Thread: Half cock or safety

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Well at least we have moved away from what was a shocker of a practise I often saw used 40 years ago...bolt closed with trigger held back so the fireing pin was sitting on primer.....I know of one fella who dropped his 8mm mauser carried in this manner,it went down bank(assumably he was hanging on to stop himself falling) rifle struck rocks or some such,it fired and round went up through his hand arm and shoulder,luckily deflecting outwards rather than inwards removing his head....

This scenario is the reason for my aversion to the interchangeable usage of the term between true 'half-cock' and 'half-open-bolt'.
On the Lee Enfield and most early 20th century military bolt action designs you can ease the striker forward under spring tension into a half-cock position. This has the striker off the primer and locked, there is a risk when easing the striker forward of slipping and the firearm discharging, there is also the risk of letting the striker all the way forward and resting on the primer while hunting.

When hunting with one of these rifles, using a half-open-bolt with a cock-on-closing mechanism is arguably safer than relying on the half-cock design feature incorporated in the striker of many of these rifles, as has been already mentioned, this is the initiator of our ostensibly unique practice in NZ, which started when a stalking rifle that was not a Lee Enfield was a discussion point.

Getting back on point, if someone with one of these rifles takes the advice to use half-cock literally, which is not the half-open-bolt scenario, then there is an exposed striker resting or ready to drop on a primer. All it takes is a knock to the rifle and discharge can occur.
The correct semantics around this could save a life.

Ultimately the thing to realise is that this is a far more nuanced subject than what some posts would seem to suggest. Saying that no modern maker would make a sub 100% reliable safety because that would bankrupt them, ignores the Remington trigger recall of recent years (Yes I know there is conjecture whether it was the safety or the operators, however the scenario debunks the claim regardless).