I look at the added "safety" feature as a liability - just something that can hinder reliability (simply = reliable). A perfected design such as the 1911 doesn't need another safety. That and the politics of it.
Well Mass Ayoob and others caution against removing any safety devices, saying that in court deactivating or removing such devices may in and of itself may be a liability. Prosecuter: "John Jones is so willful and malicious that before he shot Jim Smith, he deactivated his firing pin safety, making his weapon more dangerous and lethal. Now I ask you what kind of reasonable person would
willfully deactivate a safety device?" Others pooh-pooh this and say it doesn't matter; it's making a mountain out of a molehill. Perhaps, but I'm not so sure.
Now many of us over the years have drank the "perfected design of the 1911" Koolaid. The truth of the matter is, that it wasn't until about 30 years ago, that the refinements of the 1911 make the gun what it is today. The Army wasn't satified with J.M. Browining's original design and made him add a grip safety (which, I understand he didn't want to do). Later, after WWI the Army made some more modifications to the design, mainly the arched mainspring housing and the sculpted out parts around the trigger as well as some sight modifications (if memory serves me correctly) creating the A1 designation. After that cutom gunsmiths starting accurizing guns and one either had a hardball gun or a target gun. Later generations of gunsmiths turned the sow's ear into a silk purse, but it certainly wasn't overnight, and frankly there are better designs on the market today.
Now the crux of the problem revolves around the inertia firing pin in the original 1911/1911A1. This means that it takes a certain amount of force for the firing pin to move down the firing pin well and strike the primer. Browning made the firing pin well longer than the firing pin on purpose, so that it would take force for the firing pin to move. Now here is where the major area of controversy has developed over the years. A 1911/1911A1 without a firing pin lock has been known to discharge when there is a round in the chamber when the gun has been dropped. Some minimize this and say that the gun has to be dropped from a height of more than five feet. Many experts over the years have pooh-poohed this idea entirely, though. Chuck Taylor claimed in a magazine article once that he saw a 1911 Series 70 Colt dropped from a distance of more than five feet, and skid across a pavement with such force that there were actually sparks flying, yet the pistol did not discharge. Others, (including Ayoob) state that Colt did some drop tests in the 1970's which confirmed that under certain conditions, a 1911 would discharge if dropped under certain conditions which led to the Series 80 firing pin lock system we see today. It is interesting to note that Colt adopted the Swartz firing pin safety system for their 1911's breifly back in the 1930's, which suggests to me that even then there were concerns. My understanding that S&W uses a firing pin safety system similar to the Swartz. I think it is also interesting to note that many manufacturers of 1911's use some kind of firing pin safety although not on all models and some agencies specifically request no firing pin safeties or locks. This is true, I believe of the Les Baer FBI guns and Kimber's USMC contract pistols which evolved into their Warrior and Desert Warrior series.
Naturally, when Colt went from the Series 70 to the Series 80 which had the firing pin safety/lock many of the devotees of the Cult of the 1911 went apes**t and claimed that the trigger pull was affected. Certain prominent gunsmiths also voiced their opinion that it wasn't necessarily a good thing, and today a certain sub-cult of the 1911 cognoscenti disdain all 1911's with firing pin locks: "perfected design, JM Browning knew what he was doing" and all that. So much so, that Colt now offers a Series 70 1911 as well as other brands such as Springfield Armory that feature the traditional inertia firing pin sans safety.
I think that there are in fact, many variables. Many stories of dropped 1911's going off, no doubt involve older pistols that frequently were not well cared for, and that probably had weakened firing pin springs. I think (and this is my opinion only) that a modern well maintained 1911 with an intertia firing pin sans firing pin lock/safety originally designed to be that way, will
under most circumstances NOT discharge when dropped...but why take a chance?
Now I am sure that at this point Jeff Cooper is probably rolling over in his grave...but frankly I think you would be in error by removing the firing pin safety/lock from your pistol. I respect the opinons of Mr. Derr for one thing, and I do buy into the idea that deactivating any safety on any gun designed with one is opening yourself for a major criminal or civil liability issue. The argument may be defeated in court, but what if you don't have someone as adept as Scrivner as your lawyer?
My suggestion is that if you find the firing pin safety/lock odious, that you purchase a pistol that does not have one as part of the original design such as a Series 70 Colt or earlier. These are hard to find in Mass but they are out there, the same can be said for Spingfield Armory pistols as well.
If it isn't broken, why fix it? It sounds like your S&W 1911 is a good pistol for you. Besides you also have an extra margin of safety that JM Browning didn't design into the pistol, and that my friend, IMO, is not a bad thing.
Regards,
Mark L.
