The H-D Retro thumb safety family is the result of years of design and testing to develop a thumb safety that is ergonomically comfortable, rugged in construction and offers unique features that solve many of the problems with existing designs. The Retro thumb safety was developed to answer customer requests for a version of our original thumb safety with a small shelf that looked appropriate on a Classic or Retro 1911.
Like the Extreme Service and the TAC safeties, the Retro thumb shelf has an arced shape that is sculpted to meet the "plate" portion of the safety. The shelf is lowered slightly and rotated on the plate to better match up to the human hand. This makes the safety more comfortable in use over extended firing sessions.
The positioning of the thumb shelf also helps keep the palm of your hand in deeper, more solid contact with the grip safety, so it's less likely that you'll have a failure to get the grip safety depressed and then keep it depressed, which could render your pistol unfireable at the worst time. The width of the Retro's thumb shelf is .250" at the widest point, the same as my TAC safety.
The plate is made thicker than most other brands and is configured so that the safety plunger bears fully on the front of the plate, eliminating side thrust loading from being exerted against your plunger tube which can eventually loosen the tube’s mounting, allowing the plunger pin to climb over the safety's plate, potentially rendering the gun unfireable.
An ample detent pocket and radius give a positive "click" as you move the safety on and off.
The pivot shaft joins the plate with a generous radius which is crucial to prevent stress breakage of the plate/shaft joint as found on other brands.
The blocking lug has an extra fitting pad on the rear of the lug allowing the gunsmith to regulate how far down the thumb safety can swing, which keeps the safety's plate from overhanging the edge of the frame. An industry first!
The rear edge of the plate is beveled and blended where it meets the back edge of the frame, a feature lacking on other brands.
Machined from barstock alloy steel and heat treated to GI specs; the Harrison Design Retro thumb safety is available in matte black oxide finished carbon steel or matte stainless steel.
