Hal, as far as I know, all pinfire hammers were designed to be pulled back by the thumb. They would be at half-cock for loading, and using one's thumb to bring the hammer at full cock leaves the hand gripping the stock, barrels pointing forward, in preparation for shouldering the gun to fire. I believe Mr. Diggory Hadoke demonstrates the technique in a recent video of his, using a centre-fire hammer gun with non-rebounding locks (to my knowledge all pinfires had non-rebounding locks)
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I can't imaging using the edge of the hand to do so (actually, I just tried doing so with several guns, and couldn't do it).

The geometry of hammers on later centre-fire guns can be quite different, but I really can't speak to those, my two centre-fire hammer guns are from the same time period as the pinfires.

Last edited by Steve Nash; 02/04/21 06:18 PM.