Grip safety install...problem???

[jtmo3]

I just installed a beavertail grip safety on a colt commander. It appeared to go ok after filing and fitting. Passes the safety checks? The question I have is when the hammer is cocked and thumb safety off, the trigger won't operate without holding down the grip safety. My concern is with the grip safety engagement. If I just barely push in on the safety, the trigger will pull and the hammer will drop. With the original part, I had to depress the grip safety further than the drop in part does now. With the Wilson drop in now, I just barely have to touch it and the hammer is allowed to fall when the trigger is pulled. I am talking very little.

Did I take to much off the part when fitting? Am I going to have to get another safety and try again? Or am I making to much out of this?

Thanks for any assistance.

John

[John]

Personally I want my grip safeties set up in this way, the slightest pressure turns it off.

Take your pistol apart, remove the sear and disconnector and then reassemble it, but insert the thumb safety from the right side of the frame, so that it holds the grip safety in place. Now you can have a look inside the frame and see how the trigger bow interacts with the grip safety. My suspicion is that you need to file the safety's arm a little more, so that it drops further down behind the trigger bow, but I can't be sure unless I can see inside that hole, and that's not .... easy. Or it can be that the two protrusions at the bottom of the grip safety (where it meets the main spring housing) need to be filed a little, so that the safety's at rest position is a little further out. Can't tell from here, what is the problem.

[brownie]

Like John, I prefer mine that way. But it does sound like maybe you took too much off the bottom of the grip safety tang. Since it works, though, it's probably only a very small amount and you can sometimes salvage it by peening the sides of the tang at the bottom. John's, suggestion of relieving the tabs on the bottom to allow the safety to move back (and the tang, therefore, down) farther, is also worth a try.

--Bill