Fixed cylinder versus swing out?

[Sweet Shooter]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of these two loading systems? I'm only just getting interested in revolvers recently (hence my other flinching thread) and I wonder what is considered the ultimate design? In terms of strength, accuracy etc. I have the SP101, and wondered should I get into a Colt Army/Vaquero, I like the look of them.
-SS-

[Wyoredman]

Those guns with "swing out" cylinders are mostly double action. Those with "fixed cylinders" are single action.

Double action means the trigger will cock the gun when pulled. Single action means the gun's hammer must be cocked prior to pulling the trigger.

[dahermit]

"Swing out" cylinders are much faster to reload. However, there is a third revolver cylinder style, the S&W top-break that ejected all the empties when opened. Two notable were the S&W Model Three and the Schofield variation. I remember some famous gun writer stating years ago that, functionally, the break-top was superior in function than the swing-out and with modern materials, should be further developed. The Schofield was distributed to the cavalry in small numbers (compared to the Colt S.A.A.), but lost out to the Colts because the Colts could use the shorter .45 Schofields cartridge and the Colt .45, whereas the Schofields could only use the .45 Schofield cartridge, causing logistics problems.

[Sweet Shooter]

Yes I have one of those S&W top break in 38S&W. I think it's about 100 years old. It's a bit worn out and timing isn't great on it. I just got the original—what looks like Bakerlite—grips for it. Is there a modern revolver that uses this system?
-SS-

[hardworker]

I think the biggest problem on those top breaks was the hinge getting worn out.

[James K]

The solid frame vs swing out cylinder has nothing to do with whether is gun is single or double action. There have been millions of solid frame double action revolvers made, and some swing cylinder single actions.

The solid frame tends to be an older design, used in England prior to our Civil War and in many millions of revolvers, of varying caliber and quality, since. But solid frame revolvers are generally slow loading, requiring ejection and reloading one chamber at a time. Top break revolvers are much faster to reload, but the latch is a weak point, no matter how well made and fitted. Also, ejection systems on most top break revolvers cannot handle long cartridges like the .38 Special and .357 Magnum.

The swing cylinder (called a "hand ejector" by S&W, as opposed to an "automatic ejector" top break which ejected the fired cartridges when the gun was opened) was a compromise - faster than a solid frame, slower than a top break, but stronger. And it could handle any reasonable cartridge length.

Note: Yes, I am aware of sideshows like the Merwin-Hulbert, and the Shattuck, but both were essentially dead ends, though the M-H did enjoy some popularity.

Jim

[Ferretboy]

I only have swing out at this time, I have used the single action style before, a little time consuming. Man I would love to get my hands on a top break .357 Mag with a 5 or 6 inch barrel, SS finish and some nice grips....(At a reasonable price.)

[rclark]

All I shoot is Single Actions ... feed in one at a time, and eject one at a time... No need for speed in my world and it fits how I use my guns.... Tis the difference though between swing out and fixed in the frame. Some would argue that the fixed cylinder revolvers are a bit stronger. But revolvers like the Ruger SRH or RH are still really stout. Still you don't 'flip' the cylinder home as in the 'movies' stressing the crane a bit.... Treat 'em right and they'll last just as long as the fixed frame guns... I suspect... Comes down to what you need it for and then personal choice.

Also on loading you still have to load the swing out one shell at a time unless you use a speed loader ... but at some time before you had to load the speed loader one at a time .

I would personally pick up a SA New Vaquero or BH and experience it for yourself. You might just fine yourself 'hooked'. Of course I have hooked since a teen and never looked back.

[Bob Wright]

hardworker said:

I think the biggest problem on those top breaks was the hinge getting worn out.

Actually the latches wore out before the hinge bolt did. When I was a kid we could buy old top breaks from second hand stores or junk shops for $1.50 to $2.00 that had the frame lugs rounded off. This allowed the gun to "jump" open when fired. The local service station or steel shop would build these up for us and we would dress them down with a file to restore them to shooting condition.

Bob Wright

[Bob Wright]

Note to James K:

An interesting revolver was a "Bulldog" .44 made by Iver Johnson. This had the cylinder pivot out to the side, swinging out horizontally, then pushing the cylinder down on its quill for ejecting. The cylinder was loaded while open, the shut for firing. Never seen one, just in IJ's old advertising.

Bob Wright

[m.p.driver]

Most fixed cylinder follow the 1860 line of single action revolvers,Colt and Remington among others.Swing open cylinders follow later Da/Sa Colt and S&W revolvers.Fixed/Sa pretty much stagnated because, why make a fast firing DA revolver,that couldn't be reloaded fast?There will be MANY comments to follow to critique this.

