What is purpose of 1911 grip safety?

The 1911 was designed for the cavalry. So you're galloping into battle and drop your cocked and unlocked pistol to grab your saber or control your horse. The pistol is swinging on the lanyard and bouncing off you, your gear and horse. A grip safety is quite sensible for those conditions. Never had any problem with it myself, but I've got skinny hands.

Bye
Jack

i, too am very comfortable with the grip safety on the 1911s, and have never had any problem of the gun not goin' off when it's supposed to or goin' off when it's not supposed to. there are aftermarket grip safetys that have a raised bump on them to minimize the problem some people have with their normal grip not depressing the grip safety fully.

monty

500 magnum nut said:

I like shooting 1911 type pistols and I understand the U.S. military told Browning to add the grip safety to all of the "new" pistols before entering service. I wish that they would get smart and do away with these annoying devices! What is the purpose of the grip safety?

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Because the 1911 (or the 1911A1) is a single action pistol, and primarily designed for military purposes, Mr. Browning designed it to be carried "Cocked and Locked" meaning the hammer cocked with a round in the chamber. The grip safety was simply extra insurance to keep the firearm from accidentally discharging while carried in this fashion.

Doesn't bother me, hardly know it's there...but I realize it seems to aggrivate a number of shooters; there is a wide varitety of after market ones of various shapes to proove that not all are content with the standard one.

Do remember one conversion (from quite a few yeara back) that replaced the whole back strap assembly into one big grip-safety device...didn't work as a grip safety, but whn you squeezed it, it cocked the hammer (Caravel?). Some of the really stubby cut-downs (Dectonics) did away with a functioning grip safety completely.

Doubt many gunsmiths would recommend removing an existing safety system or pinning it out of play but such things have been done in the past. Given the modern version with the trigger activated firing pin block safety, the grip safey really isn't all that useful.

I thought that the grip safety actually preceeded the 'thumb safety', but I might have this mixed up.

MikeG said:

I thought that the grip safety actually preceeded the 'thumb safety', but I might have this mixed up.

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Mike:
Think you are right. The 1905 had NO safety (other than the exposed hammer)...the 1907 at least started out with just the grip safety and no frame mounted saefty...from there it's a few small run prototypes to the 1911, which definately had both.

I must agree with several other respondants, in that I've never had the slightest problem with the grip safety. In fact, I rather like the idea and can understand its utility even today.

I shoot revolvers more so than pistols. I find the 1911 grip safety somewhat annoying. My latest SW1911 pistol was defective and I had S&W rework the safeties. Yes, their rework/repair was excellent. If you have a pistol that is perfect, then it is a great feeling. While waiting for the pistol to be returned I was just wondering what the thing was for. I learned something new! Thanks for the posts.