Jim, the 'Alaskan' is a popular misconception even E Keith was wrong.. There was an article in one of the gun magazines [American Rifleman ?? about 15 years ago ??] which explained it .I wish I could remember all the details. In any case there was a lot primers that were very hard and rather than discard them they made the revolver with a very heavy mainspring to get ignition.To avoid an unacceptably heavy trigger pull they put a long trigger on it .
