Colt SAA safety notch/cowboy load.

[Polinese]

I know we do the cowboy load now, curious if that was actually the norm back in the day?

If so, why didn't colt ever modify/improve the design so you could safely load all 6 chambers?

[RickB]

I've never dropped a loaded gun, so the danger of dropping a loaded single action ("A gun that's unloaded and cocked isn't good for anything" - Sheriff Rooster Cogburn) - directly on its hammer - hasn't concerned me.
What is the "cowboy load" of which you speak; hammer down on an empty chamber?

[105kw]

I've never heard of it called the Cowboy Load.
I was taught " load one, skip one, load four, cock and lower, you're on the empty chamber." I've always done it this way. With original Colts, Rugers, and like guns.
Remember, even Smith & Wesson Hand Ejectors weren't drop safe until the end of WW2.

[Jim Watson]

In 1873 the quarter cock notch WAS the way to safely load the gun... by 19th century standards. It is right there in period instructions.

The "load four..." gimmick - I call it the Skeeter load because I first read of it in a gunzine article he wrote - works fine with a clean gun and factory loads.
I never did it at CAS because I wanted to turn the cylinder to be sure I was not getting binding by a high primer or burred rim, which did occasionally trip somebody up who had loaded the fashionable way.

That Navy S&W would have been quite safe if the "flag" hammer block had not been stuck down by dried grease.

[tangolima]

How about the method of resting the firing pin between adjacent rounds?

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Jim Watson]

The beveled rim will cam the rounded firing pin nose out of engagement.
Driftwood Johnson has posted a lot about such stuff.

[Polinese]

I'm probably mis-remembering cowboy load lol. Swore I heard that in a revolver video I was watching. I know the safety notch is supposed to be the safety but my understanding was it doesn't take much effort to force it off that notch.

Was just curious if carrying 5 or 6 was the norm on the frontier. I know 5 is the norm now.

[44 AMP]

I know we do the cowboy load now, curious if that was actually the norm back in the day?

If you're talking about carrying the gun loaded with 5 vs. 6, I suspect that, back in the day, it depended on how smart the user was.

If you are using the term "Cowboy load" to mean how many rounds in the gun for carry, that use is unfamiliar to me. For the last several decades, every use of the term "cowboy load" I've seen or heard was referring to the lighter than standard ammunition used in Cowboy Action Shooting.

If so, why didn't colt ever modify/improve the design so you could safely load all 6 chambers?

Well, to be certain, you would have to speak with those long dead people who ran Colt in those days. I suspect their answer might be something along the lines of .."why?" or "it works just fine the way it is..."

In 1873 the quarter cock notch WAS the way to safely load the gun... by 19th century standards. It is right there in period instructions.

You cannot load the gun on the quarter cock notch. The cylinder is not free to turn until the gun is at half cock.

I am given to understand that Colt did recommend using that notch as a "safe" carry position in their original 1873 instructions but stopped doing that a year or two later due to several accidents. The real function is to stop the hammer if it slips before reaching half cock.

How about the method of resting the firing pin between adjacent rounds?

This was a method used in cap & ball guns (Colt had a pin, Remington used a notch) to hold the hammer between nipples. With an SAA, you can, with a bit of practice, get the hammer down with the firing pin between chambers (but its a very small space) but its not a positive safe thing because as mentioned, the cylinder can still turn a enough that the firing pin can ride up over the case rim and end up over the primer. Not a safe method of carry.

SO how did the real cowboys carry loaded? People who wore the gun all their working day and rode horses?? The ones who didn't want to get shot probably had an empty chamber under the hammer.

The ones who didn't risked being "shot by their horse".
While dropping the gun with a round under the hammer is always a risk, today it is the main risk, but back then, it wasn't the only risk.

Anything striking the hammer of a holstered SAA with a round under the hammer hard enough can fire the gun. This includes the stirrup iron.

Sometimes, a stirrup, casually tossed over the saddle to give access to the girth strap could slide down, and when the stars lined up, strike the hammer of the holstered pistol, often firing it.

Probably didn't happen a whole lot, but it did happen enough to be written into several old accounts.

Another thing that leads me to think that 5 and an empty chamber was the more common method is "buryin' money". It may just be a myth, but according to old stories, some folks put a rolled up bill in the empty chamber, so that, if the worst happened there would be money to pay the undertaker. Probably just another old west tall tale, but who knows??

[Bob Wright]

As to loading five rounds, my Dad, born in 1891 and raised around guns, always admonished me to "keep an empty chamber under the hammer." Even though my gun was a Colt New Service with the hammer block safety.

My Dad wasn't really a gun person, but did know his way around them. He taught me to always "britch" the gun to make sure it was empty, and you could not do this too many times.

