1911 Hand Position

[webber]

I am wondering how many that use and shoot the 1911 handgun let the thumb of the strong hand ride the safety lever.
I dont. But that is just me correct or incorrect.
I am just wondering how many do ride the safety as I have seen Jeff Cooper do as seen in his photos demonstrating the Weaver Stance.
I am just curious is all.
Thanks

[x101airborne]

I do hold the safety down with my thumb. I do not ride the slide catch. I pinch my left thumb down on top of my fingers, sometimes actually lightly pinching my thumb against the side of the bottom of the trigger guard. Dont know if I do it right or wrong but that is just my way.

[bigbore5]

I do.

[gnappi]

I don't, my left thumb covers my right thumb nail.

[Fowler]

I ride the safety, if I don't I personally don't control the recoil nearly as well and I often find I snick the safety back on while I shoot.

I used to hook my first finger on my left hand over the front of the trigger guard as well but I sorted out my hand moved too much and was better off with all 4 fingers on my left hand under the trigger guard., I will do this with a revolver though.

But you need to sort out what works for your hands of course, no right or wrong here...

[sixshot]

I've tried the thumb over the safety but it just didn't feel right for me. I lock my left thumb over my right thumb so that it can't flip the safety back on from recoil & I try to point both thumbs towards the target.

Dick

[bradshaw]

Jan 3, 2024 13:32:49 GMT -5 webber said:

I am wondering how many that use and shoot the 1911 handgun let the thumb of the strong hand ride the safety lever.
I dont. But that is just me correct or incorrect.
I am just wondering how many do ride the safety as I have seen Jeff Cooper do as seen in his photos demonstrating the Weaver Stance.
I am just curious is all.
Thanks

*****

Let anatomy and the target determine hand position.

* 1911 one hand----thumb sweeps down to contact middle finger.
* 1911 two hands----shooting thumb rests on support thumb.
* Single action revolver----similar to 1911.
* Double action revolver with stout recoil----similar to 1911.
* Double action revolver with low recoil----support thumb overlaps shooting thumb.
David Bradshaw

[zeus]

Right thumb rest on safety. Left thumb is on the frame forward. Just works for me.

[AxeHandle]

Funny thing here. I had no conscious thought of where my right thumb is on a 1911. As it should be I'd think. My right hand position in a two hand grip is basically my bullseye grip with the left hand added. Both thumbs point at the target. For bullseye the thumb is NOT part of the grip. Hard to break those habits.

[boolitdesigner]

Being left handed with somewhat different anatomical hand features, none of anything listed above applies. That situation has worked very well after 50 years of 1911 use.

[ridenshoot]

I ride the safety of both my 1911s and Hi Powers with my strong hand thumb.  I have a Sig P210 (newest model) and I tend to ride that safety with my thumb as well.
It seems a natural place for my thumb to be based on ergonomics for my hand size, I think it also tends to help with recoil maybe, though I have no objective way to tell that.  Additionally, I like having my thumb in contact with the safety so when it is time to put the gun back on safe I already have my thumb in contact with the safety lever.  Interesting how we all have our different ways and reasons for what we do.

Long ago I had a Taurus pistol that was a Beretta 92 clone sort of, but it had a safety that was also a decocker.  Up was safe, down was fire, all the way down was decock and it would spring up to fire again.  This caused me all kinds of issues while riding the safety, it would often not fire because I was forcing the lever down to the decock position.  This is why I believe riding the safety helps with recoil, I am actually putting a fair amount of pressure on the safety lever.  This is also why that gun had to go down the road.

[rexster]

I do keep my right thumb on the safety lever, when shooting a 1911 right-handed. Some extended, wide safety levers, however, prevent me from accomplishing this while also keeping sufficient contact with the grip safety. So, I have to pay attention to that, when selecting 1911 pistols. My thumbs are relatively small, in relation to my long but narrow hand size, and my right hand, especially, is skinny, with little meat to bring to bear against a grip safety.

When shooting a 1911 left-handed, I have yet to find an “ambidextrous” safety set-up that I like, and have not tolerated them, for long, on a carry 1911. Depending upon the shape of the right grip panel, on a pistol with a standard, single-lever thumb safety, I may place my left thumb on the grip panel, or, tuck the tip of my left thumb down, toward or on the tip of my left middle finger, when shooting one-handed lefty. Because my right hand and right shoulder are not aging well, my most-recent 1911 acquisition has a hammer with a spur, to facilitate my left thumb’s manipulation of the hammer. I am left-handed, but right-armed; I write lefty, but throw right-handed. The Good Lord did bless me with the ability to be ambidextrous with a significant number of things. If I have to switch to lefty “primary” carry, pulling a trigger will not be a problem

