S&W Single Action Revolver

You don't think people would be intrigued by the idea of a S&W single action army? Especially since the single action army was it's toughest competitor in their early days.
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The thought of a SAA with a hole in the side for the lock makes me shutter.

As of this time, S&W is turning out all the guns its plants are capable of making, so taking on a major project to reproduce obsolete guns on the whim of a few hobbyists is not in the cards.
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I would be in complete agreement with that statement... not to mention the fact that the Uberti No.3 clone is north of $1000. I'd imagine building that gun here in the U.S. would crank the price up a good bit over that.
 
"You don't think people would be intrigued by the idea of a S&W single action army?"

What the hell? :confused:

How intrigued would people be by a Ford Mustang manufactured by Dodge?

Smith & Wesson have been competitive rivals for well over 150 years. The last thing either company is going to do is "surrender" and start making a gun strictly associated with its greatest rival.
 
Uh - what about my SW 1911? Smith didn't get into the semi business till that failed 35 caliber something and then the wonder nine game.

Didn't they try to 'clone' a Glock and had to pay them off.

But, I don't care whether they make a SAA. I might buy a new break top 32 for grins
 
I would be interested in a single action S&W just because I am a nut for S&W’s something like a #3 in a 44 special or 45. But what I would rather see them do is start producing a lot of the N frames that are out of production and L frames and a few less Tupperware implements.
 
The entire story of the Sigma is a bizarre one. They tried claiming the mechanism was different enough to get around Glock parents, then tried to claim those patents were invalid.

Only S & W could screw up that design...
 
I vaguely remember that some parts (not all) in the Sigma and Glock were interchangeable. Could be wrong.

When I fired one of the early ones - it was blah. The early 40s were jammers - mag problem, IIRC.

I think the gummit bought a slew for the Afghan police. Better off with SAA!
 
Even back in the Cowboy era, the double action S&Ws were popular, including the large bore (.44 Russian):


And the smaller bore (.38 S&W):


Please Note: pics are not the same scale - the .44 has a 6" barrel and the .38 has a 3.25" barrel.


In fact, most cowboys probably couldn't afford a Colt SAA or large bore S&W. If they had anything, it was most likely a .32 or .38 top break.
 
"n fact, most cowboys probably couldn't afford a Colt SAA or large bore S&W. If they had anything, it was most likely a .32 or .38 top break."

yep, I've been saying that for years.

A Colt or an S&W was upwards $25, which was, for many in the west, salary for a month or more.

If anything, I'm thinking the average cowboy would be far more inclined to spend money on a rifle, which would be a lot more useful.
 
I have also been saying for years that on many ranches, handguns were prohibited. If a hand was hired who had a pistol, he had to turn it in and it was kept in the ranch house safe until he left. Nor did cowboys usually own their own rifles or horses or saddles. They were drifters, the same sort of folks who take on low paying, no questions asked jobs today.

The ranch would have horses, saddles, and whatever else the cowboy needed to do his job, but he didn't own any of it. When he needed to ride, he took the first horse in the string the wrangler brought out in the morning. If "Native Americans" or rustlers or coyotes were acting up, the ranch would issue rifles to some of the hands (the more trusted and stable ones) for as long as necessary.

When cowboys did carry guns, it was like Mike says. A SAA Colt was around $17 in that era, and cowboys got $.50 a day and "found" (food and a place to sleep). No cowboy was going to spend a month's pay on a gun; if he did buy one, it would likely be a cheap "suicide special". Only comparatively wealthy folks owned a Colt or S&W revolver, or a Winchester rifle. It is pretty certain that when the cowboy did get to town, he had in mind ideas of fondling things other than a new gun.

The cowboy's life was a hard one, and there wasn't a damned thing pleasant about it. It was plain hard, dirty, work and I have never seen anything about the rear end of a cow that was exciting or romantic. Like war, a hard life tends to become surrounded in a rosy glow the greater the distance in time becomes from the reality. And when writers who never were west of the Hudson river described the life of the cowboy, and the movies spread the myth of the singing (and gunslinging) cowboy, the whole era became warped in the public imagination.

Jim
 
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Lotta truth in that post, Jim, poverty was a way of life for most all of those who lived west of St. Louis, and real cowboys were at the bottom of the financial heap. A gun was not an integral part of their 'tools of the trade', like say it was with the fur trappers and traders 60 years earlier. And ammunition to feed a long or short barreled gun was enormously expensive. That said I'm still a romantic at heart and love the old westerns with Cooper, Stewart, Wayne and Eastwood in the starring roles.

I've read some on the Schofield and often wondered why it was not adopted. Mike's explanation regarding the Russian contract and Smith's attitude towards domestic sales adds some light to the subject.

