1911 safety issue.

[mainiac]

I have .018 hammer shelf,,dont know where the .002 thing came from.

[mainiac]

You need to tig up your safety or install and fit a new one, the sear stop block is short and allowing the sear to move to the peak of your new shorter .018 hammer hooks.

To verify, assemble without the grip safety. Pull the hammer back and engage the safety. Look in the safety and see where the nob on the safety blocks the sear. How much does the sear move when you pull the trigger before it gets stopped by the sear block nob on the thumb safety. If the sear moves at all, it is too much. Build up the nob where the sear hits the thumb safety by tig welding and refit until it just goes into position.

If you don't have access to. Tig welder, buy a new one from Brownells.

Did you replace the steel trigger? Is this a Colt or a series 80 style fp block system.? The potential for the pistol to inertia fire with a steel trigger has been increased with the shortened hammer hooks and reduced trigger and sear spring pressure.

Once you get the safety corrected and it passes a function test, live fire with only two rounds in the mag a dozen times to prove it won't go full auto on you. Better to find out proving it than with a mag full.

PM sent.

Thanks,for the advice!!
I have to much access to the tig torch im afraid!!!make my living with 1.
Is the ruger safety made of some wild alloy? Or can i use 70 wire,,standard?

[Bigslug]

Some firsthand experience here. . .

What you need to do is perform what Colt calls a "scant safety" function check. Engage the safety and then pull the trigger - hard. Then slowly ease the hammer back and listen closely for a slight "click". That click is the telltale sign of a safety that is over-filed or worn too far. That missing material on the safety allows the sear to rise out of the hammer notch slightly under trigger pressure. The click you hear is the sear falling back into the notch.

My own experience with Ruger - an early-ish one - was that it exhibited scant safety right out of the box, and requesting a new safety from the factory gave me a drop in fit that was ALSO scant safety. I fitted a new safety from another brand and all became right with the world.

[AndyC]

AndyC, Thank You for the excellent diagrams and animation. That should help the OP understand the situation.

And I particularly enjoyed your very British use of the term "bolloxed"

I’ll also add another thanks for the animation. A picture is worth a thousand words. And 50.00 worth of parts.

Most welcome, chaps I hope they're useful.

How much does the sear move when you pull the trigger before it gets stopped by the sear block nob on the thumb safety. If the sear moves at all, it is too much.

^ This x1,000. The sear can't afford to have any movement - the sear-nose is practically on a razor's edge (particularly when the hammer-hooks have been lowered to .018") and won't take much to fall.

[DougGuy]

Thanks,for the advice!!
I have to much access to the tig torch im afraid!!!make my living with 1.
Is the ruger safety made of some wild alloy? Or can i use 70 wire,,standard?

Er70S works fine. Might want to use a piece of angel hair, or take the smallest wire you have and sand it down really small since you need so little weld metal and you need it to only "sit" on the right hand side of the V notch, not fill the whole notch up.

Heat sink the safety in a vise, get on and get off, let cool, repeat until you have a little buildup on the right hand side of the "V" (if the boss is facing you) then use dremel tool and shape/remove until the safety will snick on and off and zero movement of the sear.

Haha I used a piece of a recoil spring as filler wire to do mine, oh jeez man that is some HARD ****! Took me forever to dremel it back to size.

Edit: Okay found some pics, there are two 1911 safeties here, both made by AO, the one that is filed and has metal dust on it is from a 1911A1 and it is fitted properly, the sear does not move at all. This one is the checkered US military style safety.

The other one, which has a serrated thumb pad is the one that was loose and allowed sear movement. I used a tiny blob of metal from a recoil spring to build up the area that contacts the sear leg. It was filed down, and you can see how much material I added to it because there is a notch that was left in there purposely, I didn't need to fill the entire area with weld, only needed enough to file back down to securely contact the sear and now it has zero movement.

First pic, the tiny one puddle of weld:

Attachment 276107

Second pic, most of the weld is now dremeled off and the safety fits and works. In this pic, the welded one is the rear one.

Attachment 276108

Now cleaned up and blued, the notch is still there, it doesn't hurt anything, it represents the surface that was filed from the factory when I received it. I just didn't want to heat the part any more than was minimally necessary and it works fine:

Attachment 276109

If this was a customer's gun I would have welded the notch up but it is my personal gun so it got what it got and that's that.

[AndyC]

Great pics, Doug

Here's a little gif I put together so the OP can see what should happen inside (the grip-safety is removed and the view is from behind and slightly below):



You'll notice how tightly the nub of the thumb-safety slides up to brush the flat surface of the rear of the sear.

[mainiac]

You guys are awesome!!
Im gonna tig it,and see.its such an awesome trigger now,,2lb10oz,,,with no slack or creep,,

[mainiac]

Update,,,tig welded the safety, then filed it down,until it would lift...blocks trigger now,,splendidly!! Thanks for the advice!

[AndyC]

Well done!

[JimB..]

A 1911 manual safety, when properly fitted, locks the sear AND blocks the hammer when engaged.

I believe that the thumb safety blocks the sear, and if that fails the hammer will fall and you can watch it swipe the thumb safety off as the hammer falls all the way to the firing pin. Hammer does burn off some energy in this process, so may or may not give the firing pin enough push to fire the round.

Give it a try, remove the sear and sear pin, pull the hammer back, engage the safety and let loose the hammer.

[AndyC]

The thumb safety only blocks the movement of the sear, correct.

[DougGuy]

I believe that the thumb safety blocks the sear, and if that fails the hammer will fall and you can watch it swipe the thumb safety off as the hammer falls all the way to the firing pin. Hammer does burn off some energy in this process, so may or may not give the firing pin enough push to fire the round.

Give it a try, remove the sear and sear pin, pull the hammer back, engage the safety and let loose the hammer.

You left out the half cock notch which catches the hammer and prevents it from traveling to the firing pin in this event. I.e. WITH the sear and pin installed as it typically would be.

[JimB..]

You left out the half cock notch which catches the hammer and prevents it from traveling to the firing pin in this event. I.e. WITH the sear and pin installed as it typically would be.

Yes, I did. Was really just pointing out that the hammer is not blocked by the thumb safety, certainly not arguing that the system has a catastrophic single point of failure. That said, once someone starts with just a little polishing it’s hard to predict how things are going to go.

[Scrounge]

When I put WWII Colt parts in my RIA GI model, I had this same issue with the WWII Colt thumb safety. Took it to my gunsmiff, and he TIG'd a tiny nub right at the spot where both arrows are pointing. Just a TINY nub. Hit it a couple licks with a file, all fixed! Blew my mind.

Things like that are why it is sometimes worth spending the money for a specialist. Not that they do anything that you couldn't do, but that they know exactly where to do it, and how much to do.

[AndyC]

Scariest thing in the world to me is when someone installs a thumb-safety on a 1911 and they say "It just dropped in". Eek.