Double rifle safeties

[VertigoBE]

Dear AH members,

I'd like to hear the connoisseurs and users of double rifles out about something that I cannot get out of my mind.
References have been made in a variety of threads, not the least one of the many hundred's discussing the African Carry.

One user in the end made the statement, that it does not matter how you carry your rifle, as long as the dangerous end is pointing away from everyone around you, and your finger is off the trigger. Two good pieces of advice.

That being said, no matter how you carry, as soon as you are weaving in and out of brush, ducking below branches, climbing over boulders, where the guy in front, or the guy behind you, can be to your left, your right, above or below you, sweeping someone at some point is inevitable, no matter how much attention you put into trying to avoid it. And naturally this attention does waiver sometimes after 15-20miles of tracking under the hot African sun. We are all human, things do not always go as we plan to do.

As we are walking around in DG territory, having "two up the pipes" is quite usual. But that is where it gets difficult for me. Walking around with two cartridges in a double rifle, with only a small safety button/slide in the way of having a very dangerous thing in your hands, knowing that the inevitable sweeping of someone will happen, I find very uncomfortable and makes me nervous.

Now obviously I could just not load anything in the rifle. That is perhaps the best. But then we only are limiting the exposure of having a live weapon with only a safety on, to the last 10min of a tracking hunt. We have limited the number of hours of this carry, but nothing to attenuate the inherent risk. Especially as those 10min, your attention will likely be on the animal, not the rifle.

The other alternative is better mechanical safeties. Of which Krieghoff and Blaser have made their name, by using a cocking/decocking safety, rather than a more simple hammer block, or trigger block. The biggest detractor of these (at least the one Krieghoff I have handled) is that there is no way of quickly flicking off the safety and going from safe to live and back.

My question then is: Are there other solutions still?

I have seen for instance double safeties, that do not work as cocking/decocking safeties, but as a second mechanical manipulation to be executed. Do these block additional parts of the mechanism of a double rifle? Or do they just work as a block for the standard safety?

Are there other possibilities or solutions?

Perhaps a combination of a cocking/decocking with a traditional safety? For the 90% of the tracking, the rifle is uncocked, then in the last 10min, the cocker is used and there is an additional safety that can be flicked off with a simple flick of the thumb?

Or as @IvW would grumble: "you're overthinking stuff".

Anyway, I'd love to hear about what other mechanical solutions might exist apart from a simple button slide, or a big cocker/decocker, for a double rifle.

V.

 

[1peggy]

Once you get familiar with the Krieghoff it becomes second nature.

No one wants to careless but you may be overthinking this. When I was Zim in October the PH worried more about the tracker with my Model 70 than me with my Krieghoff.

 

[Hillcountry63]

I carry mine, safety on with muzzle awareness and disengage the safety as I mount the weapon. This isn't an issue for me as it's the same way I was raised shooting a SXS Shotgun behind birddogs and have been doing so for the last 5 plus decades with all my weapon platforms including a career in the military and LEO.

Having said that I know a number of bird hunting guides who have the client carry shells in the chamber with breech open and close the action just prior to flushing birds. I'm not saying this is the best way to approach DG but if you're looking for options because you're concerned about the mechanical safety it may be something to consider.

 

[Red Leg]

I carry mine, safety on with muzzle awareness and disengage the safety as I mount the weapon. This isn't an issue for me as it's the same way I was raised shooting a SXS Shotgun behind birddogs and have been doing so for the last 5 plus decades with all my weapon platforms including a career in the military and LEO.

Having said that I know a number of bird hunting guides who have the client carry shells in the chamber with breech open and close the action just prior to flushing birds. I'm not saying this is the best way to approach DG but if you're looking for options because you're concerned about the mechanical safety it may be something to consider.

Dear AH members,

I'd like to hear the connoisseurs and users of double rifles out about something that I cannot get out of my mind.
References have been made in a variety of threads, not the least one of the many hundred's discussing the African Carry.

