EZ grip safety issues

[M1A4ME]

I bought a .380 EZ several years back. No problems with the grip safety but it was about as accurate as a Glock and we don't find that acceptable.

I bought my wife an Equalizer a couple years ago (to replace her Shield 9MM that she was beginning to have trouble racking the slide on). Both of us had problems with the grip safety. We've learned to grip the pistol up high on the frame and we found we'd often get a failure to fire while trying to grip the Equalizer the same way as out Shields or bigger pistols.

For awhile we just tried gripping it lower on the frame and that seemed to work but it just felt wrong and I didn't like the idea of altering your grip for a single pistol if you have more than one and shoot the different ones, too.

I was going to modify the grip safety (add some material up high on the back so the softer patch under the web of the hand/thumb would still push hard enough to fully depress the grip safety but never got around to it (was going to try some Sugru stuff from Amazon.)

In the end I bought the grip safety from NDZ and installed it and that has fixed the grip safety failure to fire issues we both had with the Equalizer. The NDZ grip safety may work for the .380 EZ and it's cheap enough to try. Easy to change out on the Equalizer. Not sure about the .380 EZ. Just unload it, small punch/hammer to remove the grip safety pin, pull the factory grip safety out/off the frame, install the NDZ grip safety and then reinstall the grip safety pin. My wife is quite happy with her Equalizer now.

 

[tarheel13]

I've noticed that the pistols that are very easy to rack are the same ones that are sold only in the "grip safety" configuration. Is there some mechanical relationship between having a grip safety and being easy to rack? As annoying as the grip safety is, you would think that Smith would offer the "easy rack" models without it, if that were possible.

 

[gc70]

I've noticed that the pistols that are very easy to rack are the same ones that are sold only in the "grip safety" configuration. Is there some mechanical relationship between having a grip safety and being easy to rack? As annoying as the grip safety is, you would think that Smith would offer the "easy rack" models without it, if that were possible.

Most "lite rack" pistol designs are achieved through a bundle of features: they are hammer-fired, which allows light and short trigger pulls, have light recoil springs, and a grip safety provides drop-safe functionality without detracting from the trigger function. However, Ruger's Security 9 and 380 pistols are hammer-fired "lite rack" designs that involve a little extra trigger weight to use a trigger safety instead of a grip safety.