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Kimber Series
II Firing Pin Block Safety
Kimber has
begun to install what they call the “Series II” firing pin block. (It is
essentially a resurrection of the Swartz safety developed for Colt
before the Second World War). When you depress the grip safety, a small
pin pushes a plunger up in the slide which unblocks the firing pin. I do
like it better in one respect than the Series 80 firing pin block of
Colt: it is activated by the grip safety, not by the trigger (see
diagram), so you get the clean trigger pull sans the click and crunch of
the Series 80 guns. You have to be careful when you field strip and
reassemble a Series II Kimber because if you hold it by the grip and activate the grip
safety, a little pin comes up next to the disconnector and it will stop
the slide from coming off or going on, and if you get muscle-bound with
it, you could shear the pin and render the gun unable to fire. Also, the
FPB mechanism can only be accessed by removing the rear sight should you
need to do cleaning or maintenance on it. I’m not terribly wild about
this characteristic. (I still believe this is a lawyer-friendly answer
in search of a question. I continue to search for documented instances
of 1911 pistols going off from being dropped on their muzzles, and I
have yet to find one documented instance of an unmodified 1911 in good
repair discharging due to a drop on the muzzle from any kind of normal
height – if you find one, please send it to me).
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White arrow points to pin which engages
firing pin block plunger in slide
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