My 1911 safeties aren't working

[evilgrin]

I have a Norinco 1911 that I have been working on. I polished the sear and hammer but I left a little extra meat on the hammer forks instead of taking them down to 0.020". I figured I would take them down more if it needed it. After that I Arma-Coated everything in flat black including the hammer, grip safety and ambi thumb safety.

Now when I function test it I can pull the trigger and drop the hammer while it is cocked and locked and I am holding down the grip safety. The thumb safety will actually "click" off when I pull the trigger with about 15 lbs of pressure.

When I take off the thumb safety and let go of the grip safety I can pull the trigger will very little extra effort and easily drop the hammer.

With it cocked and locked and the grip safety released I cannot pull the trigger or drop the hammer.

What is happening and what can I do to fix it? I figured it would be better to ask for help before troubleshooting it much since I don't have much experience working on 1911's yet.

Thanks for the help!!!

Cheers,

EvilGrin

 

[Lodi]

What do you mean by "I polished the sear and hammer"? How did you do the polishing?

The thumb safety is fitted to the existing sear and how it resides in the frame. When metal is removed from the sear and/or hammer, the sear no longer sits the same and does not need as much movement to disengage from the hammer.

~ You may need to fit a new thumb safety, or weld the current one up and refit.
~If the new Arma-Coat finish covers the fitted area of the thumb safety, it is probably changing that dimension and not allowing the thumb safety to engage the sear correctly. Scrape away the finish at this point and function test again.

 

[evilgrin]

When I polished the hammer and sear I used a sear jig and a fine stone. So what does the grip safety stop from moving? Does it sit against the disconnector and prevent the trigger bow from moving forward? If it does it will be no problem to tig weld a little material on there to build it up. I will start by removing the Arma-Coat from the area on the thumb safety and see what it does. I'll get to that tomorrow after work and will let you know how it worked.

Thanks for the help Lodi!

 

[gnmontey]

Had a Llama 1911 clone do that. I believe Gunnar ended up replacing the sear.

Perhaps this image will help you figure things out.

M

 

[browningautorifle]

I have a .45 that a much respected business man had done a tune up on including the trigger hammer relationship. I had exactly the same problems for a while and finally changed the hammer. Problem solved. He'd taken too much off the hammer.

 

[Lodi]

The grip safety keeps the trigger from moving rearward. If you look at the arm that extends forward you will see that the lower half is "missing", the long portion falls in behind the trigger bow blocking rearward movement, when the safety is depressed it pivots the arm upwards and the trigger bow can move into the "missing" area.

 

[BCRider]

This is why 1911's will always require some amount of hand fitting. The design is such that the last parts rely on the fit of the "upstream" parts. In this case the thumb safety relies on how all the other parts fit and the effect of those fits on the final position of the sear.

As mentioned you need to buy a new thumb safety and fit it to your tuned setup.