1911 trigger carry condition - Page 6

RX-79G · July 20, 2014, 02:56 PM

Because it doesn't matter all that much if a gun fires straight into the ground.

California has a list of all sorts of guns that do not have FPB safeties but pass fairly high muzzle drop tests. That is a known quantity.

No one tests half cock drops - probably because no one has taken to carrying handguns on half cock since the 1860s. It isn't a question of IF it can fire, just how much impact it will take to make it fire.

RX-79G · July 20, 2014, 03:13 PM

From the Colt series 70 manual:

Quote:

Half Cock Notch in Hammer
The Half Cock Notch is an automatically operating fail-safe device which will engage the sear in the unlikely event of a primary sear notch failure. This will prevent the hammer from falling fully forward unintentionally and insure against uncontrolled automatic fire. It also prevents the hammer from striking the firing pin should your hand slip from the [hammer] while cocking the pistol, provided the hammer is rotated past the Half Cock Notch. The Half Cock Notch is not meant to be engaged by hand.

CAUTION: NEVER PLACE OR ALLOW THE HAMMER TO REMAIN IN THE HALF COCK NOTCH. THIS IS NOT A SAFE CARRYING POSITION.

Freeloader Reloader · July 20, 2014, 04:22 PM

I see that there are quite a few opinions about the safety issue of putting your thumb in the trigger guard to perform a push check. To each his own, I guess, but as long as he doesn't point it at someone (or thing) and is careful not to put his thumb too far into the guard, I suppose he is used to doing it in that manner. I agree that putting any digit into the trigger guard is not my idea of a safe practice. That being said, I do a push check on my Browning HiPower just about every time I pick it up. I find no need to put my thumb or any other digit in the trigger guard and I also do not come close to covering the muzzle with my other hand or fingers. Of course, if you carry such a firearm in Condition 1, to perform a push check requires you to disengage the thumb safety. Some SA 1911's I have fired (but not been lucky enough to own) have some really sweet (as in "light") trigger pulls...that being one of the most desirable attributes of the gun, if not the most. That being said, I do not think I would be comfortable putting my thumb inside the guard and really see no need to do so. I showed my HiPower to a friend of mine and it was still in the plastic case. I had an empty chamber but two loaded magazines. I know he had a HiPower of his own and I just wanted him to see my new Coco Bolo grips I had put on it. He took it out of the case and cycled the slide, thinking he was doing the safe thing. I quickly told him that he had now loaded the chamber, as well as cocked the weapon. I asked him to engage the safety and drop the magazine and put the gun back where it was. I never touch anyone's gun without their permission, and preferably not until they safety check it and hand it to me. Even then, I never cycle the slide and I never put my finger on the trigger nor point it an an unsafe direction. He was of the opinion that I was being unsafe having a loaded magazine in the gun. A "safe" pushcheck would have proven the chamber was empty (which is why I am not against loaded chamber indicators (especially i the dark)...doesn't bother me a bit.

gc70 · July 20, 2014, 04:35 PM

RX-79G: you apparently do not believe a proven, albeit very uncommon, hazard renders a gun unsafe, but a wholly speculative risk does make a gun unsafe. So be it.

I can't believe you quoted the Colt manual, but in that vein, the following is the very first warning from the inside cover (even before page 1) of the Colt Series 70/Model O manual:

Quote:

CAUTION: ALWAYS KEEP AND CARRY YOUR PISTOL EMPTY, WITH THE HAMMER FORWARD EXCEPT WHEN YOU INTEND TO SHOOT, so that the pistol cannot be fired when you do not mean to fire it.

RX-79G · July 20, 2014, 05:04 PM

So, you're saying that the lawyer warning, followed by a detailed description of how the safeties work is the equivalent of "never engage the half cock by hand"?

Even you must have felt a little silly posting that.

The same manual says to never put your finger in the trigger guard until ready to shoot, for you press checkers.

Series 70 manual on Colt's site, dated 1982.

**44 AMP** · July 20, 2014, 06:23 PM

Quote:

The same manual says to never put your finger in the trigger guard until ready to shoot, for you press checkers.

Which is why we use the thumb.

HP White Labs, doing testing for the state of CA back in the early 70s found that a Colt Govt model pistol, would not fire if it landed on the hammer at full cock. Either the hammer did not drop, or the hammer pin would break, and the hammer fly out of the frame.

