hammer drops without grip safety

[Boxholder]

How concerned should I be?

I have done some 'at home gunsmithing' (a red flag if there ever was one) on 2 of my 1911 pistols. They were straight RIA 1911's but I added beaver tail safety's and 'commander' style hammers and thought things were just peachy. Today I picked one up, dropped the mag, cleared the chamber, and with one hand lowered the hammer. Now I really shouldn't be able to do this due to the grip safety. After realizing the significance of what I did I played around with it a bit. Because I was pulling back on the hammer to take tension off the trigger I determined that the bobbed hammer spur was "too big" and when I pulled it back it was contacting the beaver tail and depressing it enough to allow it to clear the trigger "bar". So is this a big deal and should I replace the hammer ASAP with one with a smaller commander style bob or spur or this an "at my convenience" fix or? I tried multiple times to dry fire the gun just pulling the trigger without engaging the grip safety and the hammer wouldn't drop, nor would it drop with the frame safety on and the grip safety engaged.

Thanks in advance!

[stumbler]

1st, check out the safety checks as listed in Kuhnhausen's book or what is listed in the Tech issues of www.m1911.org (http://www.m1911.org).


Any firearmm that does not pass the safety checks should be corrected ASAP.

The grip safety does not stop the hammer, but stops the trigger from moving towards the rear. some may need adjusting.

Standing By

[John Lawson]

On an "as issued" service pistol or a factory new pistol, when the pistol is cleared of magazine and the chamber is dry, with the slide forward and the hammer in the cocked position, you should be able to pull back on the hammer with the firing hand thumb, far enough to contact the grip safety, cam it back far enough to disengage it from the trigger, depress the trigger and lower the hammer all of the way down under control of the thumb. If everything is correct and your thumb slips off the hammer, it should fall only to half cock on early pistols (or the stop notch on series 80 pistols.)
If that is what you are asking, the hammer should cam the grip safety to release it from the trigger.
The problem you are likely to have when replacing a GM hammer with a Commander type is that the hammer rowell's lower portion may be large enough to strike the grip safety a solid blow when it is fully depressed. That problem requires that the lower radius of the hammer spur be filed and stoned to allow a few thousandths of free play after releasing the trigger. (It will still whack the grip safety, due to inertia, but it won't fracture it the way a solid strike is liable to do.)

[Boxholder]

On an "as issued" service pistol or a factory new pistol, when the pistol is cleared of magazine and the chamber is dry, with the slide forward and the hammer in the cocked position, you should be able to pull back on the hammer with the firing hand thumb, far enough to contact the grip safety, cam it back far enough to disengage it from the trigger, depress the trigger and lower the hammer all of the way down under control of the thumb. If everything is correct and your thumb slips off the hammer, it should fall only to half cock on early pistols (or the stop notch on series 80 pistols.)
If that is what you are asking, the hammer should cam the grip safety to release it from the trigger.


Yup! That's exactly what I'm asking, thanks!! I didn't realize that before so it caught me by surprise.

[Geographic]

This happened to my gov't model recently, when I got a Nowlin drop-in trigger job with u-shaped hammer. The new hammer was contacting and engaging my grip safety when cocked back. I modified the grip safety (filed about 1/8 inch off the top) and it now functions correctly.