For a "ute window" 12 gauge I have recently put on lay away a baikal 12 gauge coach gun which has hammers to cock the gun but they use the normal internal mechanisim not the normal hammer mechanism.............I like this as I can instantly see if it's cocked.

My question is this is the only gun I have ever seen like this and I am wondering if it is common/reliable. I do not mind baikals stuff it's basic but sturdy sort of stuff.

sum buddy who know

PC - The "fake" hammers on the Baikal are reliable by all "reports". They are now making ones with "real" hammers for the Remington Spartan line; no reports if they function any better. One "oddity" is the tang safety on the hammer guns (not for sure whether it was a necessary precaution or a "cost" consideration). The Baikal's are good guns in any configuration; we sell a lot of them around our area (midwest) with no returns and great satisfaction. I have one in a 28ga that is becoming my favorite shotgun. Inexpensive, no "frills", and always shoots where you point it. I have an order in for the first Baikal available SXS in a 45/70. Regards - Mags

Mags,

I would like to find out more about this type of action. I think it could be possibly more reliable than "true" hammers as there would be less alignment of hammer to striker etc ??

I like a hammer gun as you can leave a couple of shells in with relative safety, great for spotlighting.

I have used the stagecoach version for SA cowboy compition shooting. I have used the gun for a little over year of fairly intesive use with out a problem. While I would like to get a sxs that was a little faster to use that gun good enought and reliable enought that I really can't justify getting anouther shotgun, that and I do like that I can decock on the fly with the hammers. If you get one i think you'll find to be a good gun.

PC - You make a good point about the safety of such an action. I have to wonder if you dropped one on the hammers if it would fire? I've never seen this feature on any other brand. It will be interesting to see if Remington keeps this particular shotgun in their Spartan line up. The "Cowboy" shooters around here tell me the design came about as a "Russian" idea of how to comply with the cowboy shooting regulations, ie. the shotguns had to have hammers whether they were aligned or not. Regards - Mags

Mags- The action seems solid enougth. Just took the gun out to see if I could get it to do something funky - making sure the shotgun was empty first. With out doing anything destructive to the gun I couldnt get the action to slip. Pushed the hammers, dropped the gun, hit the hammers with a deadblow hammer. So anything that causes this gun to miss-fire would have to be pretty severe- most likely damaging the gun- and would have caused any other shot gun to miss-fire as well.