Colt SAA safety notch/cowboy load.

[Paul B.]

"Was just curious if carrying 5 or 6 was the norm on the frontier. I know 5 is the norm now."

As it was back in the day. Supposedly many cowpokes used the empty chamber to store a $10.00 bill to pay for their burial.

"Back in the day they loaded six. People back then had a different mindset and weren't safety anal like people today. If anybody told them to just load five they would've gotten laughed at."

I'm inclined to disagree. A friend and I were on a private ranch in Nevada and one of the people there was a 90 something year old ranch hand. He was retired and had worked on the place starting out as a young boy. My friend was negotiating a deal for us to do some bird hunting and a deer hunt when the season came round. I had in a holster a Ruger Super Blackhawk and the old timer politely asked if he could see my gun. He was taken a bit aback as it was a new model which had no half cock notch. I told he he could just open the gate and the cylinder would spin. He didn't like that and got testy when he found all six chambers loaded. He told me to always use an empty chamber under the hammer for safety. Now this was a man who'd been there and done that all his life. He must have been one darn good employee for the ranch owner to let him stay on after being too old to do the work. I listened while he ranted on and when he was though I took my gun, reloaded all six chamber and asked him to calm down and watch. I picked a rock and pointed the gun at the ground and hit that hammer a couple of good solid hits. Of course being a New Model I knew it wouldn't shoot. Then I pointed out the transfer bar and told him it's how the gun design was changed to make it safe.

Funny thing as I knew about the load one skip one then load four thing and use it on my several Colt SAAs but never did on the Ruger new Models until that conversation. Now I do it as a habit even on the New Models when I did my serious hikes. Never had any close confrontations with any predator, two or four legged and unless facing a serious charge probably would have had the time to load the empty hole.

Based on that conversation with that old gentleman and several others including a great uncle who knew some of the old time gunman, I believe that back in the day, those with any smarts carried their Colt SAAs with the hammer down on an empty chamber.
Paul B.

 

[44 AMP]

The very first edition of the Colt manual did tell people to put the hammer in the "safety notch". Every edition after that did not. It was, and still is called the "safety notch" but NOW the reason given is that it will "safely" catch the hammer if it slips before you reach half cock.

Do remember that when the gun was new, it was NEW. Similar, but not exactly like the cap&ball SAs, where hammer down was safe, because the hammer was between the chambers not resting on a live cap.

I think Colt knew hammer down on a live round wasn't a safe mode of carry, so the said use the safety notch, but when they learned THAT wasn't a safe thing with a live round under the hammer, they stopped telling people to do it.

I've read some things from that era, and a lot more written by people who were taught by people from that era, and its generally always the same, load one, skip one, load 4. That was the safe way for "everyday carry" or "working carry". If you knew you were headed for a gun fight, you loaded six (or if you were practicing shooting, but for general wear it was always empty chamber under the hammer.

I'm sure there were people back then who loaded six, because it held six. People did a lot of dumb things back then, and people still do a lot of dumb things today. Generally different dumb things, today, but not always...

I got taught the right way (5 and an empty chamber under the hammer) as a child, and can to this day still remember being laughed at and called stupid by kids on the bus when they asked how many bullets in a six shooter and I said 5!

I wasn't the stupid one, but they thought so, because they didn't know better (few knew guns at all). My Dad was a Hunter Safety instructor, NRA certified, rifle, pistol and shotgun, and he saw to it that I was trained in the basic safe operation of all common firearm types before I was out of elementary school.

I load, and carry 6 in my New Model Blackhawks, I have complete confidence in that system. 5 in old models and every Colt or clone, with an empty chamber under the hammer. Doing otherwise with a gun that uses the Colt SAA system is an accident waiting to happen.

 

[ballardw]

Do we even want to throw in any of the single actions with more than 6 chambers into this discussion? AFAIK the Ruger Single-7, -9 and -10 are all new model with transfer bars but others have made cylinders with more than 6.

