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Pinned Grip Safety


sperman

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I'm building a 9mm single stack, and trying to decide whether or not to pin the grip safety. From what I've read, IDPA is the only sport that would NOT allow me to pin the grip safety. The other sports I would consider shooting with this gun:

NRA Action Pistol / Bianchi Cup

Steel Challenge

TIA,

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There have been several threads on people who can't consistently de-activate the grip safety. I'm one of them. Those who can de-activate the grip safety can't understand it. It's not about how light the spring is set, or how little travel it takes to de-activate the safety. With a high grip, I push up on the beavertail instead of in on the safety. That's just the way my hand falls on the gun.

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There have been several threads on people who can't consistently de-activate the grip safety. I'm one of them. Those who can de-activate the grip safety can't understand it. It's not about how light the spring is set, or how little travel it takes to de-activate the safety. With a high grip, I push up on the beavertail instead of in on the safety. That's just the way my hand falls on the gun.

Are you saying that your grip makes it impossible to sufficiently sensitize the grip safety such that it goes off? How is that possible if your fingers are wrapped around the front strap?

I understand that you want a high enough grip that the web of your hand is crammed as high into the beavertail as possible, and I use the same grip. But if your fingers aren't holding onto the front strap enough to push the grip safety down, it sounds like you're not holding onto the gun at all.

Bending the sear spring or filing the grip safety can make it far easier to deactivate, as you already know. If your grip is as such that you are pushing the grip safety up/out instead of in, perhaps your grip is what needs changing, not the gun.

Personally, all my grip safeties work and my 2011 could use a little bit of sensitivity training, but I've never experienced a situation where no amount of sensitizing the grip safety would get it to function.

If I did, I'd probably change my grip, even if I did opt to pin the grip safety.

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Guys. This thread is about which sports allow you to disable the grip safety and which ones don't.

If you want to discuss why some shooters grips won't disable the safety, please search for one of the many threads already discussing this subject.

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IDPA and NRA AP are the only two Handgun shooting sports that I am aware of that require the as fitted grip safety to operate.

I am one of the lucky ones who can make a regular grip safety work, but find the extended or over size work better.

If there are other matches that have similar rulings please let us all know to foreshorten this thread.

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I've found that some of the older grip safeties that don't allow me to get my hand as high on the gun will also allow me to activate the grip safety. The grip safeties with the cutout for the hammer don't work as well for me. It has something to do with where the pivot point is located.

I shoot a lot of IDPA and some of my 1911s can be used there and some can't. :unsure:

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A piece of shockbuff can temporarily disable a grip safety.

On a side note, what would be the legality of something like this where there is no grip safety at all. If it were a custom build, it would have never had a grip safety. http://www.novaksights.com/assets/images/guns/photogallery1911/pages/colt001465_jpg.htm

Edited by EkuJustice
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A piece of shockbuff can temporarily disable a grip safety.

On a side note, what would be the legality of something like this where there is no grip safety at all. If it were a custom build, it would have never had a grip safety. http://www.novaksigh...t001465_jpg.htm

This an old quote and I am paraphrasing here but this says it all as far as the NRA is concerned. "If John Moses Browning himself showed up with a non operational grip safety he would not be allowed to compete". A 1911 is a 1911. It was designed with a thumb safety and a grip safety. I have seen the beavertail and mainspring housing blended together and they look very nice but the grip safety has to work.

If you have problems with deactivating it, either build up the bottom of it or use a gun that doesn't have one.

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Kevin,

You are correct in your quote. But the moron who used that quote would not know shit from smelly brown clay if it was being shoved up his nose with a broom handle. I hate the grip safety rule (in case you had not figured it out) as it is a rule about nothing, same applies to the trigger weight crap. :sight: But we digress, and while we are digressing, just because he can;t use a gun safely does not mean I can't. Anyways back to the story.

Most guns now only have a passing resemblence to a real 1911 as per JMB, but the rules are what the rules are.

Anything that operates on a 1911 "style" platform (STI, SVI etc etc included) will have to have an operational grip safety if you intend to compete in the US in NRA Action Pistol, especially at the Bianchi Cup, Regionals, State Champs and the World Shoot.

EkuJustice, you can clearly see the line where the grip safety has been installed and modified. If that grip safety unit (as such) and main spring housing is/are removed to install the hammer/sear assembly then it would not be legal in AP.

BUT if you built the whole frame from one piece of steel and the fire control was a module that dropped in from the top and or front and just happened to have a "similar" grip shape to a 1911 amd took all the other top end parts then you would be sorted. Not that I have been thinking on these lines at all.

I do not fully understand IDPA, so what Bill says sounds like the way it would be depending on what division you would be wanting to run in. I did actually try and get through some of the rules to see what it was all about, holy crap I though ISSF was complicated. :devil:

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...I hate the grip safety rule (in case you had not figured it out) as it is a rule about nothing, same applies to the trigger weight crap. :sight: But we digress, and while we are digressing, just because he can;t use a gun safely does not mean I can't. Anyways back to the story.

Most guns now only have a passing resemblence to a real 1911 as per JMB, but the rules are what the rules are....

+1

JMB's original design did not even have a grip safety, but he incorporated one into what became the 1911 per the military's specifications.

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post-50-008282500 1289516750_thumb.jpg

Found it. A Colt pistol without a grip safety and even 38 caliber. The dust cover appears a little on the thin side for the shroud.

The model 1910 is the closest resemblance to the 1911 but it also has the grip safety.

Yea, the Army decided their new service pistol had to have a grip safety in case of being dropped while on horse back. Six short years later they are all riding in trucks. Go figure.

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XFactor is dead on. They added the damn thing after some muppet in the Army decided that the boys could probably, maybe, sometime drop it. But they had flap holsters and the Brits had these lovely lanyards.

That 1905? is exactly what I was talking about.

If we keep this safety at all costs bullshit we will need a parachute or airbag on the things soon.

SHoudl I call my new gun a Colt 1905 based firearm and see what they do? That could be fun.

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