doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Back Action Hammer Guns

Steve, what IS a grip safety? I can't say I have ever seen a safety other than a sliding "stalking" safety that was, I think more for reloading than anything else.

And, of course, the half cock or rebounding hammer safeties, but no grip safety.

2-piper, I have yet to see a delicate or easily broken half cock safe. Most that I have inspected are fairly robust like those shown on the Butler locks above. They do wear however, and some of cheap guns have had half-cock issues, but breakage of the type that results from falls, etc., I hear about on the net but have never seen.

I don't see anything in the above photos that I can identify has a grip safety. Do you have some photos, or what am I missing?

Okay, I see it there. Never seen such a thing on my hammer doubles, albeit most were not back action guns.

Beautiful guns! THANKS! pheasant fisher

I think the grip safety, or guard safety/safety guard, was more common on muzzle-loaders. On pinfires I've only seen them on very early examples, or as a carry-over from a muzzle-loader conversion. Here is another example, from a conversion, but sadly not a back-lock gun...




How these work is illustrated in The Shot-Gun and Sporting Rifle by Stonehenge, 1858. The author points out that leaving a space between the safety and the gun allows for a twig to get in between. The final sentence in its entirety reads "To remedy this inconvenience it is only necessary to make the part which appears outside the stock of solid metal, and let it into a socket cut into the wood." Such a design is the one pictured here.

Steve, Thanks for posting that interesting information.

Rich

Those are pretty interesting safeties, but I've still never heard or seen one on a muzzleloader. In someways they seem rather redundant, but interesting nonetheless. Perhaps more common on shotguns than rifles?

They are fairly common on muzzle loaders. Purdey ,among others, used them. The advantage is the gun could be fully cocked but instantly ready for a rising bird.

Yes, I see the advantage with it on bird guns but still doesn't change that they are uncommon enough that I have never encountered one. Did American makers use them too?

If using a half cock is dangerous due to fragility, a gun at full cock, relying on a grip safety like the one shown above is many times more so.

I'll have to look around for these.

You�re very welcome, I�m happy to share. But apologies to the OP, I wasn�t trying to hijack his thread on collecting hammer guns with a discussion on safeties!

Perhaps it�s a good example of why more attention on collecting hammer guns is important, while they are still out there to be found. There is a lot to 19th Century gunmaking still left to ponder about.