Today, I was handling my three 1911s and noticed that two of them had safeties that were rather loose. What do I mean by loose? Well, a good 1911 will have a safety that will have a positive click when being manipulated. It will also take a conscious effort to actuate. It should not actuate (on or off) by being bumped or pushed by an object that is not a finger. The last time I took my Metro Arms American Classic Commander (that’s a mouthful) to the range, both my wife and I noticed that after loading a mag into the firearm and trying to shoot, the safety was unintentionally enabled.
Since it was Friday evening, I got a few old rags and broke them both down on my sofa while listening to the news. I fixed both safeties. Once I field stripped the 1911s, I removed the safeties. The Metro Arms had a single-handled safety lever while the Rock Island Armory had an ambi safety. Once those were removed, I remove the plunger springs from each and stretched them out a bit, which I thought would add more tension to the safety lever on each firearm. I put together both and then tested the safeties. The RIA 1911 safety stiffened up drastically. The Metro Arms 1911 had to be taken down again and stretched out a bit more, but in the end, I got the safety on that firearm pretty stiff.
I’m happy that I was able to sort this out on my own.