With the hammer at half cock, a fall from a sufficient height, landing on the hammer could force the hammer off half cock, and could hit the firing pin with enough force to fire the pistol. Note that this was with a standard Govt Model gun, not a series 80 gun with the firing pin safety.

Also, they had to rig up quite the test framework, in order to get the tested guns to land on the hammer, repeatedly. Without the framework to guide it, the dropped gun almost never landed on the hammer, a different part of the gun almost always hit first.
(Sorry, no link, going from memory)

**Aguila Blanca** · July 20, 2014, 06:48 PM

I believe that Browning's patent application for the 1911 referred to the half cock notch as a "safety." If the guy who designed it thought it was a safety, I'm not going to argue with him. (He knew more about guns than I ever will.)

**JohnKSa** · July 20, 2014, 07:58 PM

Quote:

I believe that Browning's patent application for the 1911 referred to the half cock notch as a "safety."

That's consistent with the quote from the manual provided above. It's a safety designed to catch the hammer if, for any reason, the primary engagement surfaces don't properly engage or break.

RX-79G · July 20, 2014, 08:18 PM

Thank you, 44 AMP, for pointing out that this is a real thing.

Aquila, that section of the patent refers to the design of the grip safety and how it assists in decocking. The patent language makes a general reference to lowering the hammer to the safety notch, because at that time there that's all there was and patents are written to address the current level of technology.

Browning ALSO had an inertial firing pin, which allowed for full down hammer carry, but if he referred to that patent or his other firing pin safety, it would have weakened the patent claim of the decocking mechanism he was describing.

At no point in any patent for his pistols did Browning directly refer to a half cock safety position for the specific pistol. Instead, he patented two separate mechanisms to allow the gun to be carried hammer full down.

gc70 · July 20, 2014, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RX-79G

At no point in any patent for his pistols did Browning directly refer to a half cock safety position for the specific pistol.

Browning's 1911 patent dated 2-14-1911 (page 7, lines 8-68) describes changes to the grip safety to allow lowering the hammer to the "safety position" with one hand.

The hammer's "safety position" is specifically defined in Browning's pistol patent dated 4-20-1897 (page 1, lines 47-48) which described "bringing the hammer to the safety or half-cock position".

RX-79G · July 20, 2014, 11:14 PM

That's exactly the section I was talking about. The patent description of the grip safety describes how one lowers the hammer. In the early 1900s, aside from Colt guns that have inertial pins or sight pin safeties, if you lowered the hammer, you lowered it to half cock. There was no other choice.

Quote:

The hammer's "safety position" is specifically defined in Browning's pistol patent dated 4-20-1897 (page 1, lines 47-48) which described "bringing the hammer to the safety or half-cock position".

This section describes the use of the device in question along with a hammer, not the 1911 hammer.

Browning is submitting a patent with elements that need to hold up individually. If he describes his grip safety innovation only in terms of his pistol designs, that is all they will apply to. A well written patent describes the device's application in the broadest terms to contemporaneous technology. If you don't, then Steyr could have built the same grip safety, but avoided the infringement by lowering the hammer to half cock, rather than full down, which only Colt's were capable of at that point.

My brother is a patent attorney, I've filed a provisional patent and I currently pay a license fee for another patent. I'm very familiar with how they need to be written to hold water, and that's what this section is - a description referencing contemporaneous technology, not suggesting how a 1911 Colt is supposed to be used. It's not a manual.

The Colt .38 hammer fired model 1902 lists two safeties in its manual - the inertial firing pin and the disconnector. Half cock is not discussed or listed anywhere in the instructions or description. It is present on the gun, for the reasons I quoted from the 1982 Colt manual.

gc70 · July 20, 2014, 11:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RX-79G

Quote:

The hammer's "safety position" is specifically defined in Browning's pistol patent dated 4-20-1897 (page 1, lines 47-48) which described "bringing the hammer to the safety or half-cock position".

This section describes the use of the device in question along with a hammer, not the 1911 hammer.

Yes, the 1897 patent describes the 1911's hammer, as the 2-14-1911 patent (page 2, lines 57-63) states:

Quote:

The embodiment of my improvements represented in the accompanying drawings is a magazine-pistol, such as is shown and described in the United States Patent No. 580,924, granted to me April 20th, 1897

RX-79G · July 21, 2014, 12:09 AM

Pardon, I missed the 1897 patent. However, this is still what I am talking about.