[James K]

Hi, Bob,

Yep, that is the "Shattuck" I mentioned. I think C.S. Shattuck patented the cylinder swing out system which was made with his name as a spur triggerr single action in .32 RF. I have one of those, and its grips have the figures of two assassinated presidents, Lincoln and Garfield. It is marked "C.S. Shattuck, Hatfield, Mass." and "Patented Nov. 4, 1879". Later, Lovell used the system in a double action (Flayderman 8A-166.5), with the guns being made by Iver Johnson. Flayderman says they were made in .32, .38, .41 and .44 CF calibers, but the advertisement shown by Goforth mentions only .32 S&W, and that is the only caliber I have seen. The Lovell revolvers are marked with the same patent date as the Shattuck and Iver Johnson may have acquired the patent, but the illustration of the Lovell in Goforth's book shows simultaneous ejection, not the single ejection as in my Shattuck revolver, and as you describe.

Goforth mentiions European use of the Shattuck system in larger caliber revolvers, but shows no pictures and I have never seen one. Perhaps that explains the large caliber guns mentioned by Flayderman.

An interesting system, but still a dead end, losing out to the top break.

Jim

[roaddog28]

For those who don't remember H&R made a lot of double action revolvers that were the fixed design. I once had two of them. Back in the day these revolvers were quite common.
Howard

[carguychris]

A few more added notes...

One primary design issue with any revolver is proper axial alignment of the chamber with the forcing cone and bore. Solid frame revolvers have this licked easily, as the cylinder rotates around a central pin that is held in alignment at both ends.

With a swing-out cylinder, this gets more complicated, as the cylinder needs to be supported by a yoke or crane that is strong enough to resist bending with normal use. The cylinder pin also needs to be held in alignment, at least at the rear and preferably also at the front, using some sort of mechanism that allows the cylinder to be swung out easily. This adds mechanical complexity and cost. Different revolver makers have toyed with various different methods of accomplishing front cylinder alignment.

On a related note, most solid-frame revolvers can be reloaded by pulling the cylinder pin and removing the entire cylinder rather than using a loading gate, and a few older designs rely primarily on this method; however, there is an obvious risk of fumbling the loose parts. Most modern solid frame SA revolvers are not intended to be reloaded this way; it's possible, but not easy, and it may require tools.

The Schofield was distributed to the cavalry in small numbers (compared to the Colt S.A.A.), but lost out to the Colts because the Colts could use the shorter .45 Schofields cartridge and the Colt .45, whereas the Schofields could only use the .45 Schofield cartridge, causing logistics problems.

One interesting footnote to this story is that S&W was supposedly approached about redesigning the Model No. 3 Schofield to take the .45 Colt cartridge, but they reportedly weren't interested because they had enough outstanding orders from Imperial Russia and Imperial Japan to keep the production line running at full capacity for the foreseeable future. In other words, S&W management wasn't interested in spending money to redesign the gun in order to sell a few thousand more to the U.S. Army, when they were already selling TENS of thousands of the existing design.

IIRC during the 19th century, S&W actually sold more No. 3's than Colt sold SAA's, by about a 60% margin; it's just that the lion's share went to foreign militaries rather than to the U.S. Army and the American commercial market, so the Colt was always more commonplace stateside.

[Wyoredman]

The solid frame vs swing out cylinder has nothing to do with whether is gun is single or double action.

Thanks for the correction.

I thought I knew something and, obviously, I was very mistaken.

Learn something new every day.

Appologies.

[Bob Wright]

James K saith:

An interesting system, but still a dead end, losing out to the top break.

Ah, but those "dead ends" are so fascinating!

Bob Wright

[g.willikers]

Sweet Shooter asked if anyone still makes a top break model.
Yes.
http://www.uberti.com/firearms/top-break.php

[Jim March]

Wyoredman,

The revolvers based on a fixed-cylinder single action setup are usually a clone or near-clone of the 1873 Colt SAA. Ruger's single actions (Blackhawk, Vaquero, New Vaquero and Single Six) are all "loose SAA replicas" with features like coil springs, modern safeties and in many cases improved sights grafted in. The fixed-cylinder system does have theoretical accuracy advantages. The most accurate revolvers in the world are either custom rebuilt Ruger single actions or from the facWyoredmantory, the Freedom Arms revolvers are the best out-of-the-box accuracy you can get, with some specimens dropping all their rounds into one inch at 100 yards - in other words, rifle-grade accuracy.

Being a complete lunatic in some ways, I set about trying to seriously improve the firepower and reload speed of the 1873 type guns. What I came up with is "Maurice", a Ruger New Vaquero re-chambered to 9mm Parabellum and rigged up with automatic gas-powered empty shell ejection and magazine feeding. Yeah...you read that right. It's called Maurice because some people call it the Space Cowboy . I also severely upgraded the sights.

