Sonicdmb73
Well-Known Member
Most clay guns I have come across have non auto safeties. Some others I have had didn’t have an auto safety either
New Forest Negligent Discharge
- Thread starter tomblincoe
- Start date
There are 2 issues here though. A person can have full muzzle awareness and practice safe gun handling but still have the misfortune to experience a trigger or safety catch failure. I have had several with various makes of rifle. Thankfully because of the safe practice procedures non of the incidences cause any damage. If it's a work rifle at fault then it's reported, details recorded, sent for inspection to a gunsmith even if the problem has been identified and could be rectified by the user. The reporting and recording is important in order to see if it has happened to rifles of the same make etc. When moderators were first used, we started to get problems with a make of rifle because the circlip on one of the pins in the trigger unit used to come off. This led to possible safety failures which eventually led to the design being changed. So you dont need to be a muppet to experience mechanical failures but being a muppet could lead to these failures to being life changing
It came as a shock to me that some break action shotguns don't have auto safety...I have two AYA Yeoman O/U and one came with and one without...a simple bit of Silver Steel connecting rod bending and now they both do.
I just feel more comfortable sliding the safety forward as part of the process of mounting the gun. Same sequence with the Blaser.
Alan
Think tradition was game guns have an auto safety but clay pigeon shooting guns do not.
As far as I know if it's the "old 2 shot" as a youngster once called them, so o/u or sbs, the safety only resets itself after opening the gun. So if only 1 shot is taken then the safety has to be manually set or the gun opened
Sounds like a switched-on FEO, and probably a shooter himself.
London Jaeger
Well-Known Member
My first shotgun was an old hammer .410 a friend of my fathers gave to him. It had no safety, with the gun being cocked by manually pulling the hammer back. The gun was designed that when the hammer was pulled back you could not break the gun open and remove the cartridge. It you cocked the gun, and then wanted to uncock it, you had to put your thumb on the hammer, pull the trigger and gently lower the hammer on to the firing pin, which had a cartridge in the chamber.
Safety was clearly not high up on the agenda for whoever designed that gun....
Woodsmoke
Well-Known Member
That's just given me a chill
London Jaeger
Well-Known Member
I pulled it out of the cabinet at my parents house when I was down there on the Easter weekend. Maybe the hammer has got stiff after not using it for two decades, but it was alot hard than I rember trying not to set the gun off when uncocking it. God knows how I managed when I was only 10.
That sounds scary. I have a side by side El Chimbo folding .410 hammer gun, but that one you can break open the gun with the hammers cocked.
But I always uncock it before opening, just from the point of view that I am in control of the hammers even should the trigger mechanism slip when the lever is moved. It is the same as yours, to uncock it you have to lower the hammer with the trigger pulled...but the firing pins are a couple of mm short so they rely on the sharpness of the hammer strike to carry them forward to the primer.
Still, one realises why designs move on!
Alan
An old pal told me a story of a youngster going through a fence with an old hammer shotgun. The story was as he got through the hammer got caught in the wire and off she went. It managed to remove his middle toe cleanly, without haming the rest. Again, the human is the biggest faulty item here
I remember being taken woodpigeon shooting as a 13 years old by a mate of my dad. It was my "promotion" after proving I was responsible with air pistols and rifles. After a few ad hoc lessons and a bit of supervised shooting, I was let loose with his Harrington and Richardson 16b single barrel hammer shotgun. I think it was a Topper.
There was no manual safety, so the drill I was taught was that the hammer was only cocked as the gun was on the way up to the shoulder to take a shot. Didn't always work that way, of course. And while I never had an ND lowering the hammer, it was always a bit nerve-wracking.
By comparison, the automatic safety on my game guns is pure luxury!
No different to when we shot revolvers in the good old days, single action, pull the hammer back until the sear engaged, if for any reason you need to make safe you did as you described.
baguio
Well-Known Member
I bet it taught you a lot about barrel awarness though?
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
Almost had one last night.
Sat in a high doe box on a gravel farm track, looking out from the right side window there were woods to my right and fields to my left, a buck came out 8 metres under the box from the wood and turned right going away from me until at 70 metres it turned left into the field by 3 metres and stopped, up went my combination gun cheek down into weld position and safety pushed forward, eye into position, about to let off when "WTF" a mountain bike arrives at the top of my view through the scope on 2,5x magnification heading my way. Safety back on and then spent a half hour waiting for my heart to stop pounding then went home.
Sat in a high doe box on a gravel farm track, looking out from the right side window there were woods to my right and fields to my left, a buck came out 8 metres under the box from the wood and turned right going away from me until at 70 metres it turned left into the field by 3 metres and stopped, up went my combination gun cheek down into weld position and safety pushed forward, eye into position, about to let off when "WTF" a mountain bike arrives at the top of my view through the scope on 2,5x magnification heading my way. Safety back on and then spent a half hour waiting for my heart to stop pounding then went home.
Woodsmoke
Well-Known Member
Sounds to me like that was just a combination of bad luck and good sense
Cows94
Well-Known Member
Recently had my first ND, closely followed by my 2nd which ended up in my new rifle heading back to the dealer. Gun in question is a Sako 85 XS Varmint. First time it happened I was on my range just getting some practice in with my new toy. I was prone & on target. I set the trigger ready to fire, put my finger back on the trigger guard to take & breath before firing & it went off. Scared the crap out of me. Assumed it was me not setting it properly & told myself to be more careful next time. Not 10 rounds later it did the same thing again. It went straight back & had the spring pressure adjusted because it just wasn't holding in place properly. Put 100+ rounds through it since & it's not done it again but it's made me even more cautious than ever about NDs
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