The 1911 patent uses the 1897 patent, which was for a gun with no type of firing pin safety system, and describes each improvement in light of the previous design.

The 1897 gun, like all guns prior two either of Browning's firing pin safety systems, only had half cock for a safe hammer position. Much like the Mauser and every other external hammer pistol of the time (though some also had manual safeties). When Browning describes his decocking improvement, it is in reference to the previous patent and contemporaneous designs, so it uses the language of those pistols.

Overall, Browning designed not one but two firing pin based systems to avoid the perils of half cock carry. This was clearly an issue for him. The 1911 was the only manual safety hammer fired pistol he completed - he clearly believed that hammer guns are meant to be carried hammer down, and worked hard with at least three patents to make that method safer. If half cock was a proven system that he believed in, he wouldn't have bothered with two of them.

Half cock is a bad carry method. As 44 AMP posted, it can fail with a muzzle up AD. It was outmoded by at least 1900 with the first firing pin safeties and only exists today to guard against certain failures, as explained by the 1982 Colt manual.

Please don't tell your friends that half cock carry is considered safe with this pistol.

NWCP · July 25, 2014, 04:40 AM

One of the reasons I carry an HK rather than a 1911 is the cocked and locked issue. In the military we never carried in condition one unless ordered to do so, or you were removing your weapon from its holster with the intention if shooting someone. At that time you had to rack the slide. My HK's are DA/SA pistols. Can't get much safer than that. The first shot is a heavy long pull DA shot, the rest of the rounds are clean crisp SA with a quick reset. You can also drop the hammer using the decocking lever which also acts as the manual safety.

I like my 1911's just because they are what I trained on in the service and what I carried as a sidearm. But to be honest the new DA/SA pistols that use a linkless Browning barrel lock up design are the best of both worlds. JMHO

Jim243 · July 25, 2014, 04:46 AM

Quote:

But to be honest the new DA/SA pistols that use a linkless Browning barrel lock up design are the best of both worlds. JMHO

You are not alone in feeling that way.

Jim

**Aguila Blanca** · July 25, 2014, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RX-79G

Quote:

If "that little sear can break" is your standard for safe carry, then cocked and locked is also not a safe carry position.

Break when struck in the half cock position. When the hammer is stuck in any other position the sear doesn't take all the impact.

In both the half-cock and full-cock positions, the hammer hook (or shelf, in the case of full cock) is in intimate contact with the sear nose and held there by spring pressure. Any force applied by the hammer is a rotational force at the hammer that will be imparted to the tip of the sear along a tangent to the hammer base. If the pistol is dropped on the hammer, the force imparted to the tip of the sear won't be significantly greater or less regardless of whether it's in full-cock or half-cock.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RX-79G

That's exactly the section I was talking about. The patent description of the grip safety describes how one lowers the hammer. In the early 1900s, aside from Colt guns that have inertial pins or sight pin safeties, if you lowered the hammer, you lowered it to half cock. There was no other choice.

Neither the grip safety nor the thumb safety directly interacts with the half-cock notch. And the thumb safety cannot be applied unless the pistol is in the full-cock position. If the pistol is placed at half-cock and laid down or holstered, then neither the thumb safety nor the grip safety is in play. Yet, the guy who designed the pistol referred to this position as a safety position. You are arguing against your own position.

RX-79G · July 25, 2014, 04:16 PM

Quote:

In both the half-cock and full-cock positions, the hammer hook (or shelf, in the case of full cock) is in intimate contact with the sear nose and held there by spring pressure. Any force applied by the hammer is a rotational force at the hammer that will be imparted to the tip of the sear along a tangent to the hammer base. If the pistol is dropped on the hammer, the force imparted to the tip of the sear won't be significantly greater or less regardless of whether it's in full-cock or half-cock.

Nope. It isn't rotational force if the hammer is fully cocked. The gun strikes the ground with the top of the hammer, not the spur, so the force isn't rotational. The force of a full cock drop acts directly against the hammer axle. A half cock drop hits the spur and is rotational.

There is no way to get rotational force on a cocked 1911 hammer by dropping it on a flat surface. The MSH would hit first at the angle necessary.

