No. 4 Mk1* Half Cock Bolt Position

[tmark]

I am new to Enfield SMLE rifles. I notice that the cocking piece can be pulled back halfway. In this position, the bolt will not open nor will squeezing the trigger release the firing pin.

What is the advantage of having the cocking piece in the half cocked position?

[Parashooter]

It's a fail-safe feature because it's possible to manipulate the safety to a not-quite-engaged position and pull the trigger, leaving the cocking piece off the sear and caught only by the safety. In this condition, pushing the safety "off" would cause the rifle to fire were it not for the presence of the half-cock notch, which catches on the sear and prevents the striker from going fully forward. Having a rifle fire by disengaging the safety is a fairly serious hazard - wartime expedient cocking pieces without the half-cock notch were not regarded favorably by some veteran NCO's and officers who knew the score.

Play around with varying degrees of "not-quite-engaged" and it's usually fairly easy to reproduce this kind of event.

[JB White]

Another reason was to catch the piece in the event of cocking or recocking by pulling back on the cocking piece itself. If it slipped from the fingers prior to engaging the full bent the half notch would catch, also to prevent an accidental discharge.

The wartime expedient cocking pieces are often spotted by the lack of grasping grooves. They were all supposed to be replaced following the war, but many of those rifles remained out in the empire, or with protectorates and allies. I had two later US imports from whereabouts unknown to me which had the expedient cockers.