You might be able to use a small slotted head screw driver to back out the retainer, see pic:
Left is ours, right is Troy’s. Note the spring loaded detent is retained by a jacket, which looks like it can be unscrewed.
Thanks! That was it.
Do the levers wobble like the one I have? :jester:
Absolutely not. That isn’t what I said.
I said that the pin will rise and slide along the grove in the selector switch, not that it would drop back into another detent halfway between ‘Fire’ and ‘Safe’.
In the interests of research I dropped by the local gun shop yesterday and fingered a few of their finest wares…
DPMS … 3 examples tested.
Safety would rotate and stop. No detent, same as original posters.
Stag Arms … 3 examples tested.
Safety would rotate and stop. No detent, same as original posters. One example would just barely rotate out of the safe-position by half a hair’s breadth.
Rock River Arms … 2 examples tested.
One example would rotate halfway from safe, the other wouldn’t rotate far enough to raise the pin from the detent.
Results… 8 tests, 6.5 examples of safety rotating enough so that the pin would clear the detent.
AAR… Doesn’t matter worth a dang.
That’s not the “Same results as the original poster” then.
In your experiment were the guns cocked? You said one would barely rotate out of the safe position. Did you mean “fire” position?
To clarify again, the issue occurs hammer NOT cocked. The safety lever can be rotated from “fire” about 1/3 the way to “safe” and stay there in what sounds and feels like a detent.
After examining a Troy ambi safety, which does the same thing, next to the stock Colt I noticed a much longer groove (see picture) between detents. I’m assuming that is allowing the lever to stay in that position. Why I can hear and feel a detent-like click, I don’t know.
BUT, having taken it apart and examined it I don’t feel it is an issue. I would prefer it worked like my Colt though.
Did you mean “fire” position?
----- Oops, yes. “Fire” not “Safe” position. Each example was cleared and had the trigger pulled before simulating the OP’s action.
To clarify again, the issue occurs hammer NOT cocked.
----- Hammer down, not cocked, fired position. Safety levers on named examples rotated a few degrees. “Feels like” is not the same as actually being a physical detent. I noted that each example that behaved similarly to the OP’s would click out of the “Fire” position. But, each example would also stay at any position of rotation until the pin began to enter the detent for “Fire”.
Why I can hear and feel a detent-like click, I don’t know.
— I suspect you are feeling the pin being forced from the detent and the rapid lessening of force needed to move the safety as the pin begins to ride in the groove of the safety lever. The ‘click’ is the safety meeting the trigger which prevents it from rotating further. Metal-to-metal sounds are like that.
Picture pushing a car out of a rut, you have to expend much more energy to lift it against gravity than you do to push it along the road. Car comes out of rut and you have to stop pushing so hard or you’ll fall flat.
Now, picture that once the car is freed from the rut, it can only move two inches forward until the front bumper hits a solid brick wall. Bumper hits wall… !click!
As to the lever staying there… well, of course it will when you think about it.
- It’s pressing against the trigger in one direction, so it isn’t going That way any further.
- It’s out of the detent so spring pressure is forcing the pin against the groove; simple mechanical friction is preventing the lever from moving without force. If something does move the lever, then a degree or three of movement will allow the pin to begin entering the detent and spring pressure will force the pin into the groove and will force the lever to rotate more in the same direction it was being moved.
Why won’t it only click from one position to the other without anything in the middle?
Well, the detents are placed 90-degrees from each other, that is why there is a length of groove for the pin to ride in as the selector is moved.
Why don’t all rifles operate like your Colt?
Manufacturing tolerances. Note that in the case of one manufacturer examined, one example rotated/stuck and the other didn’t.