For reference, my first handgun, acquired in late 1982 or early 1983, at age 21, was a 1911. I no longer remember my thumb position, during my early, self-taught days, but, by some time in the Eighties, I was mentored by an older LE colleague who had learned directly from Chuck Taylor, who had worked at Jeff Cooper’s Gunsite, so, I was indoctrinated in the thumb-on-safety method. Not until 1990 did I possess a 1911 that I trusted enough to be a duty and carry pistol, and it betrayed me a year later, so, my revolving pistols remained important. I again used 1911 pistols for duty and personal carry, 1997 to 2002, until interrupted by an issue with the then-mandated duty holster, which was not a good 1911 rig, resulting in my Glock and then SIG years. In 2012, I resumed using a 1911 for personal time carry*, and in 2016, a policy change allowed me to resume using a 1911 while on duty. I retired from LEO-ing in January 2018. In retirement, I have gravitated toward revolving pistols as carry guns, relegating my 1911 pistols to occasional carry, and to home defense. I like the modest muzzle flash of .45 ACP, inside darkened structures.

Edited to add: These paragraphs are how I shoot a 1911 one-handed. I simply did not have time to address two-handed shooting.

*For quite some time, I avoided using more than one auto-loading pistol system at a time, for serious purposes. By 2011, however, my duty .40 SIG P229 was really aggravating my arthritis, so, I got my all-steel, full-sized 1911 out of the safe, and was gratified to find that operating the thumb safety remained natural, and that the differing trigger systems were not presenting me with any problems. The slower-accelerating .45 ACP, when fired from a lower-bore-axis, all-steel 1911, was not painful to shoot. John Moses Browning knew something about ergonomics, well over a century ago. I qual’ed with my Les Baer Thunder Ranch Special, on the “off-duty/back-up” course, and resumed packin’ a 1911, during personal time. (I would have to keep carrying the SIG in my duty rig, for several more years.)

[handgunhuntingafield]

I run 1911 type handguns in action shooting. I get as high of a grip as possible and ride the thumb safety and slide stop. Helps keep the muzzle down under recoil.

[contender]

"* 1911 one hand----thumb sweeps down to contact middle finger.
* 1911 two hands----shooting thumb rests on support thumb."

This is pretty much what I do. I also rest my support thumb along the frame,, just under the slide. ANd with my right thumb on top,, it's easy to point both thumbs towards the target. Robbie Leatham & Todd Jarrett helped me learn that LONG ago.

[bradshaw]

Jan 4, 2024 6:16:49 GMT -5 ridenshoot said:

I ride the safety of both my 1911s and Hi Powers with my strong hand thumb.  I have a Sig P210 (newest model) and I tend to ride that safety with my thumb as well.
It seems a natural place for my thumb to be based on ergonomics for my hand size, I think it also tends to help with recoil maybe, though I have no objective way to tell that.  Additionally, I like having my thumb in contact with the safety so when it is time to put the gun back on safe I already have my thumb in contact with the safety lever.  Interesting how we all have our different ways and reasons for what we do.

Long ago I had a Taurus pistol that was a Beretta 92 clone sort of, but it had a safety that was also a decocker.  Up was safe, down was fire, all the way down was decock and it would spring up to fire again.  This caused me all kinds of issues while riding the safety, it would often not fire because I was forcing the lever down to the decock position.  This is why I believe riding the safety helps with recoil, I am actually putting a fair amount of pressure on the safety lever.  This is also why that gun had to go down the road.

*****

ridenshoot.... the Beretta safety copied the decock feature of the Walther PP pistols and P-38. The Taurus method sounds redundant. Jeff Cooper claimed that the P-38 was subject to discharge at hammer drop, a hazard I never experienced with my Nazi stamp P-38 of 1944, nor various Walther PPK and PPK/s pocket pistols, nor the Beretta 92.

Even if my anatomy was inclined to “ride the safety,” the profusion of pistol types, along with variety of 1911 THUMB SAFETY configurations, might discourage my hitching a ride. Now add one more anatomical factor: the meat below my raised thumb inclines to lift off the GRIP SAFETY, which stops trigger squeeze, a potential for lethal embarrassment.

If your anatomy----in conjunction with a competition-favorite pancake safety----acts to engage the thumb safety on recoil, by all means ride the safety.

Merrill and RPM single shot pistol
To fire, the Merrill/RPM pistol requires thumb safety be depressed, a feature I cannot abide. A light pressure, yet a conscious pressure. Perhaps it is the way I’m wired, and makes me ultra-aware of my thumb during the brief moment of SQUEEZE, when I want my thumb to sleep.
David Bradshaw