Thanks. The D. Bache and Kugelspannung had me baffled. I knew that kugel means rifle. Here's another curve ball he threw: he says that he can fit a handstretcher, or something close to that, to a bolt action Mauser. What could that be? He seemed rather proud of it.
"Handspannung" - you can cock and de-cock the action without operating the bolt.
The idea is that you can carry a loaded and de-cocked rifle, and this is thought "safer".
This is similar to the "separate Kugelspannung" in your Krieghoff drilling - there it makes sense, wingshooting with a "primed and cocked" rifle barrel is risky business.
In a bolt action rifle I consider it quite unimportant (thinking of the good Mauser 98 safety) but this appears to be quite a fashion in Germany now (even my brother had such a thing installed on his Remington 700).
I think this craze comes from newfangled contaptions like Blaser R93 that have this feature and are cleverly marketed as "safety rifles".
Here is another proud inventor showing how it works - of course in German, sorry - but I do not know who else is interested in this stuff.
Maybe the Swiss, who will be even harder to understand ......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8H3vXhaeLgRegards,
fuhrmann
