After several “spirited” discussions on the removal of “safety” devices on firearms, and a truly enlightening post from SMMAssociates (thanks again SMM), I removed the slide on my Kimber II with the Schwartz mechanism and examined it carefully. There is no doubt this device can cause problems if you’re not careful when re-installing the slide on the frame. I never gripped the gun while installing the slide, my tendency is to grab the sides of the grip with my thumb on one side and fingers on the other, however, if you do “grip” the gun, thus squeezing the grip safety while installing the slide, you may be in for a real downer. The Schwartz push rod will be pushed up and almost certainly rub the back and bottom of the slide causing damage to both the push rod and slide. If you did this and sheared the top of the push rod or rounded it enough to shorten it, your gun will not fire due to the firing pin block not being pushed up. I believe, knowing the nature of some people (push the dang thing until it goes on) that this has lead to some of the bad publicity the Schwartz has gotten. Let’s face it, if someone wanted to make something sound bad, they could leave out the part about how the user did not re-assemble the parts involved correctly just to make it look like a problem. All this is spelled out clearly in the owner’s manual in red lettering. The problem is, many of us purchase used guns without papers and even if you are an experienced 1911 owner, if you’ve never had a Schwartz equipped gun, you would not necessarily be aware of this problem and would probably learn about it the hard way.
Also, Do not hold the gun upside down when installing the slide! This allows the push rod to fall up into the slide resulting in the same problem. This point is not covered in the manual!
Anyone with a Kimber II without a manual be advised, this is very important!
Thanks for reading this post. I hope it saves someone the headache of making this mistake. And thanks again to SMMAssociates for bringing this to my attention. Another great example of people helping people in an open forum.
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