Ambi safety for Colt

trapshooterking

As a left hander, the colt safety is a little awkward for me (hard to bend index finger back that far) so I'd like to put an ambidextrous safety on it - Is this a job for the experts or something your average mechanically inclined gorilla could manage themselves?

JudgeColt

Although right-handed, I have to shoot handguns left-handed due to injury to my right hand. (I use my left thumb curled over rather than my left index finger bent back on a M1911 with regular safety.) Shooting a M1911 pattern pistol left-handed works great with the slide stop release and fine with the magazine release being operated by the index finger, but the safety is a problem. An ambidextrous safety kit is easy to install. They only critical part is grinding the sear stop so the safety will properly engage the sear, but not too much so the sear can move when the safety is engaged. Just take out the grip safety and install the left lever (which has the sear stop) and see how much it looks necessary to remove. Take off less than you think and try it again. Keep trying until the sear stop will just engage the sear and you are done with it. I take out the safety lever detent spring and plunger to facilitate multiple tries at fitting the sear stop. I would suggest getting the type that uses the sear pin to secure the right-side lever so you do not have to modify the right grip as you do with the Swenson style, which uses a tab under the right grip. Brownells has several selections and styles. I got one (I think it was a King, but cannot remember for sure without digging out the invoice.) for my old AMT Longslide and, whether it was the safety kit or the AMT, I had to remove a LOT of material from the back of the right safety lever boss to get it so the sear pin slot would engage the lip on the safety lever. Knowing the problems with early AMT pistols, I would suspect the pistol is out of spec (probably too wide in the frame), but even if it were the safety lever out of spec, it only took about a half hour of "file and try" to get it working properly. Give it a try and you will see you can do it.

trapshooterking

Thanks for the info - I'm going to see what Brownell's, etc. has for safeties and give it a try