question about 1 empty chamber

[Hawg]

I know the spur on a Bisley is lower and wider. Dunno bout the safety notch. Doesn't seem likely it didn't have one tho.

[CraigC]

My Uberti Bisley has three notches in the hammer. I would feel very safe in assuming the originals did as well.

[Jim Watson]

I asked a friend over the chicken and dressing about his. He said his Bisley Colt had a safety notch. As I said the only way to know for sure is to open it up and look. If it were mine, I would not be depending on the safety notch any way and would just be sure there was no rough spot from a broken lip to wear the trigger sear surface.

[Gbro]

I made contact with the Bisley owner and gave him the contact info to a local gunsmith. He seem very interested in knowing if his revolver is out of order, and he is very careful to keep hammer over empty chamber.
I will post what is determined.

[CraigC]

If it were mine, I would not be depending on the safety notch any way and would just be sure there was no rough spot from a broken lip to wear the trigger sear surface.

Precisely! No harm in missing your safety notch, as long as you're not depending on it, which I do not do either. Just need to make sure there's not a nasty burr eating up the trigger.

[Mark Milton]

>>>There were some fairly old timers still around and they told me to always lower the hammer between cartridges like with a cap and ball. I've seen a few recovered guns and even found one myself that were all loaded six up.
>>>

What makes you think they knew squat?
Newsflash dude. Some old timers were as dumb as any gangsta rappah supuhstah wannabe today. Wisdom doesn't automatically come with age. Have you watched my grandmother spent four hours trying to balance a checkbook?

In the old days people who KNEW about guns LAUGHED at people who loaded six beans in the wheel.

Wyatt Earp once was fined for having a Colt discharge when it fell out of his holster and the hammer spur struck the floor.
Remember, this was the same Wyatt Earp who claimed to hunt buffalo with a shotgun.

Elmer Keith knew plenty of old timers and in his book Sixguns he has plenty of examples of tricks they did to carry six in a sixgun, including special safety straps on the holster that had a hole bored through for the firing pin.

Ask the folks at Ruger or Freedom arms about accidental discharges. They both got sued for millions when fools with a live round under the hammer of a traditional SAA style wheelgun blew their own legs off.
Which is why we have transfer bars on SOME modern SA revolvers nowadays.

[VonFireball]

I tried using the old "drop the hammer between cylinders" trick.

To much messing around.

I like the load one, skip one, load four, cock hammer, set hammer down=resting on empty chamber.

Cock the hammer again and it's game on.

Best way to do it.

Otherwise, if you don't care to shoot yourself or someone else accidentally and insist on six up carry, get a transfer bar gun. Plenty of companies are making them too. Ruger, Beretta...they are good guns too.

Personally, I prefer the empty cylinder types myself.

[Mark B]

I'm pretty sure that your Cimarron has a transfer bar, and a safety notch.

[Jim Watson]

I don't know about YOUR Cimarron or HIS Cimarron, but MY Cimarron does not have a transfer bar. It has a safety notch and is a faithful copy of the Colt except for the long base pin that can be slid back to act as a "safety" in order to meet BATF import requirements.

[sundance44s]

Good friend of mine bought a New Uberti Colt 1873 ...he didn`t know about the long cylinder pin being a safty ...I had no idea ..it wouldn`t fire because the hammer couldn`t reach the primmers ....was glad he wasn`t under attack when he found out about how this pin works..It fired fine the day he bought the gun ....he put the pin in too far after cleaning , and didn`t know it .

[Hawg]

Good friend of mine bought a New Uberti Colt 1873 ...he didn`t know about the long cylinder pin being a safty ...I had no idea ..it wouldn`t fire because the hammer couldn`t reach the primmers ....was glad he wasn`t under attack when he found out about how this pin works..It fired fine the day he bought the gun ....he put the pin in too far after cleaning , and didn`t know it

I did the same thing with my Cimarron(no tansfer bar). A grinder took care of that little problem.

[Hawg]

What makes you think they knew squat?
Newsflash dude. Some old timers were as dumb as any gangsta rappah supuhstah wannabe today.

Your opinion dude. The real old timers lived with those guns. I think they knew how to use them and what worked and what didn't. The people I learned from were their sons and grandsons.

In the old days people who KNEW about guns LAUGHED at people who loaded six beans in the wheel.

Sure they did.

Wisdom doesn't automatically come with age.

Some youths aren't too bright either.

[James K]

Years before many of you were born, I talked to some old timers and learned a lot, including the trick of lowering the hammer between rounds (works better with calibers other than .45 Colt), but today if I were dumb enough to carry a SAA type revolver, I would carry with the hammer down on an empty chamber.

That being said, if I hear one more time about "beans in a wheel", I will scream. They ain't gawdamn beans, they are cartridges, and it ain't a gawdamn wheel, it is a cylinder, and you are carrying a gun, a dangerous and deadly weapon, not a vegetable chopper.

Another thing that will bring on a screaming fit is that Colt lawyer made-up story about the $20 bill in the empty chamber for burying money.

Jim

[Hawg]

Years before many of you were born, I talked to some old timers and learned a lot, including the trick of lowering the hammer between rounds (works better with calibers other than .45 Colt)

it worked in the old days with .45's too. The case head was smaller then. That and the balloon head cases are why there was never a lever action rifle made in .45 but I'm bettin you already knew that.

