Problem sending program a signal on hitting breakpoint - an anomaly?

I've being trying to run commands that will deliver a signal to the inferior
upon a breakpoint hit:

b <func>
> Breakpoint 1, <func>
commands 1
signal SIGSYS
end

unfortunately rather than deliver the signal this triggers the breakpoint again
and so loops.
is this to be expected or an unfortunate 'feature'?
my understanding is that 'signal' is a resumption-invoking command like
cont, step et al, and that the breakpoint will be executed and stepped over.
which if true means gdb is reacting to this signal rather than just
delivering it
as advertised.
is there a workaround for this?

thanks for reading.