Ian
Notorious member
I'm still in the market for some high sights, actually haven't found any yet. At 15 yards I can point shoot with the suppressor very well, so it's good enough for now.
More adventures. Being a southpaw, ambi thumb safeties are a requirement for all my 1911s. This Colt didn't have one. After a wait for them to come off backorder status, I finally got a Kimber stainless-steel ambi safety and went about fitting it. My my. Took me about five hours to get it right. For all the wonderfulness of their design which requires no modification to the RH stock to retain the RH thumb lever, Kimber safeties have another issue (had to fix this on their production guns, too). The "flat" side of he left half of the safety curves like a banana away from the frame, presumably so it doesn't scratch the frame as it is operated. The problem here is that the curve is so dramatic that the detent plunger rides off the inside edge of the safety and wedges between the safety and the frame, creating a lot of extra drag and side-loading on the grip safety pin. Tilting the safety at an angle like this also affects the sear to safety relationship and creates a little binding when applying the safety. The fix is to fixture-up the safety in a vice and actually bend the flat part between the grip safety pin and the tab that goes inside the frame. Once that is straightened, the extended thumb lever must be bowed outward so it doesn't clash with the detent plunger tube. THEN, and only then, can the safety tab be filed to fit the sear. Once all that is done, and the tongue/groove pin interface tightened to eliminate the RH lever flop, the system is smooth as silk, snicks on and off very securely, allows no sear movement when engaged, and requires very little effort to operate. It's just a lot of work to get it right. At least I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought the part.
More adventures. Being a southpaw, ambi thumb safeties are a requirement for all my 1911s. This Colt didn't have one. After a wait for them to come off backorder status, I finally got a Kimber stainless-steel ambi safety and went about fitting it. My my. Took me about five hours to get it right. For all the wonderfulness of their design which requires no modification to the RH stock to retain the RH thumb lever, Kimber safeties have another issue (had to fix this on their production guns, too). The "flat" side of he left half of the safety curves like a banana away from the frame, presumably so it doesn't scratch the frame as it is operated. The problem here is that the curve is so dramatic that the detent plunger rides off the inside edge of the safety and wedges between the safety and the frame, creating a lot of extra drag and side-loading on the grip safety pin. Tilting the safety at an angle like this also affects the sear to safety relationship and creates a little binding when applying the safety. The fix is to fixture-up the safety in a vice and actually bend the flat part between the grip safety pin and the tab that goes inside the frame. Once that is straightened, the extended thumb lever must be bowed outward so it doesn't clash with the detent plunger tube. THEN, and only then, can the safety tab be filed to fit the sear. Once all that is done, and the tongue/groove pin interface tightened to eliminate the RH lever flop, the system is smooth as silk, snicks on and off very securely, allows no sear movement when engaged, and requires very little effort to operate. It's just a lot of work to get it right. At least I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought the part.