[GeoMonkey]

My very first pistol (bought with my allowance), was a Colt Frontier Scout and was always loaded with 6 rounds.

That was almost half-O-century ago, an I've NEVER had an AD in all that time. Course, I've never had an auto accident or a driving ticket either. Ya' hafta use yer horse sense

Only during SASS events do I load 5. All other times it's always six.

[sundance44s]

The old timmer that taught me to shoot ..said load 5 and ease the hammer down on the empty chamber ..or I`ll put my foot in yer ass .

[hongrn]

Folks,

I did a search on BP safety before asking the question: "Which way is safer, hammer on safety pin between chambers, or hammer on empty chamber?" and came upon this thread from 2008. I can say that I laughed my arse off reading about the senior members go at each other on this topic. I have an Army background, and have shot everything the Army had to offer, from 1911s, M-16s, M-60s, a couple of old bazookas, but here's my noob question on BP:

1. So the safety pins on the 1851s and 1860s (I'm talking about the Piettas now) aren't safe to use ? The cylinder doesn't spin when I rest the hammer between chambers, and I don't carry my guns on horseback in CA .

2. Once you load a BP gun, how do you unload the sucker? Just remove the caps? I can't imagine removing the bullet and powder after ramming it down with the plunger. Thanks.

Hong

[arcticap]

Originally Posted by Hong

2. Once you load a BP gun, how do you unload the sucker? Just remove the caps? I can't imagine removing the bullet and powder after ramming it down with the plunger.

After the caps are removed the gun is considered by law to be unloaded.
But if a person wanted to remove the loads to clean residue from an earlier firing, then one easy way is to remove the cylinder from the gun, then unscrew the nipples and then tap out enough of the powder to be able to push or tap the balls out from behind using a non-sparking wood dowel or brass rod.

[Hardy]

a county deputy said a loaded and primed gun laying on your front seat in South Carolina is perfectly legal and you can walk around most places w/ it in an un concealed holster.Of course not in a bank/ Gov bldg or Bar. It is the same thing as a fishing pole. If you put it concealed then it is a weapon.

[Hardy]

I meant itt has to be a percussion B/P

[Ideal Tool]

Too bad the good Colonel didn't have a crystal ball..would have made e'm 7 shooters!

[bedbugbilly]

5 or 6 seems to pop up almost as often as "brass or steel". If I'm out shooting target practice, I usually load 6. If I'm carrying, I always load 5 - that's what I was taught years ago by several "old timers" who were experience revolver shooters - both civilian and LE - and I'm talking fellas who were born in the late 1880's & 90's who shot and carried wheel guns their entire lives. But . . that's what they had been taught as well. I'm not "preaching" one way or the other though - I guess it boils down to what you're comfortable with. I have a number of older SA and DA as well as some newer ones like the New Vaquero, etc. that have the cross bar safety. Even then, unless I'm target shooting, if I carry the Vaquero, I carry with just 5 - what can I say other than I'm an "old fart" and "old habits" are hard to break? If I had been a cavalry trooper in the Civil War, I'd have probably carried with 6 - but that would have been for combat conditions. You can argue the same if you're carrying CCW for self defense - that's why I have a semi-auto with greater magazine capacity though. Regardless of what I do or how I've been taught to do, I really don't care if someone carries a wheel gun with 5 or 6 or evin 1 - as long as they use COMMON SENSE and CARRY IT SAFELY so as to not injure themselves or a bystander. That's really what it is all about - BEING SAFE.

[bedbugbilly]

I forgot to mention something in my post above which kind of pertains to the topic. One thing else I was taught by the "old timers" was to always count the number of cartridges you put in your cylinder (doesn't matter if it's 1, 5 or 6) and as you shoot, keep track of how many you've shot. They stressed this not only for safety reasons, but in case you actually had to use your revolver to defend yourself. A gentleman who had been LE in the teens and 20s always drilled this in to my head. If you developed it as a habit, when shooting, you would always know if and how many "live" cartridges remained in the revolver. Ironically, I have been teaching my wife to shoot with an older Ruger Super Bear Cat that I always carry with 5 and the hammer on an empty chamber because it doesn't ahve a cross bar safety on it. Counting is one of the things I am "drilling" in to her head as well - again, for safety and in case of having to use it for self protection. The first time at the range, she of course was concentrating on a lot of new things - first firing a weapon for the first time, noise, stance, etc. and even though I had drilled the counting into her head, several times she thought that she had shot all six when actually she had shot only 5 and then placed the weapon pointing down range on the table in front of her. (since we were at the range, we were loading six). Each time she went to eject the spent casings, I reminded her that she still had a "live round" in the cylinder. After this happening three times, she caught on to counting her shots and soon realized the importance of what I was telling her. By the end of our first shooting session, it was becoming a "habit" for her to keep track of how many she loaded and how many she shot. Some may not see the importance of this but to me, it is just as important as any other safety measure you learn when shooting revolvers. Just my 2 cents though.

[bighead46]

The answer is NO. I've never heard of a six shooter being carried in the half cock notch.

[Jim Watson]

1. So the safety pins on the 1851s and 1860s (I'm talking about the Piettas now) aren't safe to use ? The cylinder doesn't spin when I rest the hammer between chambers,

Keep a close watch on the safety pins if you use them. They are soft and small and are often found worn to where they will not engage on antique Colts. The Remington (and Ruger) system of a notch for the hammer nose between nipples is more secure.