Musketman said:
I do too, having it at full cock seems dangerous to this old scarecrow...All it takes is for the trigger to get snagged on a branch or a twig and it's going off, Musketpappy taught us never to fully cock the gun until we're ready to shoot...
Just so we understand, there are several variables to this which can influence approaches:
The first is that we've all heard/read that the half cock notch should never be considered a safety for documented reasons...they are known to have failed in that role.
And we know there's enough spring tension from that position to fire a ML...so sitting with a ML on half cock is not an absolute safety or safeguard at all.
For me, I hunt alone and when sitting still on a ground or tree stand, I move the hammer to full cock, with a thick, snug fitting leather 'hammer stall' on the frizzen;
A flintlock at full cock with a proper hammer stall on the frizzen as a safety is no more dangerous than sitting on stand with a cocked Remington 700 with it's safety on.
In fact, at least I can see at a glance that the Flintlock's thick leather 'safety' device is always covering the frizzen and absolutely serving it's role as a safety...but I can't see the internals of most modern rifles to know the actual condition of the safety mechanism...and we've all read documented accounts of where they've failed occasionally with bad results.
In fact, Remington replaced the complete trigger/safety assemblies on both of my model 700's for that very reason.
Summary:
IMO, I don't think people should be lulled into a false sense of security thinking a Flintlock on half cock without a hammer stall, is safer than a Flintlock on full cock with a hammer stall because that's actually not the case.
Also IMO, I don't think we should assume a cocked & safetied Flintlock is any more dangerous than sitting with a cocked & safetied modern centerfire rifle.
:v
