In my opinion there is no downside. I once owned a Smith gun with a 3-position safety, and I'm sure whoever invented the danged thing thought it was a wonderful idea; but in my opinion they are accidents waiting to happen. Double gun shooters are conditioned to "believe" that all the way forward means "fire" and one click back means "safe". And because that's so, it's simply too easy not to realize a 3-position safety is in other than a "safe" position; so I encourage you to move forward. Over the years I have converted many of the double guns used exclusively for dove and clays shooting to manual safety by removing the rod connecting the safety slide to the opening lever. I did so to either prevent the accidental loss of a target by failing to remember a gun is on safe, or to speed up my ability for a follow up shot. A competent shooter should be able to properly and timely operate the safety device on his gun; and of note is that the Hunter One-trigger unit seen on thousands of Smith guns is manually operated because there's not enough room for the connecting rod after the trigger unit is installed. Clearly Hunter Arms saw the auto safety device as something competent shooters could live without, and that goes double for the 3-position safety.
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