1911 Grip Safety Improvement

[cclaxton]

I evaluated all three guns.
The Springfield 1911-A1 45 Stainless has the longest depression needed, maybe more than half way needed.
The Springfield 1911-A1 9mm and Remington R1 have about the same and maybe 40% needed to release.
Also, there seems to be a higher tension on the 45 A1.
And, as mentioned, when I put my thumb on the safety, it creates a little pocket, but not so much that it turns on the safety.
BTW I never have this problem with my XDm.

I am going to take them out to the range and give them another run and see if I can figure out if this is grip/training or one of the guns has more of an issue for my hands.

Thanks for all the great posts.
Cody

[JAD]

If your hands are small like mine you may find that thin stocks help; I do. I also shoot better with them. I can run a gun with thick stocks but I prefer thin.

[Doc_Glock]

The grip safety is the main reason I gave up on the 1911. That and I didn’t shoot it better than various plastic guns

[BobRockefeller]

Have a gunsmith, knowledgeable about the 1911 platform, take a look at the pistol(s) and sensitize the grip safety to suit. Almost everything about a 1911 is customizable and tunable by a good gunsmith. If you’re a DYI kind of person, YouTube has a number of relevant videos.

[theJanitor]

The grip safety is the main reason I gave up on the 1911.

One thing I DON'T like about my Wilson EDC X9 is they eliminated the grip safety. For a SA pistol carried AIWB, I'd rather keep the grip safety

[1986s4]

I took my Colt with it's GI type grip safety to a gunsmith and asked him to tune it to off safe 50% of the way in. This plus an arched MSH did the trick. I had a lot of trouble with the high ride beavertail type safeties until I got the plain jane Colt.

[pistolwrench]

Here is an idea:
https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....Series-70-Colt

The owner grips very high and has trouble with the grip safety.
So I set it for minimal, but positive, engagement and increased the protrusion of the 'hump'
by .084".

[entropy]

Timely thread.

I took my SA Champion out for some drills the other day. Aging and thinning hands, plus years away from the design concentrating on HKs and revolvers have taken its toll. Long trigger, high safety, and a flat housing are now causing me some issues. It’s very minimal. Mostly it’s causing a rough pull as the grip safety is not quite disengaged. Its about 30-40% of the time.

Another item to note when I order my semi custom.

[RJ]

Well now, search and ye shall find.

About 735 rounds through my 1911 (Springfield Garrison in .45). Never had an issue depressing the GS during shooting, but...here I am this afternoon looking at Vickers video on 1911s, and he gets to talking about a GS. In particular, how they should disengage fairly early in the travel, but MAXIMUM of 50%.

I'm like, gee, I wonder, what does mine engage at? So after a bit of jiggery pokery with an inexpensive caliper, I deduce that my GS engages at 72%. In other words, the GS only lets the gun fire if it has traveled over 70% of it's range of motion. The fact mine was 72%, and Vickers says max of 50, got me wondering.

Is that worrisome enough to get worked up over?

This is not an EDC gun, being more of an ongoing, help-Rich-learn-about-1911s project gun. So I don't mind filing on something here or there, and learning more about GSs. Or even screwing up the one I have, and getting a replacement from EGW or Wilson/ But before I did that I thought I would ask: is this a rabbit hole I really don't need to go down?

I realize it's unusual of me to even ask this question; normally I'd just say what the hell, order some parts, and grab my Grobet USA file. But for some odd reason I am a bit hesitant on this one.

TIA.

EDIT Went back and put the part above bold. Might be I've answered my own question.

[Elwin]

Well now, search and ye shall find.

About 735 rounds through my 1911 (Springfield Garrison in .45). Never had an issue depressing the GS during shooting, but...here I am this afternoon looking at Vickers video on 1911s, and he gets to talking about a GS. In particular, how they should disengage fairly early in the travel, but MAXIMUM of 50%.

I'm like, gee, I wonder, what does mine engage at? So after a bit of jiggery pokery with an inexpensive caliper, I deduce that my GS engages at 72%. In other words, the GS only lets the gun fire if it has traveled over 70% of it's range of motion. The fact mine was 72%, and Vickers says max of 50, got me wondering.

Is that worrisome enough to get worked up over?

This is not an EDC gun, being more of an ongoing, help-Rich-learn-about-1911s project gun. So I don't mind filing on something here or there, and learning more about GSs. Or even screwing up the one I have, and getting a replacement from EGW or Wilson/ But before I did that I thought I would ask: is this a rabbit hole I really don't need to go down?

I realize it's unusual of me to even ask this question; normally I'd just say what the hell, order some parts, and grab my Grobet USA file. But for some odd reason I am a bit hesitant on this one.

TIA.

EDIT Went back and put the part above bold. Might be I've answered my own question.

I'd mess around in dry fire with different compromised grips. Get the worst grip on it you can where you would still want the gun to go off if that's the grip you had and you decided to pull the trigger. Work strong hand and weak hand, rotate the grip in your hand, etc. Doing this I've found issues with grip safeties that never gave me problems at the range because I never tried to shoot them with a compromised grip, but just because my grip isn't perfect doesn't mean I don't want the gun to go off when I pull the trigger. These are carry guns in my case but this could be equally applicable to competition.

I set mine to get out of the way of the trigger in the first quarter of travel.