HOW TO PREVENT ACCIDENTS (_Continued_)
Do not forget the hammer has three positions.
Down on the cartridge, “half-cock,” and “full-cock.” The latter is when
the pistol is ready to be fired, when at half-cock it cannot be fired by
pulling the trigger and is supposed to be safe against accidental
discharge, but it can be fired accidently if, in raising the hammer to
full-cock it slips, owing to clumsiness or a greasy hammer or thumb, or
the hammer may get caught in something and be raised accidentally.
For this reason it is best to have the part of the hammer the thumb
presses against in cocking corrugated, roughed like a file.
Take the barrel in the left hand, holding the pistol horizontally pointing
at the target.
Take the grip in your right hand, put your right thumb on the projection
of the cock (not from straight behind it but slightly from the right
side); this enables you to get a firm grip of the hammer and at the same
time of the stock with your other fingers.
Now, do _not_ do what all beginners do.
_Do not put your first finger on the trigger when cocking._ Keep all your
fingers outside the trigger guard to avoid any chance of your touching the
trigger when cocking.
There are two causes of accidental falling of the hammer in cocking and so
causing an accidental discharge of the pistol.
One is the hammer slipping from the thumb, or being released by the thumb
before it is fully at full-cock.
The other is pulling at the trigger at the same time that the pistol is
being cocked (which learners invariably do).
The result of pulling the trigger at the same time is that the hammer does
not catch into the bent which holds it, and falls as soon as the thumb is
removed.
There is a click when the pistol is well at full-cock, which tells you the
pistol is properly cocked, the hammer or cock goes slightly beyond
full-cock and then comes into place by a click. (See quotation from
Byron’s _Don Juan_ on a later page.)
To put to half-cock is the most ticklish of all and is the cause of most
pistol accidents.
The thing to do is to let the hammer fall to just below half-cock and then
bring it back to half-cock. If it falls too low it fires the pistol, if it
does not click it has not properly got to half-cock.
Still holding the barrel of the pistol in the left hand and the grip in
your right (keep the pistol carefully pointed at the butt where an
accidental discharge would do no harm), put your right thumb on the
hammer. When you have a firm touch of it so that it cannot escape you as
it falls, put your first finger on the trigger and press, but _only_ for
an instant.
The hammer will fall but you must keep it from falling fast, by holding
back with your thumb. Lower the hammer down to just below half-cock back
to half-cock and then release your thumb hold.
If the hammer went its full fall it would explode the cartridge. With a
rebounding hammer, the hammer falls and instantly springs back to
half-cock. Therefore in letting a rebounding lock down from full to
half-cock, if you are able to restrain it well during the first part of
its descent, even if it slips from your thumb before it is quite at
half-cock, the rebound overcomes the downward fall and it rebounds to
half-cock without actually exploding the cartridge because it does not
quite reach it.
Half-cock is the safest position for a loaded single-shot pistol but not
safe enough to carry in a pocket or holster loaded. For that, it needs a
safety lock to hold it at half-cock.
As you gain confidence you will find that, with a rebounding lock (such as
all duelling pistols of full-size calibre by the best makers have), it
requires very little holding back at the hammer in letting it down to
half-cock and the hammer remains at half-cock by itself, without any
click.
With an ordinary hammer which remains down when it is fired (like many
single-shot pistols of American make or the .2 bulleted caps of the
“Flobert Pistol”), the hammer must be kept firmly held until it is below
half-cock, and then brought to half-cock where it will click, as it also
does at full-cock.
The great advantage of an automatic pistol is that it does not have this
click and so does not give warning to an adversary and is not apt to go
off by accident when being put at safe.
If the trigger is held back whilst cocking it is as if you were to ask a
man to sit down and pull the chair from under him. He falls just like the
hammer.
Almost all modern pistols with visible hammers have rebounding locks so
that after the hammer falls, on the trigger being pressed, and explodes
the cartridge, then it jumps back to half-cock of itself. This saves time
as otherwise the hammer resting on the exploded cartridge would have to be
raised by the thumb to half-cock before the exploded cartridge could be
extracted and a fresh one put in.
Now, practise till you are perfect, using an empty cartridge.
Open, insert cartridge, close, put to full-cock, lower to half-cock,
extract cartridge, close pistol.
Do not be satisfied till you can do all this without a hitch or hesitation
and without letting the hammer slip.
When you do this perfectly you can go on to the next lesson, but not
before.
When you have the pistol at full-cock, it can be fired by pressing the
trigger, but we have not come to that yet. We are only learning how to
safely handle a pistol.