Hi Folks, Why does my Remington slam the hammer to 1/2 cock when I close the breach?  Does not do this constantly but when it happens I sometime have my left thumb smacked! ouch!!  john

Oldtimer you did not read carefully! I said it would go to 1/2 cock. john

Blunder- I read perfectly. I meant that your damn thumb was in the way, keeping it at half cock. Not my name either. 
It was meant to be a joke. Somebody messed with that gun, and you didn't check it 'fore purchase, or ya did it on yer own. You tell me.
And, why is your thumb under there anyhow? I close 'em with my right hand and don't get in the way of the hammer to begin with. I'm done now.

It could be a light trigger return spring, or it could be the full cock notch. Either could allow the gun's hammer to drop to half cock when lowering the block. 
Another thing to check is the block surface itself on top to see if the hammer is riding the block. If it is you'll see the drag marks from the hammer on the top of the block. Another sign that the full cock notch has been messed with.

It is also possible that you are not always pulling the hammer back quite far enough to catch the fullcock notch every time.
Lee

Is that really a #1 in 22 caliber?  If so it must have been rebarreled at some point.  I'm wondering if the action didn't start out as a New York Militia rifle.  Those rifles, and some of the Remington Springfield army models also used the "safety" action.

Easy enough to tell by looking at the trigger assembly.  It will have 3 or 4 more parts than the standard #1 action.

George

I've owned several #1's in .22.  I have a .45-90 that I rebarreled from .22 RF, also have the .22 RF block that I can shoot .22 in it with.  It was a real nice rifle with traces of case, but the barrel was trashed and wood was sanded down.  Made me a great rifle to shoot.  Have another .22 RF action in my action cabinet, it was in such decrepit condition that I parted it out, but kept the action to make another rifle.  It is in nice condition on the action.  I had a third action that I traded parts with to old Whitey, he was going to rebarrel it, don't know if he ever did.    I've also bought and sold a couple of others.  All of them were the full width, stepped action ring #1, not the flat sided # 1 1/2.

Yeah, Val,

My wife says there's only about 5 or 10 of us old guys out there that are interested in this stuff, all with a basement full of it, and we occasionally trade some of it from your basement to mine.

I am going to get rid of most of my stuff, as I move into my new house and shop.  I've already got rid of a lot of it over the past 3 or 4 years.  The hard part is deciding which part of it is surplus.  A lot of it I could never get again if I wanted to.   

I'm looking forward to having some space and equipment again.  I have several project ideas that I'd like to work on.  If I can find the parts.  I should probably finish the last 10 projects too.  I want to build an english safari rifle in 375 2 1/2" nitro.  I want to finish off my Remington #4L Ladies model.  Restore my H&A Junior in .45-70.  (don't shoot that one, though).  Rebarrel and restock the goofy H&A Schuetzen I got with a hand file fit Anschutz barrel and Zimmerstutzen/wood putty stock.  Maybe barrel a hepburn.  Load some brass shells for my 20 and 12 ga H&A's to shoot birds with.  Get back into shooting .22 with my 40x and my Ballard bench rifle.  Finish the stock on my Ballard .22 Schuetzen.  It will be good to have a fully furnished shop again.  It's been 12 years since I moved out of my shop and had limited space in the interim, and none for the past two years.