1911 King's Grip Safety

[mpthole]

For those of us who have suffered the hammer-bite/GI grip safety bloody hand syndrome... may I present - the King's drop in grip safety - and it really does drop in. 1911Tuner suggested this to me way back when and now that I have a digital camera I thought I'd post some pics. It'll probably make some of you cringe, because it is a bit ugly and I'm not a perfectionist when it comes to these sorts of things - at least not yet.

 

[mpthole]

The top... notice the hammer is still dinging the top of the grip safety a little even though I relieved quite a bit of material.

 

[Dave Sample]

Beaver tail grip safety's are ususally used with a ring hammer. The ring hammers also hit the B-Tail to some degree, but not enough to notice. Good luck with that Drop In Part.

 

[1911Tuner]

Fugly Safety

--Cringe--

Ugly they are...but they do stop the bloody hand syndrome.
The hammer spur is dingin' the top because it's bouncin' off of it when the slide cocks it and it goes past full cock. The 1911s don't operate smoothly,
but are fairly slam-bang affairs. A new mainspring will help...A 25-pound mainspring will help more. Relieving the underside of the spur where
the contact point is will help even more. Grinding the top of the grip safety to more closely follow the radius on the backside of the hammer will
usually eliminate it. If you go this route, be sure and break the sharp
edges on the side of the safety or you'll have blood comin' from different places. The thing will slice skin like a knife.

Luck!

Tuner

 

[Traveler]

Okay, but if you looked at King's product list a bit longer you would see that they offer grip safetys for both bobbed (or commander) hammers, and another for standard (like you have) hammers. You got the wrong part.

 

[mpthole]

Traveler: I respectfully disagree. I got the #203 from this page on Brownells site. Take another look and compare the second picture in this thread and the page from Brownells. I got the "right" part... whether or not it works as advertised is another matter.

 

[Lochaber]

Are you sure you got the "right" part? Regardless of the hammer issue, the fit looks very wrong. I have one of their grip safeties on my Springfield Mil-Spec and the fit is MUCH better, but I made sure to order the correct version of the safety. Regadless if what you ordered, the part that was in the bag may or may not be the correct part.

Loch

 

[1911Tuner]

Right Part?

T'was asked:

Are you sure you got the "right" part?
Howdy Lochaber,

Yep. That's #203. The issue is likely in the shape/length
of the hammer spur and the mainspring load, or a even a little
out of spec on the tang location on his frame, which will set the safety a little too high. On the ones that I use those safeties on, I have to adjust'em a bit...some more than others.

The standard safety would ding too, if it weren't for the radius at the back of the hammer following the radius at the top of the tang pretty closely.

Luck!

Tuner

 

[SWMAN]

I got the flat top King's drop in grip safety for my 1911A1 RIA to eliminate hammer bite. Does a great job but I need to file down the hammer spur as it dings the top of the Kings' grip safety. Doesn't seem to affect accuracy as I'm good to 2-3" at 25 yards with LPA adjustable sights.