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The Annoyed Man wrote:
Regarding firing pin safety devices: I do have to say though that when I owned my Kimber, it had a great trigger, and I am unable to tell the difference between the OEM trigger on my old Kimber, with its firing pin safety, and the smoothed and lightened trigger on my Springfield, with no firing pin device at all. Both have a nice crisp let-off at about 4-4.5 lb of pull, and there is no practical difference between the two. I think that all the hyperventilation about how "terrible" a firing pin safety makes the trigger feel, it is exactly that—hyperventilation. In the real world, particularly that subset of the real world known as "active shooter scenario," literally nobody can tell the difference. In my mind, the only real issue with a firing pin safety in a 1911 pistol is that it has the potential, however small, to fail in such a way as to disable the gun. That never really bothered me, but it might bother some. (In other designs which cannot "cock and lock," all bets are off and I would not carry one that did not have such a device.)

My 2¢. YMMV.

extremist wrote: Yet the 1911 design managed to work fine up until the 80's when the lawyers got involved at Colt and required some sort of firing pin/drop safety be incorporated.


Previously spec'd "Special Forces" 1911 pistols like the Kimber issued to Marine Force Recon did not have one nor did the Kimbers purchased by SIS in LA and later issued for civilian purchases didn't have the Series II FPS. http://www.survivalmonkey.com/threads/o ... icqb.3268/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The problem with doing it on a 1911 is that it usually affects the trigger pull and to do it with a grip safety requires some sort of lever mechanism to activate it. You can google "swartz safety" and "Series 80 safety" for more info. The Colt Series 80 mechanism is quite complicated and is a major pain to disassemble and reassemble correctly.