When did carrying 5 rounds in a Colt SAA become the norm?

[rednichols]

I don’t know when the practice started, but a U.S.Army Ordnance Memoranda No. 22 relating to the use and manufacture of U.S. small arms and printed in 1878 addressed the Colt revolver and stated as follows:

“ To load the revolver - hold the revolver in the left hand, muzzle downward. Half cock it with the right hand and open the gate. Insert the cartridges with the right hand. Close the gate and bring the hammer to the safety notch. Keep it there until the revolver is to be fired.”

So, official Army doctrine at that time, five years after adoption of the Colt revolver, decreed it be fully loaded. I assume some individuals started carrying five earlier than this but the Army did not. I will research further to see if and when the recommendation changed.

A very well thought out reply from wyo, no speculation, just facts.

An additional answer, is that it seems it never became "common practice". Bear with me if that seems nonsensical.

It was Ruger who was left to bear the brunt of loading six in the Colt. You see, Ruger's copy of the SAA, which was the original Blackhawk with red medallions, carried no advice against the practice, and in the early '70s one of them fell from its holster and shot its owner. Ruger lost that case and every one thereafter. This led to the transfer bar ignition system borrowed from the Iver Johnson, including a retrofit kit.

That meant modern SAs really could carry 6 rounds. Colt did something or other to deal with the problem, never bothered to determine what exactly.

John Bianchi knew an opportunity when he saw one, and Ruger launched a safety programme centered around the Ruger Practical holster, today a collectible. I created it for them under John's instructions of course.

The holster indeed was a flap holster, and ads for it emphasised the '5 beans in the cylinder' from John's extensive knowledge of the old west. Yet, ironically, it was the Ruger that raised industry awareness and led to warnings in their literature. Yet suddenly 6 rounds was completely safe if it was a Ruger.

At Bianchi we had plenty of lawsuits relating to accidental discharges in holsters, some of which involved Colt. Colt settled in one case, we persisted and won exoneration. Let me tell you that witness stand was no fun.

 

[Bakebfr480]

After the first "cowboy" shot himself in the foot!

 

[forindooruseonly]

Still - no contemporary reference from the day.

You're not going to find any, probably.

It was a difference society back then, much more about oral transmission of information rather than published.

But you can't assume people were generally dumber than they are now, and you can bet word got around pretty quick about how to safely carry a SAA.

And using examples of people shooting themselves as a clear indication that people routinely carried six is a logical fallacy.

I mean, I read occasionally that someone shoots themselves Mexican-carrying a Glock, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are that dumb. And the accidents are what you will hear about, not the normal routine of people carrying a Glock in a proper holster....

 

[jeeps]

In my Colt 44-40 it's load one skip one ,load Four,thumb hammer down on empty chamber.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

You're not going to find any, probably.

It was a difference society back then, much more about oral transmission of information rather than published.

Good observation. I would also think that back then it was difficult if not impossible to get a clear signal on the plains for ones laptop and what coverage they has was somewhat spotty.

 

[Old TexMex]

Good observation. I would also think that back then it was difficult if not impossible to get a clear signal on the plains for ones laptop and what coverage they has was somewhat spotty.

And smoke signals were not to be trusted.

 

[boykinlp]

I know it is only TV but, I was watching "The Rifleman" a couple of weeks ago, and in this particular episode, Lucas was in a target shooting contest. Of course, he used his rifle. All the other contestants used their SAA. I noticed that all of them only shot 5 shots. I think the time frame for that show is around the 1880's, so they were doing it at least that long ago. It has to be true because it was on TV!!

 

[jpage]

Great thread

 

[keith44spl]

And smoke signals were not to be trusted.

LOL...........Yes those OITs....


.

 

[sigp220.45]

Good observation. I would also think that back then it was difficult if not impossible to get a clear signal on the plains for ones laptop and what coverage they has was somewhat spotty.

True, true. But there were books, magazines, manuals, letters, diaries, court records, and the like. Its not ancient history.

I know you can’t prove a negative. What evidence there is points to people filling up all the holes and going about their business.

I’d love to see some reference to the contrary from the time, not a TV show or book written in the 1930s or a second hand account.

To make things worse, I doubt anyone actually carried rolled up money in their guns.