Quote:

Neither the grip safety nor the thumb safety directly interacts with the half-cock notch. And the thumb safety cannot be applied unless the pistol is in the full-cock position. If the pistol is placed at half-cock and laid down or holstered, then neither the thumb safety nor the grip safety is in play. Yet, the guy who designed the pistol referred to this position as a safety position. You are arguing against your own position.

No again. The patent section for the grip safety you're referring to has nothing to do with how it works as a safety. That section is talking about how the grip safety works as a superior decocker. It doesn't use the term "decock". Instead, it uses the contemporaneous phrase "lower the hammer to the safety position", because that's what you did with the 1897 pistol that the patent refers to.

"Safety position" was half cock for the 1897, and full down by the time the 1902 pistols were out, because they added the inertial firing pin as a safety device.

The patent language:

Quote:

Heretofore in the pistols of this class, when the hammer was cocked ready for firing, and it became necessary to lower the hammer to the safety position without allowing it to touch the firing-pin, it required both hands of the user to accomplish this act...

Copying the full text doesn't work, so please read it yourself on page 7. With the "heretofore" preamble, Browning is describing the competition and his previous guns. The term "half-cock" doesn't appear in the text. By using the phrase "safety postion" he covers both full down on his later guns and the half cock used by other brands.

http://forum.m1911.org/documents/Bro...-14.pdf#page=2

**Aguila Blanca** · July 25, 2014, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RX-79G

Nope. It isn't rotational force if the hammer is fully cocked. The gun strikes the ground with the top of the hammer, not the spur, so the force isn't rotational. The force of a full cock drop acts directly against the hammer axle. A half cock drop hits the spur and is rotational.

You are assuming one specific orientation at which the pistol strikes the ground, but there is a wide range of angles at which it could land that would all impact the hammer. That said, the hammer's natural motion is rotational, not linear. If the angle of impact pushes the hammer in its natural, rotational direction, the force acts as I described above. If the impact is on the top of the hammer, either nothing happens or the hammer pin breaks and (as someone else already noted) the hammer flies out of the pistol. It won't fire with no hammer.

gc70 · July 25, 2014, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RX-79G

"Safety position" was half cock for the 1897, and full down by the time the 1902 pistols were out, because they added the inertial firing pin as a safety device.

This claim is obviously false.

The 1897 patent included an inertial firing pin (Illustration #2, parts k and k1).

The 1911 patent (page 7, lines 10-12) says "to lower the hammer to the safety position without allowing it to touch the firing-pin" which absolutely precludes it being a discussion of the hammer being fully down. (For those unfamiliar with 1911s, the hammer not only touches, but slightly depresses the firing pin when the hammer is fully down.)

RX-79G · July 25, 2014, 09:08 PM

Look again - that's a full length pin. The illustration shows the tip into the cartridge head when the hammer is down.

On your second erroneous point, go back and read that "heretofore" part again. The language describes the general application of the decocking function to all "pistols in this class". Which is how you write a patent so it doesn't just cover your product.

RX-79G · July 25, 2014, 09:15 PM

Quote:

You are assuming one specific orientation at which the pistol strikes the ground, but there is a wide range of angles at which it could land that would all impact the hammer. That said, the hammer's natural motion is rotational, not linear. If the angle of impact pushes the hammer in its natural, rotational direction, the force acts as I described above. If the impact is on the top of the hammer, either nothing happens or the hammer pin breaks and (as someone else already noted) the hammer flies out of the pistol. It won't fire with no hammer.

Exactly. In the cocked position it is nearly impossible to strike the hammer in a way that will make it rotate into the sear. The impact, as you note, goes into the hammer axle or rotate into the strut. That's why a cocked hammer is drop safe and half cock is not, as 44 Amp mentions the tests proved.

RX-79G · July 26, 2014, 12:40 PM

To bolster my "false" claims, here's that 1897 patent with the firing pin and cartridge case highlighted so you can see how the firing pin protrudes into the case rim/primer when the hammer is full down, and how the firing pin rests just inside the breechface when it is not compressed by the hammer.

The presence of a spring does not make a firing pin inertial. On control round feed pistols, a spring is necessary to retract the firing pin so it doesn't interfere with the case head sliding up the breechface during loading.

