No half cock notch?

[treed]

Copying an original J&S Hawken, maybe built by Tristam Campbell when he was working there. The original lock has no half cock notch. Any thoughts on why modern reproduction locks have a half cock position? Seems to me a man on horseback would have carried with the hammer down on the nipple so as to not lose the cap, and perhaps have the ability to thumb the hammer back a bit and release it to be able to fire the rifle with one hand while galloping.

[tooguns]

The half cock notch is a safety. With the hammer on the cap it is subject to accidental discharge if the hammer is struck. As far as the cap popping of, that's why the Good Lord invented flintlocks!

[Leatherbark]

Chuck Norris is the only man extant that can fire a 12-pound Hawken one handed galloping on horseback.
Maybe Jeremiah Johnson also.

Lots of old timey locks never had half-cock notches.  It is my opinion that most of the makers had economy of build, shooting matches and hunting in mind and not fighting Indians or bad guys.  So, it would be capped prior to shooting at the mark or the treed bear or squirrel.  Or since it is the owner's rifle, he could carry it with the hammer down on a cap if he chose.  I doubt they had liability in mind back in the day but did figure most people had common sense.

Bob

[smylee grouch]

I have an 1850s era half stock that I hunted with that had NO half cock notch. I would cap it and put a double layer of heavy leather on the nipple with the hammer on that. Almost always made me feel uneasy so I was always mindful of it and never had any problems.

[Bob Roller]

Few old  American caplocks had a quality lock and a full cock or resting on a cap was normal.High end  locks as seen on English guns went to the other end and are/were my favorites to copy.More work?Yes but worth it.Cost more?Yes.The last caplock I made was a Hawken style on a replica J&S plate and hammer and it was a full cock or nothing by request.It went to California with triggers.When new muzzle loaders started to be seen and shot the rule seemed to be fine wood,good barrels and the cheapest lock.The wood and barrels were valuable but the part that made it into a gun had to be cheap.Chet Shoults in Lapeer Michigan offered a nice flint lock,polished and ready to go for $50 and it was rejected.He offered an unpolished version at $35 and even that was considered too much to pay for a good lock.P.I.Spence in Marietta,Ohio made a caplock of the simplest possible design and had a hard time selling it for $15 and he was then past 90 and told me to copy it if I wanted to and I had the same problem but that was in 1954.
NO HALF COCK can or should be considered as a safety because a hard pull can break the sear or the tumbler.Lynton McKenzie told me he had to restore several fine English caplocks that had been broken by extreme safety tests by people who knew NOTHING about a gun lock.
Returning to Chet Shoults,he offered a flint lock in a day and time when few shot them and fewer still wanted them at any price.
Bob Roller

[Hungry Horse]

 One of my old rifles came to me with a strip of buckskin attached to the trigger-guard with a string. It took a while to figure out what it was for, but eventually I connected the dots. It was just as S.G. Mentioned, it was a pad to keep the hammer on the old gun with no half cock from setting off the cap.

Hungry Horse

[rich pierce]

One of my old rifles came to me with a strip of buckskin attached to the trigger-guard with a string. It took a while to figure out what it was for, but eventually I connected the dots. It was just as S.G. Mentioned, it was a pad to keep the hammer on the old gun with no half cock from setting off the cap.

Hungry Horse

That’s really cool.

[smylee grouch]

I did as HH did with the leather pads although I never tested it by giving the hammer a sharp rap to see if it would cushion the blow enuf. Back then I had Jim Goodwill fresh out the Remington barrel to 45 from about a 38 so I could hunt deer with it. It shot great, still does but its a cap gun  so it hangs on the wall now.

[treed]

get a url for an image

Thanks for the responses. Here is the rifle i am trying to replicate. This is a page from notes when first documented.  Note it shows the lock at "4 3/4" long very much like Bob Rollers Hawken lock." Bill Horst (Two Bears) did the measurements and notes in 1969. You may remember that name as Bill did drawings for the second John Baird book and is an old family friend of my parents. Was just curious if the style back then was generally no half cock notch.

