Double Action Only (DAO) is a type of semi-automatic pistol trigger system whereby the hammer remains down when not firing and must be raised and cocked by the pull of the trigger in order to fire. This results in a long and heavy trigger pull which is regarded as safer and less prone to accidental discharge. In contrast, in a Double Action / Single Action (DA/SA) pistol the hammer is cocked by the rearward action of the slide meaning that all shots after the first have a short and light trigger pull, which is more conducive to accuracy. The hammer can also be cocked manually before the first shot, as it must be in a true single action semi-automatic pistol. A semi-automatic pistol is a handgun commonly used as a sidearm by police and military all over the world. ... In its earliest usage, trigger refers to a mechanical mechanism, the pulling or pushing of which sets a device into action. ... Double Action / Single Action is a type of firearm action in which a semi-automatic pistol has a hammer than can be cocked manually for a reduced trigger pull, as in a Single Action pistol, or cocked and released automatically by the movement of the trigger as in a Double... In firearms the slide is the upper half of a semi-automatic pistol. ... In a single action gun, the triggers only function is to release the hammer. ...
Semi-automatic pistols are manufactured in both single action and doubleaction styles; however, this general classification of the action applies only to the first shot fired.
This is different from double action-only pistols, where the hammer is recocked each time the trigger is pulled, rather than by the recoil of the slide.
Doubleaction pistols operate exactly the same as single action pistols, except on the initial shot in the round.
Thumb-cocked actions came to be called "single actions", meaning actions in which the hammer always had to be cocked by the thumb for each shot.
In the U.S., the original term for the newer type of hammer cocking arrangement was "doubleaction" because the shooter now had a choice of two (double) methods of cocking the hammer.
Eventually this reason for the use of the term "doubleaction" was generally forgotten and the term "doubleaction" firing is now commonly used only to mean using a single motion of the trigger to both cock the hammer and fire in the "trigger-cocked" mode.