Fishtail Lever Survey

[6pt-Sika]

This answer isn’t going to help your survey ....... but I have some that do and some that don’t . But I gotta say I’m no advocate of closing and opening with the hammers cocked on live chambers .

[Dean Romig]

It is much safer to open a gun with a cocked hammer than it it to lower the hammer where the hammer can slip from your thumb…
We do it all the time with hammerless guns… and I put little faith in a manual safety as I have seen a few of those fail.





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[winplumber]

So if a gun will not open with a fishtail lever and right hammer cocked the thought of the reason for the fishtail lever of being able to carry a gun open and cocked is not the reason for a fishtail lever Just asking . And why would you have one on a Hammerless

[winplumber]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

It is much safer to open a gun with a cocked hammer than it it to lower the hammer where the hammer can slip from your thumb…
We do it all the time with hammerless guns… and I put little faith in a manual safety as I have seen a few of those fail.





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Dean if your manual safety would fail or you take it off safe you would still have to pull the trigger or you would have worn sears ect for the gun to discharge. Yes ?

[Dean Romig]

The jury’s still out on why the fishtail lever was originally developed. There seems to be no distinct rhyme or reason for it. It has always been accepted that it was to facilitate opening the gun with the right hammer cocked but there are so many coming forth that seem to dispel that theory…

Fishtail levers on hammerless guns was simply to use up existing stock of fishtail levers.





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[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Steve Huffman

Dean if your manual safety would fail or you take it off safe you would still have to pull the trigger or you would have worn sears ect for the gun to discharge. Yes ?

Yes!…. But accidents do happen don’t they.

Likewise, the same would need to occur on a hammerless gun - but opening it makes it completely safe from accidental discharge without the need to touch a hammer or a trigger.





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[winplumber]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

Yes!…. But accidents do happen don’t they.

Likewise, the same would need to occur on a hammerless gun - but opening it makes it completely safe from accidental discharge without the need to touch a hammer or a trigger.





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So you carry all your sxs open is what your saying

[ArtS]

I've been following both fishtail threads and find it interesting, although I have no guns and no experience with them. However, I saw something on eBay this morning (Item 144476752616) which triggered a question. It is a listing for a used hammerless fishtail lever. One of the pictures shows the back, which has four distinct stamps. Three don't particularly look like numbers in the picture but one is clearly a 1 . The question that comes to mind is:

Were the fishtails marked on the back as to frame size?

I doubt many people have removed, and then examined one, except for a professional. If they were, then the examples which won't open while cocked may be replacements or simply wrong sizes installed at the factory. The first doesn;t seem likely, given the number already reported in a few posts. The latter doesn't seem very Parker like.

Using up the leftover ones on hammerless guns would be an obvious move in either case.

My personal thought had always been that they were made for left handed shooters, since they put the lever in a location for a left handed shooter which is a mirror image of a right hand image when new. Another possible reason is that larger gauges and frames were popular during this period and people were smaller on average. This lever may have been easier for people with small hands to cock the left lock. I would vote for the left hand reason. Occum's razor.

[winplumber]

As for they used up the inventory on hammerless guns Im not set on that because if I ordered a gun back in the day and I have seen no letter as to what lever was ordered and it came with a fish lever I would send it back. So its still a mystery to me .

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Steve Huffman

So you carry all your sxs open is what your saying

I often even carry my hammerless guns , with functioning safety, open a lot of the time while in the field.





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