[T*O*F]

No half cock notches are usually used with single triggers, while double action set triggers require a half cock notch with a fly so the sear will clear the notch.  Since the rifle appears to have a set trigger, it would be of the single action type where the front trigger only cocks the rear trigger.  In use, this would result in a hair trigger acting as a single trigger, thus no half cock notch required.  The gun could be carried with the trigger cocked, only awaiting the hammer to be cocked to fire it.

Forget all that crapola about safeties and carrying a capped gun with the hammer down.  Guns were carried tht way back in the day, including most double barrel shotguns where the right lock had a fly and the left lock didn't.

[Bob Roller]

I had an advantage with the Hawken because I was able to get full scale tracings from Tom Dawson and still have them including the J&S that was marked "Hoffman&Campbell from 1846 or 47.The Hawken locks are nothing special but did work and one thing to keep in mind IS that these guns were not shot a lot and a sophisticated lock was not needed.
Bob Roller

[tooguns]

t.

Forget all that crapola about safeties and carrying a capped gun with the hammer down.  Guns were carried tht way back in the day, including most double barrel shotguns where the right lock had a fly and the left lock didn't.

Yeah, to heck with safety seriously?

[T*O*F]

I said safeties, not safety.  Get your context correct.

[okawbow]

I have a couple originals with no half cock notch. I tested them with the hammer down on a cap, by hitting the hammer with a piece of wood. It takes a hard, sharp wack to set the cap off. So, not as dangerous as it looks. I took a deer with one and capped the gun in the field and was careful about where it was pointed and how I handled it. I was hunting alone. Would not cap a rifle like that until ready to shoot if with another hunter. I don’t recall reading about any accidents due to no half cock. I have seen a gun fire accidentally when the hammer slipped off the half cock duento a faulty notch.

[Bob Roller]

The last Hawken lock I made used a plate and hammer cast in a mould that used an old lock to copy.The internal parts were poor quality.
I put a strong checkering pattern on the thumb spur of that hammer and I checkered all cap lock hammers I made
Bob Roller

[treed]

The original has the single phase set triggers. At this point I think i would prefer no half cock. I have hunted with cap on,  hammer down for most of my life. One time i went out after dark to scare a black bear away from our cabin(after he broke into the storeroom and got the trash stored there) and ended up not needing to fire. When i came back in i went to decap and realized the cap had fallen off because I was on half cock. My wife has never let me forget the incident! Maybe all I need to do is to better match cap/nipple size. Happy Independence Day to all!

[maudite]

The 1851 Swiss feldstutzer with double set triggers had no half cock.

[Bob Roller]

The 1851 Swiss feldstutzer with double set triggers had no half cock.

That Swiss rifle had a lock that could explode a wet cap.
Bob Roller

[bpd303]

I also have a couple of original smooth bore percussion fowler's that have no half cock one with Belgian proof marks and the other is if I recall right English. Sorry no pictures though.

[Bob Roller]

To continue with this thread, the military rifles of the USA and England had hefty locks with a half cock in a big tumbler that a man with a strong grip like my old friend George Wiley* had would be the one of a few that could easily defeat it.The Swiss lock had a long fall from fully cocked but the preload on the mainspring was high and lock time was instant.These rifles were target rifles with military benefit.
*George Wiley was a mechanic and did battery rebuilding and sold them at much reduced prices to those who could not afford a new one,
I have seen him stand and talk to a customer while holding a long Exide battery by one of the posts with ordinary pliers.There was a shop next to the garage owned by a man that looked like Groucho Marx and he had a habit of hard squeezing during a handshake,George showed him that was a bad idea.Going back to locks,the very high class English/Irish locks seen on match rifles and hunting guns were not robust like the military types and the pictures Lynton McKenzie showed me were jobs for lock makers and he said there were 4 he knew of in the USA and they were himself,Bill Roberts,Bob Roller and I am sorry I can't remember the last one.I did repair one for the captain of the German International team,it was a tumbler that had a failure of the shank that holds the hammer.The lock was a top of the line Brazier
from a Whitworth match rifle.I got $70 for that job +return Air Mail.One of the Germans told me that as far as was known,there were no machinists or gunsmiths that would accept that  job.
Bob Roller