doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Greener Side Safety - Hunting With One

I do NOT like the side safety, especially with my Krieghoff drilling when shooting doves, Seems like I select the rifle barrel
instead of the safety



Of course, the rifle barrel is NOT loaded for dove hunting.

Mike

You just have to have more practice with your drilling. It will then become second nature. I love drillings, inspite of the greener safety, not because of them.
Mike

I just shot my old Krieghoff drilling I sold to a friend in a field this afternoon. It is a little bit older than Mike's (I am guessing!), proofed in 1919, and features a Greener style safety. I agree there is a slight additional wrist movement with the side safety. It didn't matter shooting clays but I could envision additional effort in the grouse woods, particularly the mountainous areas I hunt.

Mike
Yes, but toooooo many gun clamoring for my attention and only ONE with the side safety.
The Hammer guns are easier, no safety on mine.
Some hammer guns do have safety's??
Mike

Siache (sp?)...Geo

Skeettx,
Yes, and some are self cocking, as well; so need safety.
Mike

I had combination gun with this feature. You load the gun take safety off and keep fingers out of the trigger guard. If one falls hopefully intercepting safety mechaism works and one does not shoot body part off, kill or worse yet wound someone else. I didn't have any problems with that setup, but tang safety is best on both rifles and shotguns.
If you are looking for glass half full nice Greener with side safety usually costs significantly less than something with tang safety. If you like something from famous "pot and pan maker" of Birmingham I suggest finding one with tang safety. They do exist. It could be worse you could end up with one of them modern German wonders with sliding cocker next or near top lever. By sliding the thingy you're basically cocking the system to fire.

Presumably everyone posting knows how safeties work, that they only block the trigger and do not affect the cocked status of the action. So disengaging the safety before starting to mount is not a major safety no no. It might be safer than fumbling during mounting and that is important in connection to a side or other awkward mounted safety button.


It is possible to make a gun go off with the safety engaged.

Even famous expert shots confuse the function of the safety. Corbett wrote "i never carried a cocked gun" when he meant he never carried it with the safety off. His hammerless double rifle was inevitably cocked if it was opened, loaded and then closed.

Yes. Thankfully when hunting about the worst thing likely to happen is the hunt will be over because all the game will run away hearing the shot going off.
Sadly of three shotguns I own only one has nicely shaped tang safety.

"All" safeties are designed for giving some protection in the event of some Catastrophic occurrence, not for ordinary handling. As a general rule only a flintlock had a "Half Cock" notch. This was necessary in order for the hammer to be drawn back enough to allow the frizzen/battery to be closed. Percussion guns were normally equipped with a Safety Notch, plus the full cock. A "Few" early percussion gus I believe did have carry over half cock notches but they are in the minority. This arrangement kept the hammers from riding on the caps, a very dangerous condition, but yet kept them covered without enough of a gap they were likely to become dislodged. non-rebounding breech loading hammer guns followed basically the same practise. These locks used a rather thin sear nose which fit into a notch in the tumbler which prevented the trigger being pulled while in the safety position. This sear nose & tumbler notch were for the most part quite fragile & easily broken, resulting in a dangerous condition.
With a rebounding lock the hammer backed up enough after firing to allow the sear to fall into the safety notch. With this arrangement there was no need for the Notch, so the sear nose was usually thicker & the tumbler notch deeper & more sturdy, not apt to be broken. A rebounding lock hammer gun is Inheritably safer than a non-rebounder, & yes I have over the years successfully used both.

I bought my first hammerless double in 1954 & have not been without one since. This was a pre WWI J Stevens Arms & Tool Co g-12 ga. Although for a couple of seasons around 1957/58 I used an 870 pump as my primary gun I did not totally abandon the old Stevens Other than those two seasons a SxS double has been my Main using gun.

Over these intervening 63 years I have never owned a double with anything other than the normal trigger blocking safety. No intercepting sears or other supplemental safety device. Over all those years I have had "One" accidental discharge. This was rather early on with the old J Stevens.I was just starting on a hunt & making my initial loading. The hammers had been down in the fired position. I opened the gun, inserted two shells, closed it & it fired. The only conclusion I could come to was that I had not fully open the gun & the hammers did not cock. I must have then closed the gun rapidly enough the hammers came down with enough force to fire, or else they had just started to engage the sears but were not fully caught & the jar of closing released the sears. I put that old gun through some pretty rigorous "Testing" by slamming & banging around on it as far as I dared just short of actual damage to it. I could never get it to drop the hammers again.

In spite of that one experience I still detest those guns on which one must hold the barrels open to load. I did learn on that day to always Open the gun positively to insure both hammers are cocked. I have little to No qualms about walking through the woods & fields with a loaded & cocked gun with the safety engaged. So far one has not let me down.

"IF" I could be absolutely certain nothing unexpectedly & out of the ordinary would occur I would have no qualms about walking around with a gun loaded, hammers cocked & No Safety device, "BUT" one does need to prepare for the unexpected.