One user in the end made the statement, that it does not matter how you carry your rifle, as long as the dangerous end is pointing away from everyone around you, and your finger is off the trigger. Two good pieces of advice.

That being said, no matter how you carry, as soon as you are weaving in and out of brush, ducking below branches, climbing over boulders, where the guy in front, or the guy behind you, can be to your left, your right, above or below you, sweeping someone at some point is inevitable, no matter how much attention you put into trying to avoid it. And naturally this attention does waiver sometimes after 15-20miles of tracking under the hot African sun. We are all human, things do not always go as we plan to do.

As we are walking around in DG territory, having "two up the pipes" is quite usual. But that is where it gets difficult for me. Walking around with two cartridges in a double rifle, with only a small safety button/slide in the way of having a very dangerous thing in your hands, knowing that the inevitable sweeping of someone will happen, I find very uncomfortable and makes me nervous.

Now obviously I could just not load anything in the rifle. That is perhaps the best. But then we only are limiting the exposure of having a live weapon with only a safety on, to the last 10min of a tracking hunt. We have limited the number of hours of this carry, but nothing to attenuate the inherent risk. Especially as those 10min, your attention will likely be on the animal, not the rifle.

The other alternative is better mechanical safeties. Of which Krieghoff and Blaser have made their name, by using a cocking/decocking safety, rather than a more simple hammer block, or trigger block. The biggest detractor of these (at least the one Krieghoff I have handled) is that there is no way of quickly flicking off the safety and going from safe to live and back.

My question then is: Are there other solutions still?

I have seen for instance double safeties, that do not work as cocking/decocking safeties, but as a second mechanical manipulation to be executed. Do these block additional parts of the mechanism of a double rifle? Or do they just work as a block for the standard safety?

Are there other possibilities or solutions?

Perhaps a combination of a cocking/decocking with a traditional safety? For the 90% of the tracking, the rifle is uncocked, then in the last 10min, the cocker is used and there is an additional safety that can be flicked off with a simple flick of the thumb?

Or as @IvW would grumble: "you're overthinking stuff".

Anyway, I'd love to hear about what other mechanical solutions might exist apart from a simple button slide, or a big cocker/decocker, for a double rifle.

V.

View attachment 574039

I hunt a lot of quail, and I have never been asked to walk up to a covey with an open gun. Were a guide to require that, I would find another guide. Likewise, I am not going the walk about dangerous game country with an unloaded double. I should note that I have never been asked to that either.

There are basically two types of safeties employed in doubles. I'll come back to the K-Gun in a moment. Trigger blocking safeties are the cheapest for the gun manufacturer and least "safe." They do exactly what the name implies. They can not prevent a hammer slipping from a sear and falling due to a dropped firearm or something similar.

Intercepting safeties, intercept the sear preventing the fall of the hammer under almost any conceivable condition when engaged. Such safeties are easy to spot on most boxlocks by the small pin (screw) on either side of the upper edge of the action fence.

As @1peggy correctly notes, the cocking slide on a S2, R8, and K-Gun is, with just a bit of practice, is about as easy to manipulate as any other gun while bringing the rifle to the shoulder.

What really puzzles me is why anyone would carry a rifle differently in Africa than he does in North America or Europe. That vast majority of us use slings and we have trained ourselves well to be very careful managing our rifles while using one. Why on earth change to go follow a cape buffalo? I frankly think the African carry is more about looking the part than any practical value. In Africa I carry my S2 just like I carry my R8 Muzzle down over the left shoulder - left hand on the forearm. It comes up instantly and is always out of the way of brush. A rather well respected PH by the name of Len Taylor uses the same carry.

 

[K E Johnson]

Some of the bespoke high grade guns also have a “bolted safety“.
I still would not be comfortable with“African carry” with one.

Bolted Safety

 

[VertigoBE]

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to find excuses to use the African Carry. Rather no matter what carry is used, travelling in group through rough terrain, involving ducking crouching, keeping the rifle in your hands, it does not matter, you will inadvertently swipe someone at some point. It is inevitable.

