1911 grip safety issue

[Hstanton1]

Hello all, I recently picked up a nighthawk falcon in 9mm, and am having some trouble with the grip safety.

When establishing a grip from appendix, the web of my hand sometimes lands high up enough on the beaver tail that I’m not actually engaging it. The grip safety is tuned correctly, and deactivates at about 15-20% travel.

I’m used to drawing with a claw grip on glocks and berettas, so when drawing a 1911 my strong hand thumb is between the beaver tail and my body, more or less level with the rear of the slide. I’ve tried drawing with my thumb in between my body and the holster before, but frankly I find it to be slower and any holster that is loose enough to allow my thumb to form a “full firing grip” doesn’t actually conceal well at all.

Has anyone else had issues like this when transitioning to 1911s? What helped?

I’d prefer to keep the grip safety functional rather than pinning or otherwise deactivating it, I’m open to replacing the grip safety with a unit that protrudes further from the frame, but I’d like to try and solve the issue via technique first.

[Chuck Whitlock]

I'm not sure if I'm tracking what you're saying, but I'll try.

I carry strong-side OWB or IWB, and my holsters have full sweat shields, so hopefully applicable to your situation. As my draw begins, my thumb is basically at the junction of the rear of the slide/hammer/beavertail/sweat shield. As the gun is coming up from the holster, your hand should tighten enough to establish your master grip, with the thumb sliding onto the thumb safety.The web of your thumb should be moving in to it's place under the beavertail. If you shoot high thumb, this can pull the web of your hand away, though. @Mas explains it in these videos:

[Wondering Beard]

Hello all, I recently picked up a nighthawk falcon in 9mm, and am having some trouble with the grip safety.

When establishing a grip from appendix, the web of my hand sometimes lands high up enough on the beaver tail that I’m not actually engaging it. The grip safety is tuned correctly, and deactivates at about 15-20% travel.

I’m used to drawing with a claw grip on glocks and berettas, so when drawing a 1911 my strong hand thumb is between the beaver tail and my body, more or less level with the rear of the slide. I’ve tried drawing with my thumb in between my body and the holster before, but frankly I find it to be slower and any holster that is loose enough to allow my thumb to form a “full firing grip” doesn’t actually conceal well at all.

Has anyone else had issues like this when transitioning to 1911s? What helped?

I’d prefer to keep the grip safety functional rather than pinning or otherwise deactivating it, I’m open to replacing the grip safety with a unit that protrudes further from the frame, but I’d like to try and solve the issue via technique first.

As one who has always had problems deactivating the grip safety on 1911s, I have this one piece of advice that I hope may work: on the draw, try to go deep rather than high (i.e. imagine the web of your hand almost trying to push the gun down down in the holster instead of getting itself high up the gun), when you lift/draw the gun up that's when your hand travels as high as it can.

By going "deep", you are applying the right type of pressure on the grip safety, if you go high you will find ... well you actually have, that your hand isn't applying the type of pressure needed; this is, in great part, due to the web of your hand being "stopped" before it can press in the safety fully. If you are a little lower and then climb up as you draw, you should be able to depress the safety. Getting your hand to come in at an angle rather than straight down can help with that.

If this doesn't work (various hand shapes and sizes can have problems with the 1911 grip safety) try to get Nighthawk to sensitize the grip safety more (less than 10% travel but still functional). After all, the grip safety is there for when the gun isn't being held in the hand.

[Robinson]

When I perform a draw with a 1911 my thumb goes to the inside top ridge of the holster and my fingers and palm attain a good firm, deep grip on the gun. Then I as the gun clears the holster my thumb naturally lands on top of the safety. It's a bit hard to describe and probably hard to picture, but it works consistently for me.

[farscott]

As someone with short fingers, how I establish my grip is key to whether the grip safety is disengaged. High thumb and me do not get along. When I try, the bottom of my palm comes off the grip safety. To establish my grip during a draw, I, like Wondering Beard, go deep like I am pressing the gun into the holster and then slid my hand up until my thumb is in register on the underside of the thumb safety. At that point, I grip the front strap and start to pull the gun from the holster. Once the gun is clear of the holster, and I decide the safety can be safely disengaged, my thumb moves to the top of the safety.

For me, this needed a lot of practice to be anywhere near smooth at speed. More than once, I fumbled the draw and/or failed to deactivate the grip safety. One time my daughter likes to remind me I did ended up with a Harrison Mil-Spec with a clean front strap leaving my hand and ending up in a stream behind the backstop. She says it looks like I tossed the gun like a half-ass softball pitch. That was the last time I did not have aggressive front strap checkering on a candidate for a 1911 to be carried.