Bob Wright

[44 AMP]

My Grandfather was born in 1886, farmer most of his life, not a gun person but a gun user, knew his tools and cared for all of them very well, particularly his Ithaca 12ga SxS. Taught me a lot, especially things that applied to his tools.

My Dad was an NRA certified Rifle, Pistol, and Hunter Safety instructor, and through his direct instruction and from helping him give classes, I learned a bit more.

ALL mechanical safety systems can fail. Even modern ones. The odds are extremely low, but not zero.

An empty chamber ALWAYS works.

[Hawg]

Back in the day they loaded six. People back then had a different mindset and weren't safety anal like people today. If anybody told them to just load five they would've gotten laughed at.

[Aguila Blanca]

If they had only loaded five, then all those cowboy movies would have only been able to show fifty shots before reloading a sixgun, instead of sixty.

[JohnKSa]

I've never dropped a loaded gun, so the danger of dropping a loaded single action ("A gun that's unloaded and cocked isn't good for anything" - Sheriff Rooster Cogburn) - directly on its hammer - hasn't concerned me.

While drop safety could be an issue, it seems that the more common problem was something striking the hammer of a gun while it was holstered. One story I've seen in print was of an occurrence during saddling a horse when the stirrup flipped down and hit the hammer, discharging the pistol.

[RickB]

I understand the historical context, but I not only have never dropped a loaded SAA, I don't think I've ever holstered one, or ridden a horse while wearing one; I need to get out more?

[Jim Watson]

My Dad was not an enthusiast, his weapon was a sawn off Colt Police Positive Special .32-20 and he saw no reason to modernize. He had learned to carry an empty chamber under the hammer even though the Colt Positive Safety was the first mechanically actuated hammer block. Not as strong as S&W but more positive than their pre-1945 spring actuated "flag" safeties.

You cannot load the gun on the quarter cock notch. The cylinder is not free to turn until the gun is at half cock.

Oops, I should have said "carry" not "load" in the quarter cock.


Q: Single action hammer block. Uberti has had a hammer safety for a long time. It is a blocking piece in the hammer under the firing pin. It is moved into a blocking position by a pushrod running down into the quarter cock notch and activated by the trigger sear nose. I wonder if it was ever drop tested. It was enough to get GCA import points but then so was the long base pin "Swiss safe".

[Hawg]

Originally Posted by Jim Watson

Q: Single action hammer block. Uberti has had a hammer safety for a long time. It is a blocking piece in the hammer under the firing pin. It is moved into a blocking position by a pushrod running down into the quarter cock notch and activated by the trigger sear nose. I wonder if it was ever drop tested. It was enough to get GCA import points but then so was the long base pin "Swiss safe".

I would assume it would be drop safe because the firing pin can't reach the primer until the trigger is pulled.

[shafter]

I think Hawg hit the nail on the head. Safety has come along ways in terms of priority in modern times. Heck kids were losing arms and legs left and right in the factories and no one batted an eye.

[Hawg]

Originally Posted by shafter

Safety has come along ways in terms of priority in modern times. Heck kids were losing arms and legs left and right in the factories and no one batted an eye.

I can remember hurting myself as a kid countless times and my dad saying put some alcohol on it and walk it off and my mom saying I bet you won't do that again.

[Pathfinder45]

I have tried leaving the hammer down with the firing pin resting between loaded rounds....and I can tell you it doesn't work with a 45 Colt SAA. The cartridge rims are virtually touching so the firing pin can't get deep enough between them to prevent the cylinder from turning. In and out of the holster a very few times and you WILL have the firing pin resting directly on a live primer. This method may or may not work with a 357 or 32WCF, etc. I don't know as mine was a 45 and in that case I can say with certainty, it ain't safe.
My guess is that real cowboys in the cattle-drives of the old west would have wasted no time topping off their SAA revolvers if imminent trouble was expected. In the rough-and-tumble world of those times, they were likely the first ones to realize that it was better to just load 5 for everyday work, but 6 for an expected fight.
Does anyone know what the Army/Cavalry standards of the era were?

[44caliberkid]

The February 2023 issue of Guns magazine has an article titled, “Load Five or Six, the Real Old West Truth”.
While the army manual for the SAA called for loading six and putting the hammer on the first notch, soldiers found out quick this was a good way to get shot in the leg or even killed. There were several examples given from Custer’s 7th Cavalry, two that wounded soldiers mounting horses and one that got killed, dropping his holster belt to chop wood.
When a law enforcement officer had an accidental discharge it usually made the local newspaper. In Wichita, Wyatt Earp was leaning back in a chair at a saloon to the point his revolver fell out of the holster and discharged. In Tombstone, county sheriff Johnny Behan dropped his revolver and had an AD.
There were also accounts of topping off your pistol, adding the sixth round, before a hostile encounter. So old west pistoleros were certainly aware of the danger of carrying six. I recall a gun writer, may have been Elmer Kieth, who had an AD while saddling his horse. He had thrown the stirrup over the saddle to tighten the cinch, and when he flipped it back over, the stirrup hit the hammer of his holstered SAA and it fired.

