oh man this is like a bevis and butthead episode i recently watched.

OK fine, stripper boy.

To bring this back to a more serious note, I took two hard falls on Saturday, both resulting in my loaded Omega contacting the ground with a lot of force. The gun didn't fire either time.

I think there is more room for "operator error" when using a gun with a hammer (including your standard SA or SA/DA revolvers). Your head needs to be in the game when you are handling a cocked firearm, especially when you are decocking it. It's not rocket science by any means, but you cannot become casual about it and start to rely on muscle memory. That is a sure way to achieve an accidental discharge. But as far as carrying a loaded arm around in the woods, I don't think there is anything safer.

On the other hand, a loaded (and primed, in the case of a muzzleloader) bolt action is always cocked. If the safety is disengaged, it is no different than walking around with a cocked hammer. But even with the safety engaged, you are still walking around with a firearm where the firing pin is cocked and the firing pin (or cocking piece) spring is fully compressed at all times.

If we were to take a loaded, primed and uncocked Omega 30 ft in the air and drop it 100 times I bet it would discharge less than a loaded and primed bolt action with the safety on (also dropped 100 times from the same height). In fact, I would be highly surprised if the Omega would discharge even once. The bolt action, I wouldn't bet on.

Well in the 60 years I have shot and hunted I have had one incident where where one of MD's favorite one fired because the trigger mechanism broke, which kept me from getting the squirrel I was waiting for a shot at and one that cost me a deer was one that had two safety mechanisms and one of them had gradually screwed itself down until it stopped the gun from firing. I have never understood the idea of two safeties any way if the gun or the operator is that dangerous they better go get in a safe place and stay there.

If'n you drop your gun 100 times in a row, yer clumsy!

Anyone can preach safety and then the next hour, have an accident. That's why they call it an accident, you don't know when it will strike and you can't always be ready or expect it.

When it happens, you'll know.

I once purchased a Traditions inline. As I remember it was an E bolt but I will not swear to that anymore. It came from Sportsmans Guide. And when you would cock the rifle, even with the safety engaged.. it would suddenly and for not reason.. like leaning in a corner.. just fire. Thank goodness I was testing it empty when it acted up. So I took it outside, loaded it.. set it in the gun rest.. turned to take my gloves off, not even looking at it.. and it went off. It was immediately cleaned and re-boxed.

Traditions did not want it, so Sportsman's Guide took it back no questions asked and refunded my money (all but shipping of course). I vowed never to purchase a Traditions rifle after that. But have bought several Traditional rifle since, and they work fine.

I really don't know what would make a rifle AD. If it is not something mechanical, then it has to be operator error. And that's the worst, as it should have been prevented.

I once fell off a steep embankment with a T/C Renegade in my hands on half cock. Broke the stock on the rifle.. but the rifle never went off.

My first break action muzzle loader was a Traditions Pursuit. One of the top selling points of the rifle for me was the fact that it has a cross block trigger safety. I don't know of any other muzzle loader that has one and I can't understand why not.

You dont Tug on Supermans Cape, you dont Spit into the Wind, you dont Pull the Mask off the ol Long Ranger and You dont mess around with a MLer, simple as that.
Accidents happen, but if your a Accidnent waiting to happen, mabey Firearms is'nt your Gig.
(BP)

I think accidental discharge is human error. I did it once with a cartridge rifle. It scared the heck out of me. Another time I took a rifle out of my trunk to discover that I had stored it at home with a round in the chamber. Fortunately I had done as I had been taught and checked the rifle to see if it was loaded when I picked it up.

I guess we could argue all day about safe handling and stupid shooters (me with my AD all those years ago). However, mechanical failures or design flaws are a different story. As consumers, we expect the firearms we buy to be mechanically designed, and correctly manufactured to be safe. The manufactures cannot fully protect stupid people who have AD's like me. But they can make a rifle with safe and repeatable functioning designed and built in.

Another nice safety feature of the Pursuit is that the rifle can not be fired unless the trigger is pulled. This eliminates the possibility of an accidental discharge in two ways. One, if the hammer is struck from behind when not cocked it will not strike the firing pin. the other is if the hammer is being pulled back and slips loose and falls forward before fully cocked it will not strike the firing pin. From what I read somewhere a long time ago, A lot of accidents in the early days were from people grabbing their loaded rifle by the muzzle, like when sitting in a wagon, and while pulling it towards themselves, got the hammer snagged on something causing it to be pulled back just enough to not reach the half cocked position but enough that when the snag came loose it was back far enough to fire the rifle when it became un-snagged.
Maybe that is what happened to the unfortunate individual referred to in an earlier thread. Maybe the rifle was resting, loaded, beside him in the passenger seat and when he grabbed it by the barrel and pulled it towards him, the hammer snagged on the seat, came loose and caused the rifle to fire. All conjecture of course, but anything can happen.

No. If you read my post on how the trigger and hammer of T/C muzzleloaders work, you will find that it works the same way as you stated the Pursuit works. The hammer cannot strike the firing pin unless the trigger is pulled.