doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com External hammer guns banned.

One of my hunting buddies (I�m down to 2 1/2 since one has developed MS, and shows up about half the time) has a friend who is a member of a family hunting club, started perhaps 75 years ago. My friend got to tour the property, about 1K acres, in Pine County MN.
During the tour, it came up that one of the founding members had died from an accidental self inflicted wound, attempting to lower his Marlin lever gun from his tree stand with a rope. The 35 Remington bullet entered under his jaw, and made for a quick, if grim, death. My understanding is this was not a recent occurrence, and happened long ago.
The club responded by banning hammer guns of any type.
I don�t know the details of how it happened, and don�t understand the logic behind the decision. My single exposed hammer gun is a Marlin 336C in 30-30, that has a safety button in addition to the half cock hammer, but, I have never actually fired the gun (inherited)and don�t have an opinion on it.

Good enough reminder to be safe out there.

Best,
Ted

Very sorry to hear of the accidental death. Lots of questions come to mind, but I won't mention them because, obviously, no one here can answer them. My biggest concerns now are with his family who remain.

Thanks Ted.

SRH

Actually, now that I ponder it a bit, there is another gun with an exposed hammer on the property. It is a Winchester (Cooey) 840 single shot 12 given to my brother for Christmas in the year 1976.
My brother despised this gun, and gave it to me, in a broken state. I repaired it, and cleaned it up a bit, and, have yet to fire it either.

Not much of a spokesman for hammers on guns, I guess.

Best,
Ted

Make more sense to ban the lowering of loaded guns by rope from a tree stand.
Naah, that is just silly for me to think that.

O.M

A friend told me about his uncle who blew half his guts out by pulling a loaded 12g shotgun by the barrel from the back seat of a car.
He survived.

What do we ban in this instance ?

O.M

Ted;
You say your understanding was this happened long ago. The Marlin 36 & possibly early 226 guns did not have the safety button. The only safety they had was the half cock. I truly don't want to sound too Calloused but anyone letting a "Loaded" gun down from a tree stand muzzle up likely deserved whatever they got.

I really don't know how this happened & seriously doubt the fact it had an external hammer had much to do with it. With the gun going down, anything snagging either the hammer or trigger should have been working in the opposite direction for firing. It, of course, could have been possible the gun snagged & he pulled it back upward a bit. If the hammer was then pulled back & released it should have caught in the half cock unless the trigger was snagged simultaneously. If just the trigger was caught he would have to have given it a pretty Stout Yank to have broken the half cock notch to allow the gun to fire.

We could ban stupidity. But, then there there would be no one left in Sacramento.

Kinda interesting story Ted, thanks for sharing it.

Every AD incident seems to have a human element, or, more accurately, a human failure. This is a guy I grew up with:

http://www.moraminn.com/news/hunter-lose...2cb3014f3d.html

A detail not mentioned in the story is the gun was on safe when it fired, confirmed by deputies who responded, and it is part of the group of rifles that was fitted with the problematic Remington 700 trigger. But, he made a critical error when he picked the gun up with his hand over the muzzle.

Be careful out there. My point, already noted, is that a particular design of firearm likely has little to do with an accident that results in maiming or death.

Best,
Ted

Miller,
I�m pretty sure the 336 got the additional safety button in the late 70s. Prior to that, they were all half cock safety only.

Best,
Ted