I carry it with five rounds in the cylinder plus two in a short "carry magazine". Once those seven rounds are downrange I can switch to foot-long 9rd magazines. I could, if I wanted to, stack 9rds in a long mag on top of five in the cylinder, but it would be ungainly at best in the holster .

So far this feed cycle hasn't been used on any other personal weapon that I know of, handgun or rifle. And yes, it could be done to a DA gun with or without a swing-out cylinder, or even to a gun that started life as a swingout but gets converted to fixed because with Maurice's feed cycle the swingout isn't necessary for reloading any more. It basically represents a direction that the industry could have gone in circa 1890 or so, but didn't, opting to switch to semi-autos instead.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=511297

[James K]

Just as a sidelight. The Army solved the ammunition problem for the SAA and the Schofield in a simple way. They never made or issued ANY .45 Colt* ammunition from 1874 to the end of the single action era. All the revolver ammuntion made at Frankford (and the Army issued nothing else) was of the intermediate length which could be used in either revolver.

In fact, the Army never issued ANY .45 Colt ammunition after 1874. While testing what became the Model 1909, the Army found that the small rim of the .45 Colt caused the case to jump the extractor and hang up the gun. So they had Frankford make a special cartridge with a larger rim and that was the issue ammunition with the Model 1909 revolver.

*.45 Long Colt if you prefer.

Jim

[Lucas McCain]

The Schofield got it name because general Schofield, a cavalry commander, helped design a pistol that was friendly to the cavalry soldier. When the govt issue was cap and ball they carried extra cylinders. When the 1873 came about the unloading operation using the ejector rod required 2 hands and the reload wasn't easy either.
S & W Schofield could be unloaded easily with one hand and a flick of the wrist and loading didn't require turning the cyl. just drop the cartridges in and close. They did have two faults, The latch on the Schofield would come undone when the pistol was holstered. When it was removed from the holster it would fall open and spill the cartridges, NOT GOOD. This was solved with the Model 3 design with a new style latch. And the Schofield all but died.
The second was the ammunition and the logistics. If fort had all S & W's but on occasion the quartermaster issued Colt ammunition which couldn't be used in the S & W pistols. Put that with politics and they lost out to Colt.
The S & W was very popular with foreign governments,especially the Russians, they bought a lot of them, actually most of them were 44 Russian caliber.

[Bob Wright]

James K, et al:

The .45 M1909 cartridge did indeed have a larger diameter rim. It was so large that six cartridges could not be loaded in a Single Action, they could only be loaded in every other chamber as the rims would overlap. The larger diameter cylinder of the New Service would accommodate six rounds, however.

Bob Wright

[DaleA]

All the revolver ammuntion made at Frankford (and the Army issued nothing else) was of the intermediate length

The .45 M1909 cartridge did indeed have a larger diameter rim.

Do you know how these cartridges were headstamped?

How was civilian .45 Colt ammunition marked in the late 1800's (let's say between 1874 and 1900)?

[dahermit]

"general Schofield, a cavalry commander"?
"...Major Schofield had patented his locking system and earned a payment on each gun that Smith and Wesson sold ..." From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_%26_Wesson_Model_3

[Bob Wright]

DaleA asketh:

Do you know how these cartridges were headstamped?

How was civilian .45 Colt ammunition marked in the late 1800's (let's say between 1874 and 1900)?

Cartridges made by Frankford Arsenal in the 1870s bore no headstamp, they were copper cased with Benet primers, and bore no similarity to commercial ammunition. Later cartridges were Boxer primed and were either tinned brass or plain brass. The H/S was always F A and the last two digits of the year, such as F A 89. This continued up through WW I. Some early .45 M1875 cartridges are H/S FA R 83, the "R" indicating "Revolver" but this was short lived.

Commercial ammunition of the era is pretty much as current practice. I have "UMC .45 Colt", "WRA .45 Colt" etc. Early black powder ammunition has a brass case with a copper primer, semi-smokeless with a brass primer, and smokeless with nickel primers.

Semi-smokeless powder was used in place of smokeless powder in handgun cartridges as it worked at lower pressures than the smokeless powder of the day while giving less smoke and flash.

Head stamps have always been placed radially around the head of the case and reading right-side up with the mfr. in the upper half and caliber designation in the lower half

Bob Wright

[Bob Wright]

Further, as to headstamps, ammunition made by E. Remington never bore a headstamp. It is identified by the raised center portion around the primer, and that Remington only made ammunition of proprietary calibers, such as .44 Remington for example.

Bob Wright