Single actions

I have an older model Ruger Blackhawk .357 (three screw). It was shooting out of sight, couldn't adjust the sights to keep it on paper at 50'. Dealer friend sent it back to Ruger for me. They installed the rube goldberg upgrade to make it safe. (: It still is off the paper. Fortunately, they returned the parts to restore to original action. I did that, and just use Kentucky Elevation now. I fear if I sent it back they will modify it again not send back the parts.

The "upgrade" is the worst action I have ever felt on any pistol!

It really needs a higher front sight, but I don't know how to figure what height I need or where to get one.
 
I must have numb hands.. I remember my first CAS event. I had no equipment and had to borrow everything. The first handguns I used where New model vaqs on the .357 frame. Newer guns. He had them worked on and polished up nicely.

The action felt smooth and fast and nearly perfect. The next stage I got to shoot a traditional action with a similar level of work done to it. I honestly could not feel a perceptible difference. They both felt smoth and quick. If I had to choose, id pick the new vaq, due to it being the safer of the 2 guns. I want that last round. It just feels weird having a empty charge hole. It needs to be filled with something. I firmly feel that if whats his name from Colt(it was not Sam colt, but I cant remember the name of the original designer) who designed the gun wanted one charge hole to be left empty and turned into safety hole, he would not have bored it out completely and would have called it such.

Honestly, while the trigger on a SAA feels good, it is a step backwards in firearms safety. Prior to that, most percussion guns had some kind of safety. Be it a actual notch between chambers or a pins between chambers, they all had something. Looking at contemporary European firearms designs of the period, a lot of them had better safety measures then the backwards step that was the SAA. Granted not all of them, but a good many were did.
 
Hi, 44 AMP,

Just my curiosity, but do you have any photos of that Colt literature? I have seen some Colt SA papers from the pre-WWII period and I don't recall much in the way of instructions. They sort of assumed the buyer knew how to use a gun or he wouldn't be buying one. And I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that Colt did say the SA could be made safe using the "safety" notch.

(The "safety" notch was added to the SAA because the safety pins that were used to safely carry the percussion guns fully loaded could not be used with a cartridge gun.)

Today, of course, we are used to thick manuals, full of red lettered sentences beginning with "Don't", but those are primarily intended to protect the company's fanny, not the gun or its owner.

Jim
 
I still find it odd that they went with such a ridiculous safety notch idea. Over in Europe at that time, they were using rebounding hammers and with hammer blocks in some of the newer models. They were honestly a step ahead of us.

I truly wish some day I could find a good example of a English handgun from that era.
 
The Europeans, especially the British, were well ahead of the Americans at many points in firearms and cartridge development, though there was a lot of interchange of both ideas and the inventions themselves. One reason was that the U.S. had little reason to develop superior weapons. Our enemies at the major development stage c. 1870-1900 were native Americans (known at the time by other names, some less politically correct), and with the well known exception of the experience of one George A. Custer, a single shot rifle or carbine was considered adequate. Also, most Americans were tired of war after the brotherly bloodletting of the 1861-1865 period, and were not willing to pay taxes for improvements to military weapons that didn't seem to be needed.

Jim
 
Sorry James, I don't have any photos or anything like that. I just recall there used to be some discussion about the safety notch, and how, in the early years Colt would say it was ok to use it (although they never pushed the information, assuming, as was the norm in those days that the buyer would know), but some years later they changed their position.

If I do run across something printed, I'll let you know.

I do believe that the current wisdom is that it is unsafe to carry the SAA with the hammer in the safety notch and a live round underneath.
 
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