 

[Drm50]

I fell out of a tree with an old model Ruger Single-6 with 6 in the wheel. Hade minimal holster that exposed trigger & hammer. Made a believer out of me, that was when I was a teenager. Lucky for me I landed flat on my shoulders and shot through calf of leg from back to front, flesh wound. No weight on legs helped too. Pop off all you want, I’ll load 5, I’m a fast learner.

 

[44 AMP]

Do we even want to throw in any of the single actions with more than 6 chambers into this discussion?

I'd say yes, if they allow live round under the hammer carry and have no safety features preventing firing, and no, since the OP asked about how SA's were carried "back in the day", and specifically, Colt, and SA cartridge revolvers holding more than 6 were pretty scarce "back in the day". They aren't all that common, now, a century + later...

 

[Straitshot]

Load one skip one load four, I even do it at the practice range.

A box of 50 count ammo comes in ten 5 round rows which allows me 10 reloads per box when at the range.

 

[Hawg]

That was the safe way for "everyday carry" or "working carry".

Except cowboys in the day didn't carry while they were working.

 

[44caliberkid]

Except cowboys in the day didn't carry while they were working.

The fence wire gouges in the barrel of one of my original 1860 Army’s would say different. Some cowboy used it as a lever to tighten fence wire. However, common practice was to probably leave it on the horse.

 

[Jim Watson]

I saw a couple of hard used, even abused SAAs in the town museum of Hawthorne, Nevada
One, rough as it was, had been worth an ivory bead front sight, a rifle blade in a cross dovetail.

 

[Hawg]

The fence wire gouges in the barrel of one of my original 1860 Army’s would say different. Some cowboy used it as a lever to tighten fence wire. However, common practice was to probably leave it on the horse.

He probably kept it in his saddlebags. I've seen them with the butt dented and the grips cracked from driving staples but look at old pics of men actually working and you don't see any guns.

 

[bedbugbilly]

Why? They designed the action to have a safety notch. Their Engineers learned a lot from the production go cap and ball revolvers when they designed the 1873 SAA. The safety notch in the hammer required very little additional work/ The addition of safety notches to the cylinder would require additional machining meaning additional production time, additional labor and additional machinery and tooling. Even in 1873 when the SAA was introduced, "time was Money" - which cut into profit or necessity to raise price - a disadvantage when talking competitive products.

 

[44 AMP]

Another way to look at it is simply that back then, without today's legal liability situation, where extensive design testing is done to ensure the company doesn't get sued, they designed something they figured ought to be safe but it turned out it wasn't.

Also possible that the design engineers did consider it only a safety notch for catching the hammer if it slipped, but the people writing the original manual (and ad copy?) took "safety notch" to mean "safe to carry notch" and wrote it up that way with no one to verify if it actually was safe to carry that way under all circumstances.

Personally, I think its likely what happened. Because of how, after Colt got reports of accidents, the stopped advising people to carry the gun with the hammer in the "safety notch".

I think it reasonable to believe that they goofed with their original instructions, and as soon as that was proven, changed their instructions.

Today its likely someone would demand the gun be redesigned, along with changing the instruction manual...

 

[Hawg]

I don't think Colt revolvers in the 1870's and 80's came with a manual. I don't think they even came in boxes except for cased sets. I'm pretty sure that Colt designed the 1/4 cock notch the be used as a safety. I'd also be willing to bet not many used it as such and just let the hammer down on a live cartridge.

 

[44 AMP]

Colt revolvers of that era were shipped from the factory in pasteboard boxes either with an instruction "manual" (pamphlet) or an instruction sheet which was usually pasted inside the box lid.

Military contract guns were shipped in wooden crates, (generally 10 guns) in a wooden rack inside the crate, with the instructions and accessories in the bottom of the crate.

It appears that few of the boxes or instructions ever left the store when someone bought one of the guns, and of course very, very few have survived to this day, easily giving the impression that they never existed.