We've kept horses here in KY for over 25 yrs, and I can tell you from personal experience, that reloading a SAA on horseback is a daunting task; and that's at a slow walk. Doing it at a dead run with Sioux or Cheyenne in hot pursuit would be virtually impossible, whereas unlatching and dumping the spent cases from a Smith, then feeding six rounds back in would take 1/4 of the time....but I'd opine that Colt's big contracts throughout the Civil War, and the familiarity of the 1860 Army and '51 Navy Colts to serving officers of that era (who made the buying decisions), no doubt, helped eventual acceptance of the SAA for cavalry use.

Rod
 
I have my Great Grandfather's "cowboy" gun from when he was a working cowboy in the Dakotas in the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th.

It's an H&R Breaktop in .32 S&W.

I suspect that he was about as well armed as many of his compatriots.
 
The Army adopted the S&W Schofield but in reality never intended that it be anything more than a supplement to the Colt SAA. It has been reported that there was a lot of political influence used to get the Army to buy even the 8000 or so they did purchase. (Maj. George W. Schofield's brother was John M. Schofield, who had been a general and Secretary of War and had enormous influence then and later.) The Schofield had been considered too delicate and too easily put out of action by dirt, dust, breakage, etc., for military service.

In any event the use of two different guns forced the Army to make a common cartridge, shorter than the .45 Colt. The result was that, in spite of much writing to the contrary, the U.S. Army never issued any .45 Colt ammunition from 1875 on.

Jim
 
It's not exactly as cut and dry as that, Jim.

Several sources have indicated that around 1880 or so the Army once again approached Smith & Wesson and requested another block purchase of upwards 10,000 guns.

S&W, still fully engaged producing guns for overseas sales, told them to get stuffed.

Had S&W complied with the request, that would have pushed the number of S&Ws in service beyond the number of Colts.

Not long after S&W's refusal, the Army began withdrawing the Schofields from service and distributing many to state units and also began pumping them into the surplus market, and also let new contracts for the 1873.

Had S&W supplied the guns, it would have been really interesting to see which one became the service standard.


Army tests at the time revealed that the No. 3/Schofield wasn't really any less reliable or prone to parts breakage than the Colt.

It also received strong reviews for its accuracy and its rapid reload ability.

What truly marked it back, though, in the age of the penny pinching QM, were the number of parts (keeping spares would be expensive), its higher unit cost, and its greater mechanical complexity.
 
I am aware that I was simplifying a bit, but while the Army might have made some approaches to S&W, I doubt they were serious about a large purchase. The whole Army was only 24,500 men (theoretical full strength, never reached in reality) with only 9000 cavalry, the primary users of pistols. In any case, they ordered some 11,000 SAA's from Colt in the 1880's and a few thousand more in the 1890's.

Further, in a time of tight budgets for the military, the extra difference in cost would have likely made a large purchase of S&W Schofields very risky politically.

The Army never liked complex guns, and the Schofields (and all those S&W's) are a lot more complex than the SAA. There were several tests showing that the S&W was more prone to hanging up under "dust and rust" conditions, and a lot harder to clean and repair, than the Colt, a pretty simple mechanism that the Army had basically been using since the 1840's.

Jim
 
"they ordered some 11,000 SAA's from Colt in the 1880's and a few thousand more in the 1890's."

Yep...

ALL of which were obtained AFTER the government attempted to let new contracts with Smith & Wesson, and were rebuffed.

Even knowing that the S&W was more expensive, and that it was more mechanically complex, they were attempting to listen to those who would use the gun. Users LIKED the S&W. Cavalry users especially liked the gun because it was a lot faster to reload.

Realistically, everything I've ever seen about the arsenal and user testing put the two handguns very close together. It wasn't a case of the Colt blowing the S&W's socks off in every test. It wasn't even close to that.

Remember, at the same time the military was moving forward with the Trapdoor Springfield, which was more expensive and more complex than the old rifled musket (and there were more than a few proponents for keeping the rifled musket, both in the military and in Congress).

The legend that the Army took one look at the Colt, shouted HOSANAH!, and armed every soldier with a brace of them is just that, a legend, just as it is a legend that the Colt was the only gun ever encountered in the old west and every cowboy, lawman, badman, and just about everyone else had one.

For a variety of reasons Colt had the stronger entree (the Rolin White Patent) with the military, but it wasn't the universal choice and it wasn't an absolute, 100% lock as the military's handgun of choice until AFTER S&W gave a final fickle finger of fate to the government and said "We like the gold bullion the Russians are paying us better than your vague promises of 2,500 guns now and maybe a hamburger next Tuesday."
 
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