Colt 1911 series 70 vs series 80, What are the differences between the two and which one is better of the two.

No question the series 70 is better, as it has none of added firing pin blocking crap of the 80, making for a better trigger break.

Mike

The series '80 is supposed to be safer, so the word "better" depends on what you want.
My series '80s have no problem with trigger pull, of course they needed some tweaking to get them that way.
Some are quite horrendous out of the box.
If you are not familiar, the series '80 uses two levers and a plunger to block the firing pin until the trigger is pulled, usually resulting in a harder, creepy let off.
I find them harder to clean as the levers need positioning to reassemble the frame and the slide contains two "extra" parts, the firing pin block plunger and spring.
So in that regard, the series '70 would be "better".

 Is Springfield 70 or 80 series?
 How's about Kimber?

 Thanks.
 

Springfield is Series 70 type.

Kimber was until it introduced the Series II.  It has the Swartz style firing pin safety rather than Colt's proprietary FPS.  There have been issues with the safety locking up and causing failures.

With a heavy duty firing pin spring you dont really need a firing pin safety on a 1911.  For me its an issue of maintaining function, not the having a target grade trigger.

 Thanks Lumpy196.

 So Kimber series I is 70 series?

Yes

Only Colt and Para Ord (by license) use Colt Series 80 safeties.

Kimber adopted the Swartz type safety with the series II.

All others are original Browning 1911 style.

colt series 80 FPS can be De-activated, for liability reasons it shouldnt be done.

the firing pin plunger has been known to cause some reliablity issues with colt and para, removal of this plunger/spring usually resolves the issue. you can also take out the internal levers and all you need is a spacer, which one of the levers can become when you cut off the extension that pushes up on the safety plunger.

any decent gunsmith should be able to put a combat accurate and reliable trigger on a series 80 with the FPS intact. a 2-5 pound trigger shouldnt be impossible to obtain.

Here's a nice pic of a series 80 firing pin block. 80's have em. 70's don't. that's about the only difference.




taken from www.sightm1911.com/lib/tech/s80fpb.htm