[Paul B.]

"Was just curious if carrying 5 or 6 was the norm on the frontier. I know 5 is the norm now."

As it was back in the day. Supposedly many cowpokes used the empty chamber to store a $10.00 bill to pay for their burial.

"Back in the day they loaded six. People back then had a different mindset and weren't safety anal like people today. If anybody told them to just load five they would've gotten laughed at."

I'm inclined to disagree. A friend and I were on a private ranch in Nevada and one of the people there was a 90 something year old ranch hand. He was retired and had worked on the place starting out as a young boy. My friend was negotiating a deal for us to do some bird hunting and a deer hunt when the season came round. I had in a holster a Ruger Super Blackhawk and the old timer politely asked if he could see my gun. He was taken a bit aback as it was a new model which had no half cock notch. I told he he could just open the gate and the cylinder would spin. He didn't like that and got testy when he found all six chambers loaded. He told me to always use an empty chamber under the hammer for safety. Now this was a man who'd been there and done that all his life. He must have been one darn good employee for the ranch owner to let him stay on after being too old to do the work. I listened while he ranted on and when he was though I took my gun, reloaded all six chamber and asked him to calm down and watch. I picked a rock and pointed the gun at the ground and hit that hammer a couple of good solid hits. Of course being a New Model I knew it wouldn't shoot. Then I pointed out the transfer bar and told him it's how the gun design was changed to make it safe.

Funny thing as I knew about the load one skip one then load four thing and use it on my several Colt SAAs but never did on the Ruger new Models until that conversation. Now I do it as a habit even on the New Models when I did my serious hikes. Never had any close confrontations with any predator, two or four legged and unless facing a serious charge probably would have had the time to load the empty hole.

Based on that conversation with that old gentleman and several others including a great uncle who knew some of the old time gunman, I believe that back in the day, those with any smarts carried their Colt SAAs with the hammer down on an empty chamber.
Paul B.

[44 AMP]

The very first edition of the Colt manual did tell people to put the hammer in the "safety notch". Every edition after that did not. It was, and still is called the "safety notch" but NOW the reason given is that it will "safely" catch the hammer if it slips before you reach half cock.

Do remember that when the gun was new, it was NEW. Similar, but not exactly like the cap&ball SAs, where hammer down was safe, because the hammer was between the chambers not resting on a live cap.

I think Colt knew hammer down on a live round wasn't a safe mode of carry, so the said use the safety notch, but when they learned THAT wasn't a safe thing with a live round under the hammer, they stopped telling people to do it.

I've read some things from that era, and a lot more written by people who were taught by people from that era, and its generally always the same, load one, skip one, load 4. That was the safe way for "everyday carry" or "working carry". If you knew you were headed for a gun fight, you loaded six (or if you were practicing shooting, but for general wear it was always empty chamber under the hammer.

I'm sure there were people back then who loaded six, because it held six. People did a lot of dumb things back then, and people still do a lot of dumb things today. Generally different dumb things, today, but not always...

I got taught the right way (5 and an empty chamber under the hammer) as a child, and can to this day still remember being laughed at and called stupid by kids on the bus when they asked how many bullets in a six shooter and I said 5!

I wasn't the stupid one, but they thought so, because they didn't know better (few knew guns at all). My Dad was a Hunter Safety instructor, NRA certified, rifle, pistol and shotgun, and he saw to it that I was trained in the basic safe operation of all common firearm types before I was out of elementary school.

I load, and carry 6 in my New Model Blackhawks, I have complete confidence in that system. 5 in old models and every Colt or clone, with an empty chamber under the hammer. Doing otherwise with a gun that uses the Colt SAA system is an accident waiting to happen.

[ballardw]

Do we even want to throw in any of the single actions with more than 6 chambers into this discussion? AFAIK the Ruger Single-7, -9 and -10 are all new model with transfer bars but others have made cylinders with more than 6.

[Drm50]

I fell out of a tree with an old model Ruger Single-6 with 6 in the wheel. Hade minimal holster that exposed trigger & hammer. Made a believer out of me, that was when I was a teenager. Lucky for me I landed flat on my shoulders and shot through calf of leg from back to front, flesh wound. No weight on legs helped too. Pop off all you want, I’ll load 5, I’m a fast learner.

[44 AMP]

Do we even want to throw in any of the single actions with more than 6 chambers into this discussion?

I'd say yes, if they allow live round under the hammer carry and have no safety features preventing firing, and no, since the OP asked about how SA's were carried "back in the day", and specifically, Colt, and SA cartridge revolvers holding more than 6 were pretty scarce "back in the day". They aren't all that common, now, a century + later...