Some HARD carriage stops, like on my Holbrook model C, are INTENDED to be used regularly - there's a gauge tray on the front way cover with a 0-0.500" micrometer head at one end, a stop rod with 0.500" increments at the other (mounted to the top of the QCGB), similar on the cross-slide, and both directions of feed have their own torque-sensing trips that disengage the (separate) cross and carriage feeds - damn complicated! Separate pickup gear on the feed shaft for each feed, cam ramps on that gear (that drives the individual worm that in turn drives either the cross-feed screw or the rack pinion gear) and a sprung " follower" with a ramped groove a pin rides in. The individual worms swing around the feedshaft in and out of engagement and latch in place - until the carriage or cross-slide hits its micrometer stop, torque between feedshaft and gears/worm pushes the cam ramps apart and the ramped groove pushes the release pin and that lets the worm drop out of engagement - elegant, if complicated, but it stops *on the micrometer stop* every time, +/- a few tenths of "spring"...
Excuse the poached pictures, I haven't had to go this far on mine yet...
(Apron showing worms in carriers - carriage feed on left, cross feed on right. No, you don't want to drop it without a sturdy assistant!)
(the tailstock-side cam setup for cross-feed - hidden behind the worm in t'other pic., bronze housing is flipped 180 though!)
The amount of complication on these beasties probably explains their rarity - they were just too expensive for factory use and wound up in toolrooms, government research establishments and, eventually, in the hands of lucky sods like me, for less than the price of a new minilathe
Not for the faint-hearted though, 2 tons to move around!
Hardinge, Hendey, Pratt & Whitney, in fact the majority of toolroom lathe makers, fitted similar features on their lathes (although some are "soft stops" and work by dogs on the feedshaft disengaging the feed drive at the gearbox end - different approach to the same job) to make life a bit easier and more accurate, I admit I like being able to make a coffee and roll a cig' while it looks after itself on long cuts...
Dave H. (the other one)