[TGS]

I believe slight differences in the profile of the beavertail can also make a difference. I have this happen with my Springfield Loaded, but not my Colt M45A1. Using the Mk1 eyeball it's impossible to tell a difference, but it feels like the Colt allows my hand to sit differently enough that I've never had a problem disengaging the grip safety with a high, thumbs forward grip. With the Springfield and the use of a high thumbs forward grip, I routinely fail to fire the pistol after drawing, and I basically need to shoot it thumbs-down.

Due to this, I'll probably be replacing the Springfield with a Colt Combat Unit at some point, which is essentially the M45A1 (Colt Rail Gun) without a rail, and in black. I could dick around with the Springfield to customize it, but it seems like there's an easy button solution for me, so I'm going to use it. YMMV.

[Hstanton1]

Thanks for the advice all.

A high, thumbs forward grip is what I use on every other handgun I shoot, and what I tend to get the best results with. I’d like to make it work on a 1911 as well. It does work pretty well *most* of the time, but as I’ve said it seems like the web of my hand gets caught too high up on the beaver tail when drawing the gun occasionally.

For those of you advocating driving down into the backstrap of the gun, I’ve messed with this some and I see potential for it, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get down. I’m used to “slapping” the gun to establish a claw grip, or sliding my fingers up the front strap with more of a horizontal entry. As much as I love the front strap checkering on this gun, I must admit it makes establishing the grip using the latter method a bit more challenging.

I’m going to do a fair bit of dry practice tonight, and will try to post pictures of the issue and the draw methods recommended here if I can.

[Hstanton1]

I believe slight differences in the profile of the beavertail can also make a difference. I have this happen with my Springfield Loaded, but not my Colt M45A1. Using the Mk1 eyeball it's impossible to tell a difference, but it feels like the Colt allows my hand to sit differently enough that I've never had a problem disengaging the grip safety with a high, thumbs forward grip. With the Springfield and the use of a high thumbs forward grip, I routinely fail to fire the pistol after drawing, and I basically need to shoot it thumbs-down.

Due to this, I'll probably be replacing the Springfield with a Colt Combat Unit at some point, which is essentially the M45A1 (Colt Rail Gun) without a rail, and in black. I could dick around with the Springfield to customize it, but it seems like there's an easy button solution for me, so I'm going to use it. YMMV.

The colt safety is the one I’ve been looking at the most. It looks like the memory bump is beefier and the whole thing seems like it might force my hand to sit a bit lower, hopefully forcing more contact with the grip safety.

[TGS]

The colt safety is the one I’ve been looking at the most. It looks like the memory bump is beefier and the whole thing seems like it might force my hand to sit a bit lower, hopefully forcing more contact with the grip safety.

This is very hard to describe, but it feels like the Springfield puts my hand lower....and thus in order to disengage the manual thumb safety, I have to reach my thumb farther out and up, which pulls the base of my hand away from the memory bump and results in the grip safety still being active when I try to fire.

The Colt M45A1 feels like I can get deeper into the tang, and it is much easier and more natural for me to disengage and ride the manual thumb safety, which means the meat of my hand rests naturally on the memory bump and I have a 100% success rate in deactivating the grip safety. Given that I use a high thumbs forward grip with every single other pistol I own and is my dominant muscle memory, it's important to me that my 1911s are able to be manipulated using the similar muscle memory. If I was just all in on 1911s...Springfield in particular...then maybe it wouldn't make a difference and I'd be fine with just learning to shoot thumbs down all the time. As it stands right now, when I shoot the Springfield for fun at the range, I have to consciously modify my grip to make the gun work. That's no bueno for any serious use like self defense or competition, but is still patently annoying even just for plinking.

@rcbusmc24 has something like 25 1911s, might have some good input.

[theJanitor]

For those of you advocating driving down into the backstrap of the gun, I’ve messed with this some and I see potential for it, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get down. I’m used to “slapping” the gun to establish a claw grip, or sliding my fingers up the front strap with more of a horizontal entry. As much as I love the front strap checkering on this gun, I must admit it makes establishing the grip using the latter method a bit more challenging.

Sharp checkering can sometimes drag on your fingers and not allow for a consistent finger position. For this reason the best 1911 I have for AIWB has aggressive serrations, not checkering. The fingers more smoothly get around the frontstrap without checkering near the grips. Notice where the serrations start on my Colt