If you go to the second to last page of the 1911 patent you can see what an inertial firing pin looks like - the tip is retracted into the breechface the same amount that the back end protrudes from the firing pin stop. When the hammer is down the pin fits exactly in that space.

gc70 · July 26, 2014, 10:35 PM

How is your idea of fully lowering the hammer "without allowing it to touch the firing-pin" working out?

RX-79G · July 27, 2014, 12:04 AM

How is your idea that the 1897 has an inertial pin working? You made a claim that was COMPLETELY wrong. Why did you do that?

Everything I have said I stand behind. The section 7 in the 1911 patent isn't about anything but the function of the grip safety as it pertains to lowering the hammer.

You can treat a 1911 or a 1900 like a 1897 and use the half cock. But it would be dumb. Browning thought it was dumb, which is why we have inertial pins and sight safeties.

July 20, 2014, 04:22 PM	#128
Freeloader Reloader Member Join Date: May 12, 2014 Location: New Orleans, LA area Posts: 54	Push Check Debate I see that there are quite a few opinions about the safety issue of putting your thumb in the trigger guard to perform a push check. To each his own, I guess, but as long as he doesn't point it at someone (or thing) and is careful not to put his thumb too far into the guard, I suppose he is used to doing it in that manner. I agree that putting any digit into the trigger guard is not my idea of a safe practice. That being said, I do a push check on my Browning HiPower just about every time I pick it up. I find no need to put my thumb or any other digit in the trigger guard and I also do not come close to covering the muzzle with my other hand or fingers. Of course, if you carry such a firearm in Condition 1, to perform a push check requires you to disengage the thumb safety. Some SA 1911's I have fired (but not been lucky enough to own) have some really sweet (as in "light") trigger pulls...that being one of the most desirable attributes of the gun, if not the most. That being said, I do not think I would be comfortable putting my thumb inside the guard and really see no need to do so. I showed my HiPower to a friend of mine and it was still in the plastic case. I had an empty chamber but two loaded magazines. I know he had a HiPower of his own and I just wanted him to see my new Coco Bolo grips I had put on it. He took it out of the case and cycled the slide, thinking he was doing the safe thing. I quickly told him that he had now loaded the chamber, as well as cocked the weapon. I asked him to engage the safety and drop the magazine and put the gun back where it was. I never touch anyone's gun without their permission, and preferably not until they safety check it and hand it to me. Even then, I never cycle the slide and I never put my finger on the trigger nor point it an an unsafe direction. He was of the opinion that I was being unsafe having a loaded magazine in the gun. A "safe" pushcheck would have proven the chamber was empty (which is why I am not against loaded chamber indicators (especially i the dark)...doesn't bother me a bit. __________________ Rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it!

July 20, 2014, 02:56 PM	#126
RX-79G Junior member Join Date: October 27, 2013 Posts: 1,139	Because it doesn't matter all that much if a gun fires straight into the ground. California has a list of all sorts of guns that do not have FPB safeties but pass fairly high muzzle drop tests. That is a known quantity. No one tests half cock drops - probably because no one has taken to carrying handguns on half cock since the 1860s. It isn't a question of IF it can fire, just how much impact it will take to make it fire.

July 20, 2014, 05:04 PM	#130
RX-79G Junior member Join Date: October 27, 2013 Posts: 1,139	So, you're saying that the lawyer warning, followed by a detailed description of how the safeties work is the equivalent of "never engage the half cock by hand"? Even you must have felt a little silly posting that. The same manual says to never put your finger in the trigger guard until ready to shoot, for you press checkers. Series 70 manual on Colt's site, dated 1982.

July 20, 2014, 06:48 PM	#132
Aguila Blanca Staff Join Date: September 25, 2008 Location: CONUS Posts: 18,459	I believe that Browning's patent application for the 1911 referred to the half cock notch as a "safety." If the guy who designed it thought it was a safety, I'm not going to argue with him. (He knew more about guns than I ever will.)

July 20, 2014, 08:18 PM	#134
RX-79G Junior member Join Date: October 27, 2013 Posts: 1,139	Thank you, 44 AMP, for pointing out that this is a real thing. Aquila, that section of the patent refers to the design of the grip safety and how it assists in decocking. The patent language makes a general reference to lowering the hammer to the safety notch, because at that time there that's all there was and patents are written to address the current level of technology. Browning ALSO had an inertial firing pin, which allowed for full down hammer carry, but if he referred to that patent or his other firing pin safety, it would have weakened the patent claim of the decocking mechanism he was describing. At no point in any patent for his pistols did Browning directly refer to a half cock safety position for the specific pistol. Instead, he patented two separate mechanisms to allow the gun to be carried hammer full down.

