Broken Safety

I interviewed Bobby Wright today (Mister "Reactive Targets" of R&R Racing) for a future Front Sight article. As we talked, he made a statement that hit very close to home.

He was discussing the reasons why he preferred to compete in Limited Division rather than Open Division. Here's a reasonably close quote:

"Race guns are too easy. Anybody can shoot a race gun well. Limited guns are not as easy, but they are often easy to tune so that they are almost as easy to shoot as a race gun. Production guns are HARD to shoot!

...

But besides that, race guns break. Guns are like race cars, they break a lot. The car that you drive to work every day will give you 200,000 miles if you maintain it. But a drag racer, you get three or four runs out of it, and you have to replace the engine. You just put more stress on a race gun or a race car than you do a regular gun or car."

I would ordinarily be inclined to take that as an alegorical statement, except that I have immediate, empirical personal proof of the statement.

Wednesday night I took the STI Competitor out of its gun rug to clean it, and the left hand side of the ambidextrous safety fell off into my hand as I started to field strip it. I hadn't put any pressure on it, I just touched it as I racked the slide with my left hand to pull the slide back so I could lock it in position. I've done this literally thousands of times with no problems.

I first thought that it had become detached from the right side because the dove-tail connection (I'm not mechanically competent, so I may not be using the right terminology, but I'm confident that some helpful reader will provide the correct term) and the left-side just became temporarily detached from the right side. After a few fumbling attempts to just jam the two parts together, I took a closer look and saw that the metal had snapped just at the pivot pin at the rear of the safety. That pin is the part with the erroneously named dove-tail connection.

I've shot this pistol for two years since the thumb safety broke (in almost exactly the same way, and in exactly the same place) and had been replaced. I know that small parts on an Open gun ("Race Gun") should be considered "consumables", in the same sense that paper clips, erasers, pens and pencils are "consumables" in an office. That is to say, they're going to be used up until they don't work any more for one reason or another, or until they are lost, and then you need to replace them.

I keep a number of small parts for this pistol, including a extractor, an ejector, a slide lock, firing pin and firing pin spring and firing pin block, recoil spring and sear spring. But I just have never considered that I should keep a spare ambidextrous safety.

In the first place, they're not cheap. In the second place, they're not a simple drop-in replacement. Sure, if you're mechanically inclined (which I ain't) it's possible to replace an ambidextrous safety under 'field conditions'. But often they require a little work to make them fit. Different pistols may use the same safety, but they don't have the same profile. That is to say, there may be a little metal sticking past the grip safety which would be painful and possibly injurious if you plan to shoot the pistol a lot before you get to where you can take a grinder to it to perfect the rear contour.

Also, the right-hand side of the safety fits into a flange on the frame which is suppose to keep it from falling off in case the two halves of the ambidextrous safety become detached, as I had originally supposed mine had. (Note that this is not a common occurrence ... it was merely wishful thinking on my part.)

Finally, the fit between the two halves (again, the "dove-tail" fit) may not be easy to accomplish under field conditions.

All of these are good excuses reasons for not stocking a spare ambidextrous thumb safety for your race gun, and I've lived by them.

I very much wanted to shoot the club match on Saturday, so I packed up my Limited Gun (STI Edge in 10mm ... which I have not shot in three years, but that's another story) for the match and took the Competitor race-gun along with me.

When I got to the range on Saturday, I hailed the local gunsmith-guru Rob Shepherd of MajorNyneGuns and asked him if he would please see to replacing my safety. He very generously agreed to do so, if I would just give it to him before he left at the end of the match.

Then we all went shooting in our various squads, I with full confidence that I would have a race gun too shoot within a couple of weeks (and armed with my reading glasses because the reason I shoot a race gun is because I can't see iron sights any more ... but that's another story), and Rob doubtless with the satisfaction that he has a nice, easy job of work to build his business with another easily satisfied customer.

Sounds like a problem identified and easily solved, doesn't it?

But wait, there's more!

My SWMBO (She ... Who Must Be Obeyed) was shooting with me, as usual, and I was acting as Range Officer on the fourth stage when I happened to look CLOSELY at the STI Tru-Bore she was using during the Load-And-Make-Ready preparation of the stage.

I said: "Excuse me, but please look at the right side of your pistol."

She did, then looked at me and said: "Okay, I have looked at the right side of my pistol. What?"

I said: "Are you aware that the right half of your ambidextrous safety is missing?"

She said: "Uh huh."

I said: "Ummmm ... how long has it been missing?"

"Since this morning."

"I see. Can you be a little more specific?"

"Well, when I took it out of the bag this morning, it wasn't there."

"So you've shot half the match with half of your thumb safety missing, right?"

"That's right."


Perhaps my verbiage wasn't exactly so calm and organized, but that was the general gist of it.

I am defeated. I have no idea what to do next. In the absence of higher authority, and with the evidence that she has been shooting a completely safe gun all day, I merely asked her to keep track of the left side of her ambidextrous thumb safety and please let the Range Officer know if it comes loose or otherwise seems not to be adequately performing its assigned function.


For those who may be interested in the minutiae of the story, she completed the match with no safety problems and her scores soundly trounced mine for the rest of the match.
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After the match I met with Rob at the central Safety table with not one, but TWO thumb-safety deprived pistols.

He looked at mine, with the broken part laid by its side, and said "Well, at least we can see that you are keeping your thumb on the safety while you shoot!" as if that were a good thing.

I had to admit that, sadly, I have a terrible grip and am unable to learn to shoot a pistol in the "High Grip" manner. I never touch the safety after I've switched it /OFF. Rob was a little perplexed, and admitted that he breaks thumb safeties frequently because "When I shoot, I tend to put a lot of down-pressure on the thumb safety."

Boy, I sure wish I had such a good excuse. But I don't.

Do you recall that I have mentioned in a previous post about the Croc Match that the combination of high-round count and accumulated heat often causes a high rate of breakage?

(No, I can't find the link.)

Well it does. But it didn't happen for us.

Still we shot the Croc Match last month, and since then we've shot two club matches of about 150+ rounds each. I do recall mentioning that the pistol was so hot at the end of the day that it was painful to hold. This isn't a phenomenon which only I experienced, several competitors remarked on it.

I just wonder if that didn't have something to do with it, in terms of metal fatigue and over-tempering.

But what do I know? I'm just a Geek with a gun.