I was in a discussion on another forum about vintage airguns without safeties. I am new to the hobby but were there prewar vintage airguns with safeties? The only one I have in my collection is the Haenel 28-R. I assume there are others?
Interesting question ... did you, or any other person watch a recent episode of 'The Durrells'? The son, not the author one, the one always going off with his air rifle, accidentally fired a shot when he should not have done so. He blamed 'the safety' on the rifle ... but it looked like an early BSA from the 1930s ... I did not think the rifles then had safety catches. Or did some ...?
Cheers, Phil
Vintage Airguns Gallery
..Above link posted with permission from Gareth W-B
In British slang an anorak is a person who has a very strong interest in niche subjects.
Vintage Airguns Gallery
..Above link posted with permission from Gareth W-B
In British slang an anorak is a person who has a very strong interest in niche subjects.
German/Czech pre-war military trainers pretty much all had safety switches to mimic the firearm counterpart. For the American side, Benjamin rifles & pistols had safeties from sometime in the 30's.
Don R.
One of possibly the earliest, simplest and most ingenious safety catches was that designed by Frank Clarke for his last version Titan pistol, circa 1923. The safety was automatically applied once the gun was cocked and was released by squeezing the grip while taking aim. Yes, the Titans were rather primitive guns, but you have to admit that a safety that needed no knobs to turn or buttons to press and just did the job without any involvement on the part of the shooter was pretty clever.
Diana Model 30 and I think the very rare Model 54 ( memory gone ), the one that looks like a big Webley mk3
Webley Mark one rifle
The pics of mine show one
Not the easiest to use as you have to turn it but amasing that it was in place 100 years ago
Shown rear of this phot
http://s253.photobucket.com/user/d20...ckeng.jpg.html