"All" safeties are designed for giving some protection in the event of some Catastrophic occurrence, not for ordinary handling. As a general rule only a flintlock had a "Half Cock" notch. This was necessary in order for the hammer to be drawn back enough to allow the frizzen/battery to be closed. Percussion guns were normally equipped with a Safety Notch, plus the full cock. A "Few" early percussion gus I believe did have carry over half cock notches but they are in the minority. This arrangement kept the hammers from riding on the caps, a very dangerous condition, but yet kept them covered without enough of a gap they were likely to become dislodged. non-rebounding breech loading hammer guns followed basically the same practise. These locks used a rather thin sear nose which fit into a notch in the tumbler which prevented the trigger being pulled while in the safety position. This sear nose & tumbler notch were for the most part quite fragile & easily broken, resulting in a dangerous condition.
With a rebounding lock the hammer backed up enough after firing to allow the sear to fall into the safety notch. With this arrangement there was no need for the Notch, so the sear nose was usually thicker & the tumbler notch deeper & more sturdy, not apt to be broken. A rebounding lock hammer gun is Inheritably safer than a non-rebounder, & yes I have over the years successfully used both.
I bought my first hammerless double in 1954 & have not been without one since. This was a pre WWI J Stevens Arms & Tool Co g-12 ga. Although for a couple of seasons around 1957/58 I used an 870 pump as my primary gun I did not totally abandon the old Stevens Other than those two seasons a SxS double has been my Main using gun.
Over these intervening 63 years I have never owned a double with anything other than the normal trigger blocking safety. No intercepting sears or other supplemental safety device. Over all those years I have had "One" accidental discharge. This was rather early on with the old J Stevens.I was just starting on a hunt & making my initial loading. The hammers had been down in the fired position. I opened the gun, inserted two shells, closed it & it fired. The only conclusion I could come to was that I had not fully open the gun & the hammers did not cock. I must have then closed the gun rapidly enough the hammers came down with enough force to fire, or else they had just started to engage the sears but were not fully caught & the jar of closing released the sears. I put that old gun through some pretty rigorous "Testing" by slamming & banging around on it as far as I dared just short of actual damage to it. I could never get it to drop the hammers again.
In spite of that one experience I still detest those guns on which one must hold the barrels open to load. I did learn on that day to always Open the gun positively to insure both hammers are cocked. I have little to No qualms about walking through the woods & fields with a loaded & cocked gun with the safety engaged. So far one has not let me down.
"IF" I could be absolutely certain nothing unexpectedly & out of the ordinary would occur I would have no qualms about walking around with a gun loaded, hammers cocked & No Safety device, "BUT" one does need to prepare for the unexpected.
