"My early 1980's No.1S in .218Bee has a safety flush with the tang. No problems with ejection at all. Is this a feature of earlier models ??

My .375 H&H model 1H Tropical that I bought in the early '80s had a safety slide that was made like that .450. I just removed some material from the front edge of the tang and reblued it. Some would remove material from the top surface, thus tapering it so as not to shorten the front tang. That is a better way. My mod ended up showing a gap when the safety is on. It is possible that something could get into that gap while out hunting. It never has for me, but it could.