 

[Hillcountry63]

hunt a lot of quail, and I have never been asked to walk up to a covey with an open gun. Were a guide to require that, I would find another guide. Likewise, I am not going the walk about dangerous game country with an unloaded double. I should note that I have never been asked to that either.

Very common practice to walk with the action “broken” down south on the Plantations. Actions are closed prior to walking up to the point……didn’t say that I advocated it nor it was “unloaded”, I simply shared it since he was concerned with options to mechanical safeties.

 

[Red Leg]

Very common practice to walk with the action “broken” down south on the Plantations. Actions are closed prior to walking up to the point……didn’t say that I advocated it nor it was “unloaded”, I simply shared it since he was concerned with options to mechanical safeties.

That is interesting. I hunt and have hunted a lot of "plantation" quail in Georgia and a lot of guided wild birds on ranches here in Texas and in Oklahoma. Some of both were pretty high end places. I have never been asked to walk with the action open.

 

[Red Leg]

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to find excuses to use the African Carry. Rather no matter what carry is used, travelling in group through rough terrain, involving ducking crouching, keeping the rifle in your hands, it does not matter, you will inadvertently swipe someone at some point. It is inevitable.

I honestly disagree. I think there is no excuse for sweeping someone with a muzzle. That is a rule in an American infantry unit in combat - much less following a buffalo.

 

[Frederik]

Its a good question and as much as everyone is saying they never sweep over somebody you can watch youtube with big names and there is always that moment.

I'm not a big fan of the african carry and use my sling even after DG I just pull the sling to run along the rifle not to catch branches and such. I have both hands free to use my binos or use them to climb over and up difficult terrain especially when hunting mountain and koppies.

Sometimes after a long walk I will carry my rifle in my hand with barrel down and hand over the closed action.

The decocking safety of the doubles are to get use to but it works when we do BASA shoots the gents who have them have no trouble using them.

 

[uplander01]

Double, bolt rifle, farquharson, shotgun, same rules apply to all. Is what it is , follow the same safety rules with all. I use a sling to carry heavy rifles muzzle up for me, fingers turned back on my right hand and under the recoil pad adding a little lift, balance, and support,…can walk all day with 12 lb rig, can get it off my shoulder and mount as fast as any other way. Always just carried a shotgun with both hands or vertically barrels straight up. I guess PH’s in Africa deal with a lot of different people and skill levels, and nerves get to a lot of people as well…..they are just trying to insure everyone makes it out in good shape. I do find myself checking the safety at a glance all the time on any gun,…habit I guess. I have had a few of the cocking safeties in my day, if that’s all a person ever used I’m sure it would become natural,…not for me personally. I like simple safety on double and shotguns, 3 position wing safety on bolt guns.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

I frankly think the African carry is more about looking the part than any practical value.

Respectfully, I can't agree with this. I carry it over my shoulder/s because my double doesn't have a sling.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

I'm not a big fan of the african carry and use my sling even after DG I just pull the sling to run along the rifle not to catch branches and such.

The problem however Frederik is if your sling does catch that one time, there are no do overs. My head PH got impaled by a Bushbuck last year because of a sling. Now you want to roll the dice on Buff, Elephant, Leopard etc. No thanks.

 

[93marlin]

All of my double rifles have been hammer guns. No worries about the safeties being on or off. Maybe not as easy as some, but, as has been said, once you get used to it.....

 

[Red Leg]

Respectfully, I can't agree with this. I carry it over my shoulder/s because my double doesn't have a sling.

Marius, you are an experienced PH. The average first time client showing up to hunt with you has never carried a rifle of any type in that manner. Any guide in North America or Europe walking ahead of a client who started to carry a rifle like that would offer an immediate course in gun safety. It is why always I suggest carrying a rifle, double or bolt action, in Africa exactly as the prospective client has carried one safely for twenty years elsewhere.

