A question on 1911 grip safeties

OP asked:
does this feature of Brownings original design (the hammer engaging the grip safety when pulled all the way to the rear just past the full cock position) also serve another function, does it effect anything else? If so the Brown type safety must bypass that function somehow.
Click to expand...
Please correct me but the answer to the first two and most relevant questions seems to be : no.
 
OK, I'll ask. Why do you say that?
Click to expand...
The intended purpose for the hammer rotating down past the full cock ledges and engaging the grip safety was to allow cavalrymen to decock their pistol while riding.There doesn't appear to be any other purpose to it,intended or otherwise so the answer to your questions would be:no.
In the extremely rare occasion that I decock any of my pistols with a live round in the chamber I use the two hand method,I can't ride horses I think they hate me.
 
Thanks, Tipoc. I found that patent language yesterday, but then my internet connection failed so your posts got there first. My face is pretty red since I would have sworn that the one hand decocking was not an intentional feature, and I have read that patent before!

FWIW, Browning didn't actually write the patents, though of course he reviewed them. They were written by Colt's attorneys who made it a point to claim all the conceivable new features they could find in the guns with a view toward keeping the competition from using them.

Jim
 
One-handed de-cocking a 1911 style pistol that have beavertail grip safeties is as easy as using the middle joint of your thumb to hit the tip of the grip safety and depress it while the hammer is held back with the tip of the thumb.
 
Decocking a 1911 style pistol with a live chambered round. Why on earth would you ever want to do that. Tactically it makes no sense and is inherently unsafe.
 
Decocking a 1911 style pistol with a live chambered round. Why on earth would you ever want to do that.
Click to expand...
OP's question related to functionality and design matters.
Yours rightly belongs up North in the T&T forum where some of the fellows may have some interesting answers for you.
 
.....and is inherently unsafe.
Click to expand...

As would be decocking a Browning Hi Power, any revolver, CZ-75, lever action rifle, single barrel shotgun, etc. etc. Nothing short of a miracle we have all survived. :rolleyes:
 
Decocking a 1911 style pistol with a live chambered round. Why on earth would you ever want to do that. Tactically it makes no sense and is inherently unsafe.
Click to expand...

Well how you want to do things today is your call but...

Over one hundred years ago The Army, Colt and Browning were developing the first semi auto pistol for use by U.S. troops. Part of that was field trials. In those days the equivalent of today's SEALs, Rangers, Dealta, etc. was the cavalry. So while the guns were tested by artillery and infantry units the calvary carried weight.

They tested some guns with no external safeties. No go. The soldiers wanted to make the guns safe somehow between firings. To decock like the single action and double action revolvers they were used to did. But these guns required two hands to safely decock. They were also concerned that if dropped the gun could discharge.

So a grip safety was added, among other things, to prevent the gun from firing unless it was held in the hand. But unlike the grip safety Browning had put on the Colt M1903 pocket hammerless this one did something else, more than one something else as the patents describe...it also made it possible to decock the gun one handed. Maybe not as smoothly as a wheelgun but it could be done.

That version went back to trials in the field. Yeah it was better. If my left hand was engaged or shot off I could decock one handed and make it safe and easily cock it again. Not as simple to decock as a revolver but better than nothing. Still if my weak hand was shot off and it was raining, or a sand storm and I was trapped under a horse, or a truck and had the shakes it might be trouble, or sketchy and not as safe as with two hands.

So they added a thumb safety and a plunger tube which did more than one thing as well. They also still kept the ability to decock one handed.

All that made tactical sense.

tipoc
 
OK, so I checked all three 1911's and was surprised to see that the modern Gold Cup could be de-cocked one handed as well. I also checked my Radom, and sure enough, worked on that too. Made me wonder about a patent infringement.
 
Just musing out loud but here's hoping that if somebody pulls on me I'm sure hoping it's a condition two 1911. I think I got him;) (especially one sporting a modern day beavertail) Hell, even me toting condition three I STILL think I get him!
 
People have done that one hand decocking with a Colt S.A.A. for a century as well. Well skilled shooters can be more careless as most high skilled folks can be due to their skill level and extensive experience, and as long as they are by themselves and not on some City Slicker gun range, they are grown ups.

Henry Ford didn't consider what Nascar does with his cars, nor did Browning, was he even a shooter? Buddy Rich did things with drum sticks beyond the design parameters, as well as well as Evil Kneivel on a Harley...

If you don't like it don't do it, if you are on your own ..... at your own risk. Shooting is a risk by any means, especially so shooting on those city slicker ranges regardless of all the rules! One fool ruins it all...

The whole world is getting so nanny...

Let me tell ya shooters who drink or use drugs while shooting or not shooting are more dangerous by 1000 times than a good shooter decocking A 1911 EVER! HELL, cops did that in the locker room in the old days, but most died from smoking and/or drinking...

That said, be a good and honest judge of your skill level and stay safe!
 
Last edited:
IIRC, the life of a patent at that time was 17 years, and even the latest patents on the 1911 would have expired in 1928, so the designers at Radom would have been OK in using the ideas in 1934-1935. In fact they might not have cared, feeling that the lawyers could fight over patents and arrange for royalties or whatever it took to get their pistol produced to help arm their country. The designers of the U.S. Model 1903 apparently felt the same way about using Mauser patents; they simply didn't care.

There is one interesting point the Poles ran into in testing. They first used a full length, solid guide rod. Then they found that if the pistol was dropped on the muzzle, it could discharge due to firing pin creep, so they made the guide rod in two pieces with a spring in the middle to absorb the blow and keep the gun from firing. Many years later, the lesson was forgotten and guns with full length guide rods will fire under those circumstances. So the full length guide rod was the reason for all those firing pin blocks, and safeties, and other nuisances imposed on us by the "gun safety" (really "gun ban") advocates.

Jim
 
Thanks for the insight, James. I'd never connected the firing pin blocks (safeties) with full length guide rods before, but now that you mention it, it makes perfect sense.

I do recall write ups of some of the testing that CA had labs (HP White?) do back in the late 60s, early 70s when they were putting together their list of "approved" handguns.

Testers found that a stock, in spec, 1911A1 /Colt Govt Model had to be dropped about 30 feet, AND land nearly square on the muzzle, on a hard surface (stone, concrete, hard wood, etc) to fire.

In order to get this to happen, they had to build a special track to drop the gun in, so it would land muzzle down. No amount of testing without the special track got the gun to land muzzle down, and no other configuration (landing on hammer, cocked, or not) ever got the test guns to fire.

Its been a long time, and I may have some of the details wrong,but that's what I remember.

I will say this, while nothing is 100%, I feel the 99%+ that Browning built in to the 1911 design is good enough for me.
 
James,would you move your comment and 44's follow up to the most recent
guide tube thread,I'd like to see a little more on that and may be add some but
I think that we are off topic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top