In this regard, its a bit like something archeologists finally discovered and realized. For a long time it was assumed there were no "wine trade" with Britain back in the pre-Roman period, because none of the amphorae used for wine shipping in the Mediterranean were ever found in Britain, so obviously, there was no evidence of wine trade, so there must not have been any.

Until someone figured out that wine being sent to Britain was shipped in skins (leather) not pottery, (skin bags traveled with less risk of breakage) but rotted away after use, leaving nothing for archeologists to find.

SO, the Colts were shipped in boxes, but not really durable ones, and many "frontier" folks simply never saw them, or if they did get their gun in the box, didn't care for the box and hey, you could start a fire with one...so..few of them lasted long.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

A few photos:

This is why resting the firing pin between rims on a Colt will not work. Notice how little space there is between rims at the narrowest point, which is where the firing pin would rest. The firing pin simply cannot sit down far enough against the body of the cylinder to prevent rotation. The firing pin will rest directly on the rims. There is enough bevel to the rims and the firing pin that it is easy for the cylinder to inadvertently rotate. Obviously this cylinder is loaded with 45 Colt cartridges. 44-40 and 38-40 have rims slightly larger in diameter than 45 Colt, so this technique would not work for those cartridges either. I suppose it would work with smaller diameter rims, such as 38 Special or 357 Mag, but not with the larger calibers.

These are the lockparts of a Colt SAA, a 2nd Gen to be specific. The upper arrow is pointing to the so called 'safety cock' notch on the hammer. The lower arrow is pointing to the tip of the trigger, known as the sear. Notice how thin the sear is. It would not take much force to snap the sear off the trigger, allowing the hammer to contact the primer in a round under the hammer. Dropping the revolver on its hammer from waist high will probably result in a broken sear, allowing the revolver to fire. Accidentally dropping the stirrup of a saddle onto the hammer of a holstered Colt can also break the sear, allowing the revolver to fire. I don't ride horses, I don't know one end from the other, and the only time I holster a loaded Colt is when shooting Cowboy Action. The rules of CAS specifically state that ALL revolvers will have the hammer down on an empty chamber, Rugers too. Even though modern Rugers have a transfer bar and one could whack it all day without the revolver discharging, the CAS rules simply do not allow a Ruger to be fully loaded with six rounds so they do not have a competitive advantage over the Colt guys.

Even when I am at the range, I only load my Colts with 5 rounds instead of six, because that is what I am accustomed to doing. The other advantage is ammo boxes usually have 10 rows with five cartridges in each row. Only loading five allows me to keep better track of how much shooting I have been doing.

Like John Wayne said in one of his movies, if you think you will need six, load all six. Otherwise, only loading five is the safest way to carry a Colt SAA or other revolver with a colt style lockwork.

This 2nd Gen Colt shipped in 1973. This is the only one of my Colts that came with the original box and owner's manual.

Here is the owner's manual.

Here is what the manual says in the lower left corner. That is what Colt was saying in 1973.

Just for fun, here is what a $20 bill looks like folded up and stuffed into one of the chambers of a Colt. I know some sources say the $20 bill was kept in the sixth chamber for 'funeral money', but I suspect with the Black Powder cartridges of the day the money would get pretty charred up after a few shots have been fired. One of these days I intend to try that with my Black Powder 45 Colt cartridges.

 

[Hawg]

.45 Colt rims back in the day were a lot smaller. I have done it with my 44-40's and while it can be turned by hand it won't free wheel.

 

[44 AMP]

The point is not that it will freewheel, but that it can be moved. If you can turn it by hand, something else can turn it as well. Though not highly likely, it can happen, and that can leave the firing pin over a live round primer, without you knowing it.

Since movement is not physically prevented by a mechanical block of some sort, it is possible. The result could be that a gun you thought was safe, because you carefully put it in a safe condition with the firing pin between chambers, can become unsafe without you doing anything to cause it, or even being aware of it.