The Ed Brown beavertail is made for a VERY high grip hand-hold, so it usually requires relieving and re-blending the UNDERSIDE of the frame tangs. This brings you very close the the thumb-safety's pin hole, which may leave your thumb-safety hanging 'over' the (new) edge of your re-contoured frame, when the safety is in the 'down' position. This, then, requires you to re-contour the thumb-safety to match the frame contour... but now you may leave the safety's frame 'window' exposed when it is in the 'up' position.
The shape of the upper tangs is where the problem arises in fitting a Brown, or any other .250" radius safety to Caspian frames. The tangs slope downward quite a bit the further you move out on the tangs. A .250" radius removes the least of material from the tangs and the downward slope can give you a real problem getting a smooth and pleasing transition between the frame and safety. Again, this is on the top.
Since a .220" radius goes deeper into the tangs, the downward slope is eliminated by the tang cut. We've gotten consistent results in class by using the .220" radius S&A grip safeties.
Here are some class Caspians with the S&A grip safety, built by first-timers.
Notice how the upper frame lines sweep into the top lines of the grip safeties smoothly.
Caspian recently added more meat to the tang area to make fitting a Brown safety easier. I understand Brown has also changed the geometry of their safety for the same reason so it should be easier for the novice builder to fit and blend safeties.
An update: I test fit the EB part and the EGW .245 radius, then decided to go with the EGW one.
The EB gs could have worked, but I would have had to grind/file a fair amount of material off the part plus the frame to make it work.
The EGW gs is beefier, as they say in the right places. Most of the grinding/filing was done on the part rather than the frame. I'm almost done blending it to the frame, it's turning out well, and I will try to get some pics up next week when I'm off work.
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