Colt SAA safety notch/cowboy load.

[Straitshot]

Load one skip one load four, I even do it at the practice range.

A box of 50 count ammo comes in ten 5 round rows which allows me 10 reloads per box when at the range.

[Hawg]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

That was the safe way for "everyday carry" or "working carry".

Except cowboys in the day didn't carry while they were working.

[44caliberkid]

Originally Posted by Hawg

Except cowboys in the day didn't carry while they were working.

The fence wire gouges in the barrel of one of my original 1860 Army’s would say different. Some cowboy used it as a lever to tighten fence wire. However, common practice was to probably leave it on the horse.

[Jim Watson]

I saw a couple of hard used, even abused SAAs in the town museum of Hawthorne, Nevada
One, rough as it was, had been worth an ivory bead front sight, a rifle blade in a cross dovetail.

[Hawg]

Originally Posted by 44caliberkid

The fence wire gouges in the barrel of one of my original 1860 Army’s would say different. Some cowboy used it as a lever to tighten fence wire. However, common practice was to probably leave it on the horse.

He probably kept it in his saddlebags. I've seen them with the butt dented and the grips cracked from driving staples but look at old pics of men actually working and you don't see any guns.

[bedbugbilly]

Why? They designed the action to have a safety notch. Their Engineers learned a lot from the production go cap and ball revolvers when they designed the 1873 SAA. The safety notch in the hammer required very little additional work/ The addition of safety notches to the cylinder would require additional machining meaning additional production time, additional labor and additional machinery and tooling. Even in 1873 when the SAA was introduced, "time was Money" - which cut into profit or necessity to raise price - a disadvantage when talking competitive products.

[44 AMP]

Another way to look at it is simply that back then, without today's legal liability situation, where extensive design testing is done to ensure the company doesn't get sued, they designed something they figured ought to be safe but it turned out it wasn't.

Also possible that the design engineers did consider it only a safety notch for catching the hammer if it slipped, but the people writing the original manual (and ad copy?) took "safety notch" to mean "safe to carry notch" and wrote it up that way with no one to verify if it actually was safe to carry that way under all circumstances.

Personally, I think its likely what happened. Because of how, after Colt got reports of accidents, the stopped advising people to carry the gun with the hammer in the "safety notch".

I think it reasonable to believe that they goofed with their original instructions, and as soon as that was proven, changed their instructions.

Today its likely someone would demand the gun be redesigned, along with changing the instruction manual...

[Hawg]

I don't think Colt revolvers in the 1870's and 80's came with a manual. I don't think they even came in boxes except for cased sets. I'm pretty sure that Colt designed the 1/4 cock notch the be used as a safety. I'd also be willing to bet not many used it as such and just let the hammer down on a live cartridge.

[44 AMP]

Colt revolvers of that era were shipped from the factory in pasteboard boxes either with an instruction "manual" (pamphlet) or an instruction sheet which was usually pasted inside the box lid.

Military contract guns were shipped in wooden crates, (generally 10 guns) in a wooden rack inside the crate, with the instructions and accessories in the bottom of the crate.

It appears that few of the boxes or instructions ever left the store when someone bought one of the guns, and of course very, very few have survived to this day, easily giving the impression that they never existed.

In this regard, its a bit like something archeologists finally discovered and realized. For a long time it was assumed there were no "wine trade" with Britain back in the pre-Roman period, because none of the amphorae used for wine shipping in the Mediterranean were ever found in Britain, so obviously, there was no evidence of wine trade, so there must not have been any.

Until someone figured out that wine being sent to Britain was shipped in skins (leather) not pottery, (skin bags traveled with less risk of breakage) but rotted away after use, leaving nothing for archeologists to find.

SO, the Colts were shipped in boxes, but not really durable ones, and many "frontier" folks simply never saw them, or if they did get their gun in the box, didn't care for the box and hey, you could start a fire with one...so..few of them lasted long.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

A few photos:

This is why resting the firing pin between rims on a Colt will not work. Notice how little space there is between rims at the narrowest point, which is where the firing pin would rest. The firing pin simply cannot sit down far enough against the body of the cylinder to prevent rotation. The firing pin will rest directly on the rims. There is enough bevel to the rims and the firing pin that it is easy for the cylinder to inadvertently rotate. Obviously this cylinder is loaded with 45 Colt cartridges. 44-40 and 38-40 have rims slightly larger in diameter than 45 Colt, so this technique would not work for those cartridges either. I suppose it would work with smaller diameter rims, such as 38 Special or 357 Mag, but not with the larger calibers.






These are the lockparts of a Colt SAA, a 2nd Gen to be specific. The upper arrow is pointing to the so called 'safety cock' notch on the hammer. The lower arrow is pointing to the tip of the trigger, known as the sear. Notice how thin the sear is. It would not take much force to snap the sear off the trigger, allowing the hammer to contact the primer in a round under the hammer. Dropping the revolver on its hammer from waist high will probably result in a broken sear, allowing the revolver to fire. Accidentally dropping the stirrup of a saddle onto the hammer of a holstered Colt can also break the sear, allowing the revolver to fire. I don't ride horses, I don't know one end from the other, and the only time I holster a loaded Colt is when shooting Cowboy Action. The rules of CAS specifically state that ALL revolvers will have the hammer down on an empty chamber, Rugers too. Even though modern Rugers have a transfer bar and one could whack it all day without the revolver discharging, the CAS rules simply do not allow a Ruger to be fully loaded with six rounds so they do not have a competitive advantage over the Colt guys.

Even when I am at the range, I only load my Colts with 5 rounds instead of six, because that is what I am accustomed to doing. The other advantage is ammo boxes usually have 10 rows with five cartridges in each row. Only loading five allows me to keep better track of how much shooting I have been doing.

Like John Wayne said in one of his movies, if you think you will need six, load all six. Otherwise, only loading five is the safest way to carry a Colt SAA or other revolver with a colt style lockwork.






This 2nd Gen Colt shipped in 1973. This is the only one of my Colts that came with the original box and owner's manual.






Here is the owner's manual.






Here is what the manual says in the lower left corner. That is what Colt was saying in 1973.






Just for fun, here is what a $20 bill looks like folded up and stuffed into one of the chambers of a Colt. I know some sources say the $20 bill was kept in the sixth chamber for 'funeral money', but I suspect with the Black Powder cartridges of the day the money would get pretty charred up after a few shots have been fired. One of these days I intend to try that with my Black Powder 45 Colt cartridges.

[Hawg]

.45 Colt rims back in the day were a lot smaller. I have done it with my 44-40's and while it can be turned by hand it won't free wheel.

[44 AMP]

The point is not that it will freewheel, but that it can be moved. If you can turn it by hand, something else can turn it as well. Though not highly likely, it can happen, and that can leave the firing pin over a live round primer, without you knowing it.

Since movement is not physically prevented by a mechanical block of some sort, it is possible. The result could be that a gun you thought was safe, because you carefully put it in a safe condition with the firing pin between chambers, can become unsafe without you doing anything to cause it, or even being aware of it.