doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Box lock intercepting sears

Famous Hunter was Peter Capstick. Not very safe but by your self entering the long grass after something nasty, with a Mauser wing safety might be just a bit quicker. A lot of hammer guns were fitted with stalking safety's, most engaged at half cock and they disengaged when drawing the hammers to full cock but some were fitted to full cock. I have a 1829 copy of a Purdey percussion rifle with a stalking safety fitted. It locks the hammer in the full cock position and I only use it when stand hunting. It is silent and no sound made from drawing the hammer back from safe to full cock. Always disengaged and hammer lowered to 1/2 cock when preparing to move. Pretty nifty system for stand hunting.

I am the guardian of a 24 ga percussion double shotgun made by I Funk of Suhl my FIL brought back from WW2 that is equipped with halfcock stalking safeties that release when the hammers are brought to full cock.

It's a very nifty & robust system that should prevent an accidental discharge by dropping the gun or having something strike the hammer & breaking the halfcock bent allowing the hammer to strike the cap. A nice & useful feature on any hammer gun, cartridge or percussion.

I have several hammerless doubles on which the safety can be applied in the uncocked state. These all have un-latched top levers which allow the lever to return to center when the gun is fully open. With gun open & lever at center push safety off. Pull triggers to release sears, then release triggers & close gun. With an auto safety gun the safety will reset, with a manual safe it can be left in which ever position desired.

As stated a safety does not 100% guarantee that a gun"Cannot" go off. If someone has a proven instance where safety has "Caused" a gun to fire would like to see the evidence.

Corbett was talking about his boxlock double rifle. The gun recently featured in this site I think. Not a hammer gun.

He went on to describe how he kept the trigger pressed while disengaging the safety and fired, so the click of the safety would not awaken the sleeping man eater.

If Corbett was in the habit of carrying an "uncocked" boxlock double rifle w/the safety on as earlier described it must have been sort of a Chinese fire drill when he needed to shoot something in a hurry.

I'm thinking something is lost in the translation.

Britanny Man, no translation, here is the text from the book, page 123, Bantam Edition, the chapter on the The Mohan Man Eater:

"And now, for the first time in my life I regretted my habit of carrying an uncocked rifle. The safety catch of my 450/400 makes a very distinct click when thrown off, and to make that sound now would either bring the tiger right on top of me or send him down the steep hillside without any possibility of getting a shot"

"Aligning ths sights of the rifle on his forehead I pressed the trigger, and while maintaining a steady pressure on it, pushed up the safety catch. I had no idea how this reversal of the usual method of discharging a rifle would work, but it did work;"

The 450/400 used has been featured in a thread on this site. It is a boxlock Jeffery.

The inescapable conclusion is that Corbett assumed that putting the gun on safe uncocked it. The safety does no such thing.

"The inescapable conclusion is that Corbett assumed that putting the gun on safe uncocked it. The safety does no such thing."

Exactly what I meant by "something lost in translation" Corbett or his editor/or ghost writer apparently didn't know much about firearms terminology or how they functioned. I don't think the sliding safety cocker /decocker as used on some current German double rifles had been invented in Corbett's time.

I'm not sure of the name of the system(s) that Blaser, Krieghoff & others use that allows rifles (double or other) to be carried uncocked yet easily & quickly cocked when the need arises & again easily uncocked if the shot is not taken by simply pushing the safety slide. It's not traditional & the large thumbpiece looks a bit strange but it's a very nifty & super safe system.

Not unusual for a competent gun user to not know about gun internals and how they work.

No mechanical system is foolproof. Safe gun handling trumps all.

While I whole heartily agree that safe gun handling rules, intercepting sears are designed for those times when things do not go according to plan. I hunt wild birds in wild places. I have taken more than a few tumbles over the years. I am very conscious of where I point my muzzles but to be completely honest falls are unplanned events. I am not sure what the hell even happened sometimes. Last time out hunting in about 5" of snow I stepped in a hole up to my knee. I was lucky to not get hurt though my gun did end up full of snow. Interceptors are a good idea on a field gun but they do not replace safe gun handling.