort of like a 1911 pistol. With a 1911 pistol the hammer has got to be in the cocked position before it will fire. A striker is also in the cocked position prior to being fired. Now whether the hammer is always cocked and ready, like on a true 1911 pistol, or needs to be brought into the cocked position with a pulled trigger, like with a Sig Sauer P-220 in .45 caliber, the end result will be the same: the gun goes bang. Striker systems for firearms have been around since about the late 1800s, if I remember right. I know that the striker system was big for semi-automatic pistols but I'm trying to remember if the system was tried out on a rifle or carbine or not... I want to say that there may have been a rifle where the striker system was tried in some fashion. Or could it have been a machinegun or submachinegun? I'll need to research that one a bit. Was it the STEN that operates off of a blowback system with a fixed (striker like) firing pin in place?
