It has been so many years since I as in the Army, and fired the Colt .45 automatic, that I can’t rememer one thing. Googling gave me info on almost everything but what I wanted to know.
If I remember correctly, there was a safety lever on the left side, but I may be wrong about that.
What I’m trying to recall is about the lever on the back of the handle. Wasn’t that a safety device also? I think it had to be pushed in by holding the grip tightly before the weapon could be discharged. Yes? No?
Here’s a photo in which both the “lever” safety and the grip safety can be seen. bikebloke is correct that the grip safety is lightly spring loaded, so no action beyond a normal firm grip is necessary to overcome it.
There was a third safety on the .45. In addition to the grip safety and the thumb latch, if the barrel was pushed to the rear, as when pushing the muzzle against a wall, the weapon locked up. I’m not sure of the purpose of the third safety, maybe to prevent a discharge in the holster.
In any event it was a hell of a weapon. Reasonably accurate at 25 yards, a real knock-down punch, an excellent club, big noise, intimidating appearance, easily maintained, rugged and likely to operate in all conditions (saving when full of sand or rust – personal experience on that)).
I thought the lever on the side was solely and simply a slide lock . . .
.
.
.
(five minutes later)
.
.
.
. . . but then again, now that I fiddle with it, it is a positive block on the trigger. That, and since mine is a single-action only, I guess that could be considered a safety feature, but not a specific designed safety.
That’s there as well. In the photo I linked to, the slide lock is the lever above the trigger; the safety is the roughly triangular thing below the hammer.
You’re referring to the disconnect (or disconnector) which prevents the trigger from tripping the sear (and thus allowing the hammer to move forward) unless/until the slide is “in battery” (i.e. fully forward).
