Paul J. Adam wrote:

In message , B2431
writes

From: "Paul J. Adam"
As a firearms enthusiast, Jim, you might be familiar with the phrase
"going off half-cocked".

Paul, that term comes from having an accident while stuffing one's side arm
into the front waist of one's pants.

Sorry, Dan, but it dates back to the flintlock days: back when you'd
half-cock your firelock so you could charge the pan, and a
fumble-fingered soldier or one cursed with a badly-made weapon
(remember, this was before mass production and interchangeable parts)
could discharge his weapon at an inopportune moment.

Apparently, firing off ramrods, particularly in the excitement
of battle, was another fairly common error.

There doesn't seem to be an idiom derived from it, so I suppose
it must have been a much less common event than "going off
half-cocked".


SMH