 

[KMG Hunting Safaris]

Marius, you are an experienced PH. The average first time client showing up to hunt with you has never carried a rifle of any type in that manner. Any guide in North America or Europe walking ahead of a client who started to carry a rifle like that would offer an immediate course in gun safety. It is why always I suggest carrying a rifle, double or bolt action, in Africa exactly as the prospective client has carried one safely for twenty years elsewhere.

This I agree 100% with. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

 

[Mark A Ouellette]

In the Marines as in the Army, Staff NCOs such as Gunnery Sergeants (Gunny) train young officers as they do young enlisted personnel. While I never received any such training for a lack of weapons discipline, I do remember a few serious threats such as "flush you down the toilet, shove it up your axx, and stuff you in the trash can". It is not surprising how effect such training methods are!

 

[Philip Glass]

Dear AH members,

I'd like to hear the connoisseurs and users of double rifles out about something that I cannot get out of my mind.
References have been made in a variety of threads, not the least one of the many hundred's discussing the African Carry.

One user in the end made the statement, that it does not matter how you carry your rifle, as long as the dangerous end is pointing away from everyone around you, and your finger is off the trigger. Two good pieces of advice.

That being said, no matter how you carry, as soon as you are weaving in and out of brush, ducking below branches, climbing over boulders, where the guy in front, or the guy behind you, can be to your left, your right, above or below you, sweeping someone at some point is inevitable, no matter how much attention you put into trying to avoid it. And naturally this attention does waiver sometimes after 15-20miles of tracking under the hot African sun. We are all human, things do not always go as we plan to do.

As we are walking around in DG territory, having "two up the pipes" is quite usual. But that is where it gets difficult for me. Walking around with two cartridges in a double rifle, with only a small safety button/slide in the way of having a very dangerous thing in your hands, knowing that the inevitable sweeping of someone will happen, I find very uncomfortable and makes me nervous.

Now obviously I could just not load anything in the rifle. That is perhaps the best. But then we only are limiting the exposure of having a live weapon with only a safety on, to the last 10min of a tracking hunt. We have limited the number of hours of this carry, but nothing to attenuate the inherent risk. Especially as those 10min, your attention will likely be on the animal, not the rifle.

The other alternative is better mechanical safeties. Of which Krieghoff and Blaser have made their name, by using a cocking/decocking safety, rather than a more simple hammer block, or trigger block. The biggest detractor of these (at least the one Krieghoff I have handled) is that there is no way of quickly flicking off the safety and going from safe to live and back.

My question then is: Are there other solutions still?

I have seen for instance double safeties, that do not work as cocking/decocking safeties, but as a second mechanical manipulation to be executed. Do these block additional parts of the mechanism of a double rifle? Or do they just work as a block for the standard safety?

Are there other possibilities or solutions?

Perhaps a combination of a cocking/decocking with a traditional safety? For the 90% of the tracking, the rifle is uncocked, then in the last 10min, the cocker is used and there is an additional safety that can be flicked off with a simple flick of the thumb?

Or as @IvW would grumble: "you're overthinking stuff".

Anyway, I'd love to hear about what other mechanical solutions might exist apart from a simple button slide, or a big cocker/decocker, for a double rifle.

V.

View attachment 574039

This is why I bought the Kgun.

 

[Altitude sickness]

Mark, the Leathernecks I’ve worked with would definitely let you know in a very obvious way if you swept them.

I’ve been in a lot of military schools and qualification courses. Where one serious violation like that got you an immediate bus ticket home. And rightfully so.

Who doesn’t love a U.S. Marine Gunny

 

[Nevada Mike]

I do a great deal of bird hunting, mostly for quail, using my SxS doubles. Most of them (Atkin, Boss, or Harkom) have intercepting sears incorporated in the safety mechanisms. They cannot fire unless the trigger is depressed.
When bird hunting I carry my guns in one hand pointing at the ground in front of me. When a bird flushes and I mount the gun, the muzzles are moving in the same direction as the bird - upward. This is, IMO, just as safe and more effective than approaching a point with muzzles pointing vertically. YMMV.