You are supposed to use your thumb to prevent the probe from colliding to the catch. If you just let it bang against the catch things may break up over thousands of shots. The concept is great for hunting guns, you can leave the pellet in the barrel and cock / decock the hammer making the gun safe to carry in the woods etc. It's also much more silent to cock than a bolt action. The only downside to me is the front cocking knob which is PITA when shooting from bench, one of those side cocking conversions will fix that.