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Old December 3, 2012, 05:18 PM   #12
James K
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Join Date: March 17, 1999
Posts: 24,383
The years c. 1875-1900 were the heyday of those "suicide special" spur trigger revolvers, and H&A and others made millions of them. The makers gave the guns interesting names, but often didn't have enough pride in the product to put their own names on them.

H&A used Blue Jacket, Ranger, Dictator, Smoker, Kitemaug (?), Defender, Pioneer, Capt. Jack, Tramps Terror, Bang-Up, Czar, and probably others. Other makers used other fancy names; typing a list would take all day.

The origin of the term "suicide special" is not clear. Most folks say it indicates a cheap revolver that probably would be good only for one shot; others say it indicates the result if someone armed with one of those revolvers challenged anyone with a better gun.

Jim
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