July 21, 2014, 12:09 AM	#138
RX-79G Junior member Join Date: October 27, 2013 Posts: 1,139	Pardon, I missed the 1897 patent. However, this is still what I am talking about. The 1911 patent uses the 1897 patent, which was for a gun with no type of firing pin safety system, and describes each improvement in light of the previous design. The 1897 gun, like all guns prior two either of Browning's firing pin safety systems, only had half cock for a safe hammer position. Much like the Mauser and every other external hammer pistol of the time (though some also had manual safeties). When Browning describes his decocking improvement, it is in reference to the previous patent and contemporaneous designs, so it uses the language of those pistols. Overall, Browning designed not one but two firing pin based systems to avoid the perils of half cock carry. This was clearly an issue for him. The 1911 was the only manual safety hammer fired pistol he completed - he clearly believed that hammer guns are meant to be carried hammer down, and worked hard with at least three patents to make that method safer. If half cock was a proven system that he believed in, he wouldn't have bothered with two of them. Half cock is a bad carry method. As 44 AMP posted, it can fail with a muzzle up AD. It was outmoded by at least 1900 with the first firing pin safeties and only exists today to guard against certain failures, as explained by the 1982 Colt manual. Please don't tell your friends that half cock carry is considered safe with this pistol.

July 25, 2014, 04:40 AM	#139
NWCP Senior Member Join Date: December 24, 2006 Posts: 1,903	One of the reasons I carry an HK rather than a 1911 is the cocked and locked issue. In the military we never carried in condition one unless ordered to do so, or you were removing your weapon from its holster with the intention if shooting someone. At that time you had to rack the slide. My HK's are DA/SA pistols. Can't get much safer than that. The first shot is a heavy long pull DA shot, the rest of the rounds are clean crisp SA with a quick reset. You can also drop the hammer using the decocking lever which also acts as the manual safety. I like my 1911's just because they are what I trained on in the service and what I carried as a sidearm. But to be honest the new DA/SA pistols that use a linkless Browning barrel lock up design are the best of both worlds. JMHO

July 25, 2014, 09:08 PM	#145
RX-79G Junior member Join Date: October 27, 2013 Posts: 1,139	Look again - that's a full length pin. The illustration shows the tip into the cartridge head when the hammer is down. On your second erroneous point, go back and read that "heretofore" part again. The language describes the general application of the decocking function to all "pistols in this class". Which is how you write a patent so it doesn't just cover your product.

July 26, 2014, 12:40 PM	#147
RX-79G Junior member Join Date: October 27, 2013 Posts: 1,139	To bolster my "false" claims, here's that 1897 patent with the firing pin and cartridge case highlighted so you can see how the firing pin protrudes into the case rim/primer when the hammer is full down, and how the firing pin rests just inside the breechface when it is not compressed by the hammer. The presence of a spring does not make a firing pin inertial. On control round feed pistols, a spring is necessary to retract the firing pin so it doesn't interfere with the case head sliding up the breechface during loading. If you go to the second to last page of the 1911 patent you can see what an inertial firing pin looks like - the tip is retracted into the breechface the same amount that the back end protrudes from the firing pin stop. When the hammer is down the pin fits exactly in that space.

July 26, 2014, 10:35 PM	#148
gc70 Senior Member Join Date: May 24, 2005 Location: North Carolina Posts: 2,903	How is your idea of fully lowering the hammer "without allowing it to touch the firing-pin" working out?

July 27, 2014, 12:04 AM	#149
RX-79G Junior member Join Date: October 27, 2013 Posts: 1,139	How is your idea that the 1897 has an inertial pin working? You made a claim that was COMPLETELY wrong. Why did you do that? Everything I have said I stand behind. The section 7 in the 1911 patent isn't about anything but the function of the grip safety as it pertains to lowering the hammer. You can treat a 1911 or a 1900 like a 1897 and use the half cock. But it would be dumb. Browning thought it was dumb, which is why we have inertial pins and sight safeties.