Thread: Half cock or safety

Originally Posted by 7mm tragic

Okay, just tried that, finger hurts, firing pin didn't release.

That's comforting, I still wouldn't recommend using it, haha.

hammer is held in full cock position by sear on a hammer gun...unless you have trigger pulled

..yes spring is indeed under tension when modern bolt is in that position but the striker is prevented from DROPPING by bolt body UNTILL handle is turned therefore hanging that brick/hammer/striker in the air ready to drop..the leg on angle sort of thing.....when I release my bolt springs for storage,I rotate the striker into the fired position I cannot do that without ROTATING the striker/end of bolt....

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

hammer is held in full cock position by sear on a hammer gun...unless you have trigger pulled

..yes spring is indeed under tension when modern bolt is in that position but the striker is prevented from DROPPING by bolt body UNTILL handle is turned therefore hanging that brick/hammer/striker in the air ready to drop..the leg on angle sort of thing.....when I release my bolt springs for storage,I rotate the striker into the fired position I cannot do that without ROTATING the striker/end of bolt....

Yes I agree, in all cases something must hold the firing pin in the cocked position. What that is or how it is achieved is irrelevant to its status as cocked.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Attachment 229710

Many an unsuspecting hunter has found their Sako or Tikka bolt in this position. If you don't know how to re-cock it it can be quite the handful... they seem to be a special kind of hard to re-cock. I won't re-cock my Sako 85 .375H&H without the wrench: https://www.beretta.com/en-us/gun-ac...for-85-series/

OK, (big sigh).

Someone touched on this previously, the history of the 'half cock' in NZ springs from the Lee Enfield rifles where the back of the bolt has a little lump machined into the back of the bolt that guides a knob on the cocking piece. This is designed to ensure that the rifle will only fire with the bolt fully in battery, or fully closed. If the bolt isn't fully closed, the knob on the cocking piece slams into the little lump in the groove in the bolt and either throws the bolt over to the right locking it fully into battery, or to the left fully opening the bolt. Combined with this is a second notch under the cocking piece that was designed to catch the tip of the sear and lock the bolt in position in the action and also to prevent the firing pin from going far enough forwards to initiate the primer.

Some wise arsed Kiwi noted this setup, and cottoned onto the fact that it could be used to lock the bolt into position meaning the little fiddly lever of the safety catch could be dispensed with - but it's dodgy in use as not all cocking pieces and bolts were equipped with these features and also you could slip and stuff up the manual engagement of the 'half cock lock' and accidentally discharge the round.

This didn't really apply to most other rifle types, and Kiwi's have been trying to mimic the feature ever since to varying levels of success. Most rifles are not designed with such a system built into them, so some don't work at all for this purpose. Other types don't have 'out of battery' protection so you could theoretically discharge on a half locked bolt which is potentially a colossal clusterfluck looking for somewhere to happen. I'm not really in favour of the half cock unless it's a designed in firing pin blocking type with out of battery protection - and as noted most rifles don't have this.

One big thing to watch for in push feed actions is the fact that upon chambering a round, you don’t fully engage the bolt, ie. straight to half cock after chambering, then try to extract a round, the extractor wouldn’t have been engaged and loaded round will stay in chamber.

I’ve seen it twice where someone has gone straight to half cock in a Tikka and then not fired a shot, gone to extract the round later and nothing comes out of extraction port. They’ve then assumed that they never picked up a round from the magazine in the first instance, closed the bolt, therefore loading a live round in the chamber without even knowing.

WOW that photo is better than hoped...top silver bolt is howa 1500 that is in the spring stretched position,the striker is back at rear of bolt and the sticky up cleaner metal bit is what the sear enguages BUT ITS NOT rotated around to nearest to bolt handle where NOTCH is deepest..allowing that clean metal bit to DROP down into fired postion poking firing pin out front of bolt face...displayed by the model 70 bolt below it..what is sticking up on top bolt is now closest to camera and the angled face the trigger sear enguages is shown..the rem 700 works the same way.

I hunt with the safety on. I like being able to feel the bolt is locked. That way I can feel the safety is on.
Always point in a safe direction of course.

Originally Posted by Makros

Many an unsuspecting hunter has found their Sako or Tikka bolt in this position. If you don't know how to re-cock it it can be quite the handful...

its a right bitch to undo on the remington 700..need vice grips GENTLY (akaroa1 please no lynch party) to hold it to turn it.... the zastavas and that model 70 can be turned by hand firmly..the Howa is tight and needed grips too....yo ucan turn Howa THE OPPOSITE WAY AND UNSCREW IT for cleaning..on the model 70 shown yo uswing safety to middle position and then push in the wee lock shown at top position and then unscrew bolt....

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

its a right bitch to undo on the remington 700..need vice grips GENTLY (akaroa1 please no lynch party) to hold it to turn it.... the zastavas and that model 70 can be turned by hand firmly..the Howa is tight and needed grips too....yo ucan turn Howa THE OPPOSITE WAY AND UNSCREW IT for cleaning..on the model 70 shown yo uswing safety to middle position and then push in the wee lock shown at top position and then unscrew bolt....

Can you stick the Rem 700 bolt in backwards and use the groove in the receiver and turn the bolt handle to re-cock? You can with a Tikka. I only own a Christensen Arms Rem 700 clone not an actual Remington and you can re-cock that by hand.

An interesting aspect of the 'half cock position' is that it is basically a New Zealand thing. Overseas hunters come here and go WTF? It's not taught or condoned in other countries that I know of. These days it probably pays to remember rule three.

I have trouble believing a firearm with a closed action is safe.
I usually use half cock. Providing Ive checked it out and it has a half cock notch. Greg Duley did a very good article in their magazine about how to do this on Remington 700 rifles. I presume their clones would be the same.
Tragic started a thread on "Which Rifle". I said Blaser to meet his requirements. Blaser gets my vote on this subject too

Originally Posted by 7mmwsm

I have trouble believing a firearm with a closed action is safe.
I usually use half cock. Providing Ive checked it out and it has a half cock notch. Greg Duley did a very good article in their magazine about how to do this on Remington 700 rifles. I presume their clones would be the same.
Tragic started a thread on "Which Rifle". I said Blaser to meet his requirements. Blaser gets my vote on this subject too

Not wanting to start something semantic, but as others have stated 'There is No 'half cock' on cock on opening actions' There is a 'Half open bolt position' The two are completely different.
I too use the 'half open bolt' for the last moments before a shot

Being a lefty using a rh rifle has an advantage for me in this situation. I carry the rifle with bolt closed on empty chamber. When a shot looks likely Ill load a round into chamber and hold bolt closed handle up with my thumb. If a shot presents its self I can move my thumb across the back of the bolt to the handle and lower it with my thumb as I'm raising the rifle for a shot in one movement.