Posted: 6/21/2005 10:45:37 AM EDT
| What exactly is hammer bite? Does it depend on the user, the individual pistol, or both? |
| Something tittybabies whine about. It is a reference to the 1911 and Browning highpower with stock hammers. They pinch the skin between the the thumb and index, it is an annoyance easily fixed by replacing the hammer. Non milspec models usually solve this problem already. |
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I've had it happen to me; to the point where my hand was bloody afterwards and it took nearly a month for it to heal and scab over enough for me to even consider going back to the range with it. From then on until I swapped out the grip safety, it was shooting wearing gloves only. Note that this was after about 150 or so rounds. Yes, my hands are pretty big. I prefer to hold the handgun higher in the grip than most people, I guess. Two or three easy fixes...replace the grip safety with a King's drop-in grip safety; replace the hammer with a commander hammer or bob the issue hammer, or replace both parts at once, if hammer bite gets at you. It hurt, that was fine. It's the fact that I wound up bleeding all over my 1944 USGI 1911A1 that really annoyed me, not to mention the time lost that I couldn't spend at the range until my hand healed. Still has a pretty distinctive scar, too. Can't mistake it for anything else. |
| I have been bitten by both the High Power and the 1911....it has nothing to do with improper grip. If you grip the pistol up as high as you can, which helps to get your hand closer to the axis of the bore to limit the muzzle flip, the web of your hand will sometimes squeeze over the edge of the grip safety and get pinched. If you don't grip up so high it will never happen......I grip as high as I can so I get bit. Easy fixes for either pistol exist if it is a problem on your pistol. |
I have large hands, so I get hammer bite on just about every 1911 that i shoot. It sucks, but i love shooting them so much that i dont stop until it is bleeding. |
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a GI 1911 will give me wicked hammer bite after about5 rounds, and a glock gives me slide bite in about ten. shame, i actually kinda liked glocks. i have to do beavertails on a 1911, though. i can't just NOT shoot it.  i've got two faint scars on my right hand from slide/hammer bites. oh well. |