By the feel of my crossbolt era M94 winchester there is still some sort of half cock notch in the hammer. With coil springs in these guns it was a simple step to design a guide rod that pops the hammer back to the half cock notch automatically. The rod has a C shaped projection on the end that touches the hammer. One end of the C rides in a notch above the pivot, so that forces the hammer foreward. The projection on the bottom of the C is shorter, and touches below the pivot of the hammer. It doesn't exert as much pressure on the hammer, and only touches once the hammer has traveled foreward past the half cock notch. As long as they were switching to coil springs it was pretty easy to redesign the rifle to automatically return to half cock.
Personally, I don't like it too much. I was thinking about getting an extra guide rod for my M94 and grinding the bottom projection down just short enough to not fully return the hammer to half cock. It would still hold the hammer off the firing pin if I just took enough off. The only problem is that the new hammers don't have much steel in them. If it didn't automatically return to half cock there would be a gap at the back where it goes through the tang. I would be afraid of stuff falling in there while I was hunting.
So no, I don't like the rebounding hammer personally because it takes someting away from the tradition of the rifle to me. It does keep the hammer locked away from the firing pin though, so it might be good for some inexperienced hunter. If the hammer takes a blow when it is resting on the firing pin it could set off the round. Of course, the cross block safety on mine would be an added safety feature if I did make it a half-cock manual gun.
Winchester just put a diferent safety on their rifles though, so it might no longer be possible to make them half cock capable. I believe the hammer has been redesigned from the crossblock days, so it may no longer have that half cock notch in it any more.
