Seems as reasonable an answer as any.You're overthinking it. OR rather, you're thinking in the direction of safety. Safety had nothing to do with it.
The impetus for Colt to add the firing pin block to the Government Model (and derivitives) was simply profit. They wanted to keep selling their guns in the state of California.
Consider, for a moment, the history of the times. The military had been and still was using the 1911 since it was adopted in 1911, and the A1 since the upgrade was done in the 20s. NOBODY drops pistols more than GIs in and out of combat. Think of it, tens of thousands of guns, handled by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors, Marines, and Air Force personel, through WWI, WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam, and NEVER ONCE did the military ask for a firing pin safety. Yes, there were a few accidents, but they were very, very rare.
The STATE of California, decided, via the people making and passing the laws at the time, that handguns had to be drop safe, (meaning meet the standards that THEY chose) in order to be sold in California.
So, in order to do that, Colt designed their firing pin block. Other makers followed suit, and today all "modern" designs include some mechanism making them "drop safe". It wasn't done to meet any need for additional safety, it was done to meet an arbitrary government requirement.
The claim of enhanced safety is possibly true, but there are no numbers to back it up. .
Now, of course, I can't speak for Colt, I wasn't there but this is what it looks like to me. Nothing else makes accounts for all the factors, including the timing of the creation of the Series 80.
Note that when California came up with their microstamping requirement, some decades later, several makers simply stopped trying to sell their pistols in California. Thanks to the laws in CA, the pistol market had changed enough over the years that the loss of sales in CA was cheaper than the cost of incorporating the microstamping technology into their product lines.
Sad for the people of CA, though..
Unless you happen to live in California.fishbed77 said:Seriously though, there are plenty of new 1911s (including some made by Colt) that are available without a firing pin block, so you have that option if you want it.
Another non sequitur post.By the logic of the above:
How many times have you ever fired your gun in self defense as a civilian?
Another non sequitur post. Another candidate for blocking.dahermit, please show us on the doll where the firing pin block touched you.
Seriously though, there are plenty of new 1911s (including some made by Colt) that are available without a firing pin block, so you have that option if you want it.
T. O'Heir - concerning the titanium firing pins, you completely missed the point. It has nothing to do the cost of the material or the difficulty in machining it. It is purely physics in that a Ti firing pin weighs about half of what a standard steel firing pin weighs. Less weight equals less momentum when the firing pin is dropped in a vertical position. Less momentum equates to less indentation of the primer when there is no FP block.
I don't really buy into the proposed argument about every possible safety device "If it only saves one life"....
I'm fine with original Colt designed SAA's,Win 97 shotguns,etc. William Blake wrote "All attempts at foolproofing are futile. The genius of the fool is infinite"
The FBI agent doing backflips on the dance floor of a whiskey bar ,the one who had his gun fall out of the holster? Yeah,that guy. Dropping it did not fire the gun.Picking the gun up with the old finger on the trigger fired the gun.
I think the "conspiracy theory" behind this is illustrated by the case of Ford Pintos. They had a gasoline tank "bursting into flames " problem. Allegedly,Ford looked at the problem and made the cold decision it would be cheaper to pay liability claims than fix the problem.So it was claimed.
If you drop your gun and it shoots someone,you'd really like to have an "evil corporation" .to blame it on..
I use lightweight triggers in my 1911's. The steel ones are heavier,and have more inertia in a drop. My choice. If I want a titanium firing pin,Brownell has them.
The 1911 has passed the test of time
That is an example of "anecdotal evidence" or as it is called where I live, bar room baloney. Unless you can proved some evidence ( a link, etc.), I just do not believe it happened. In my lifetime, I have observed many, many people who just make things up. Can you in the very least explain how the guy standing next to your buddy dropped the gun from the required four feet?My buddy Billy-Bob watched other dude drop a 1911 right next to BB's foot. On the muzzle. Resulting in a bang but no injuries. This was purely firing pin movement, not a hammer striking it. After that Billy-Bob only uses 1911s with the FPS.
No idea if the firing pin spring was horribly weak but this did happen.
Bart Noir
Who thinks the FPS is a good idea, but doesn't panic if a 1911 is without one.
Four feet off the ground, plus gun has to be perfectly vertical, plus the "ground" has to be concrete. Also, your anecdote did not result in the gun discharging or harming you, so your story does not mark the ledger as being one in favor of "should have a firing pin safety".I was riding a mt. bike down the sidewalk when the front tire went off the edge of the sidewalk, I jerked it back (over corrected) and splat down I went.
Fell on my side, hurt quite a bit; I'd say my waist was near 4' off the ground when seated.
The Les Baer 1911 on my side was unaffected, thank goodness.
Here is the solution(s) to avoid the "solution to a nonexistant problem", buy a 1911 from a maker that uses a "series 70" type mechanism.
Ruger, Dan Wesson, Les Baer, Ed Brown (off the top of my head) all make series 70 type 1911's.