doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion German & Austrian Sporting Guns @ doublegunshop.com Uncocking Krieghoff drilling rifle bbl.

I have a Sempert & Krieghoff Neptun Standard drilling of the type with the rifle barrel cocker on the top tang. To ready the rifle barrel for firing the sliding cocker is moved forward. Once the rifle tumbler is cocked the slide springs back to its original position.

In Kulp's drilling book he writes that on his post war Neptun the cocker is moved forward to cock and back to uncock. Mine (made in 1937) doesn't work that way.

My question is: If I don't decide to fire the rifle barrel or want to uncock it, how do I do this? As I understand it (from reading the drilling edition of Der Waffenschmied) the safety on the left sidelock is only for the shot barrels. There must be a way to safe the rifle barrel once cocked.

Thanks for any information,

Roger

Roger, you think correct, I have a similar drilling and the rifle barrel is uncockt when you move the slide backwards.
There must be something wrong with it.
Marc.

I concur with Marc and something must be wrong under the bonnet. Will the hammer hit the striker in the rear/"uncocked" position?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

I believe this image to be similar, but I'm not positive. I think there are instructions in one of the threads.

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=221392&page=all

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

My Sempert & Krieghoff drilling has separate rifle barrel cocking by way of a lever on the left side. To uncock it, I simply hold the lever all the way down and pull the trigger to release the sear, allowing the lever to take over the spring tension from the sear, then slowly return the lever to the original uncocked position.

This is in essence the same way I would uncock a hammer gun, by holding the hammer back while releasing the sear and allowing the hammer to slowly move forward to the uncocked position.

I have never owned a drilling with the cocking feature you describe, but I own three with the lever system and they all work the same way.

I would put a fired case or a snap cap in the rifle chamber before experimenting, to guard against damage to the hammer or to the firing pin, should you accidentally release it.

Roger,
In the field, be sure to open the action( especially if you set the trigger and didn't shoot),push the cocker forward and hold it, pull the trigger and ease the cocker back. This is similar to xausa's procedure.
Mike

Thanks gentlemen, I knew I would get good information from the knowledgable people on this forum. I will try the process suggested by xausa and Mike above. My rifle bbl is 7x57R and I don't have any ammo yet as all my other drillings are for different cartridges but when I get some I will pull a bullet and make a snap cap to test with. I'll let you know what I learn.

Raimey,

Thanks for the link to the Semper drilling. Though that one was a Blitz action there are several similarities to my Neptun.

Vielen Dank,
Roger

I wanted to let everyone know that I tried the process suggested by xausa above and it works perfectly.

I still don't have a snap cap but being impatient to find out, I placed a dowel rod in my vise and held the rifle part of the breech face against it while I held the cocking slide forward and pulled the trigger then slid the cocking slide to the rear. It works like a charm. The rifle barrel does not fire and the tumbler and pop-up sight are returned to the uncocked position.

As suggested, if I were uncocking the rifle barrel with a live round in the chamber, I would break the gun open first.

Eventually I will post pictures of the gun on the GGCA forum as I don't know how to do that here.

Regards,
Roger