 

[Drm50]

I don't know when it became practice to carry hammer on empty
but when I was young and dumb I carried 6 in old model Ruger
Single-6. I was warned by older guys not to but I thought them
a bunch of old ladies. One day I fell out of a tree with S-6, I only
fell about 5' flat on my back through brush. Gun went off and
shot me through the calf from back to front...brought tears to
my eyes to say the least. I shudder to think want could happen
if gun went off while you were standing, shooting down your
leg instead of through it. That very day I became a carry 5 man.
I may be stuborn but I am a fast learner.

 

[Wyo]

To make things worse, I doubt anyone actually carried rolled up money in their guns.

I actually stuffed a $1 bill (I'm cheap) in the cylinder of a Colt SAA once, then fired a blackpowder load in the chamber next to it. All I can say is that anyone who carried money in the cylinder of a Colt 45 didn't carry it very long. That blackpowder load burned my $1 to a crisp. There were a few singed pieces of it left, but it was essentially ruined by a single shot.

As an aside, and I don't want to drift the thread here, that 1878 Ordnance Memorandum I mentioned above also specified the Colt 45 load as 28 grains of black powder and a 230 grain ball. I'm thinking that was loaded in the shorter 45 Schofield case as another manual notes the load was reduced to work in the Schofield. I knew they had reduced the powder charge to 28 grains but didn't know the bullet weight was also reduced. Sheesh! What a powderpuff! 40 grains of black in a Colt 45 case has some real power, but I'm going to have to load a few of these and see what the chronograph tells me. Bet it isn't much over 750 fps, if that.

The Jan. 12, 1876 edition of the Wichita Beacon had the following on an incident noted above involving Wyatt Earp:

“Last Sunday night, while policeman Earp was sitting with two or three others in the back room of the Custom House Saloon, his revolver slipped from its holster, and falling to the floor, the hammer which was resting on the cap, is supposed to have struck the chair, causing a discharge of one of the barrels (sic). The ball passed through his coat, struck the north wall then glanced off and passed out through the ceiling. It was a narrow escape and the occurrence got up a lively stampede from the room. One of the demoralized was under the impression that someone had fired through the window from the outside.”

I suppose Earp might have carried 5 after that, but he apparently wasn't aware of the potential problem in Jan., 1876. I'm still looking for something of the time that says one should carry only 5 rounds. Haven't found it yet.

 

[rwsmith]

Today's modern SAs......

For a good while now, SA pistols have been made with safety devices that preclude that rule. But before these safety devices were invented and installed, an SA gun could easily go off by hitting the hammer on something or versa vise.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

To make things worse, I doubt anyone actually carried rolled up money in their guns.

I agree with you on that one. I'm thinking that is where they stashed the emergency doobie

 

[ISCS Yoda]

The really fun part of this thread is that there are pretty guns involved.

These two can be carried all day, every day, loaded with six. Now known as "old style" Vaqueros they are two of the most fun guns I have ever fired. Accurate, comfortable, and just fun to look at. Cowboy action rules, however, always required that we load five, not six. Load one, skip on, load four, hammer down on the empty chamber. It jus' beez dat weigh....

The eagle scrimshaws came that way when I bought those grips for those Vaqueros after I chipped my original "Pearlite" grips. The star scrimshaws were done by Twyla Taylor, the wife of well known "shootist" Jim Taylor. She scrimmed a number of items for me back some years ago. They were supposed to match but Twyla is religious and had religious music playing as she did the work; thus the result.

Here's some more of her work:

Scrimshaw By Twyla

(c) Leverguns.com

 

[Rosco Shooter]

It might be beneficial to examine the writings of "Skeeter" Skelton. I think I remember reading the instructions for loading a SAA in one of his stories: place the hammer in the half-cock position, load one cartridge, skip one charge hole, load four cartridges, drop the hammer on the empty charge hole.

 

[Eddie Southgate]

I think among folks that regularly carried a SA that loading 5 was the common practice . That said , not everyone follows what is common so it would be reasonable to think that there were those who didn't until some personal experience gave them what they thought was good reason to do otherwise .

As far as what the US Army regs said anybody with a lick of sense could find any number of goofy ideas that the rule makers have come up with down through the years . Two completely different .45 cartridges issued at the same time was one . Another would be giving up those .45's for .38 LC revolvers .

As far as only firing 5 rounds in the shooting match on the Rifleman that would be pretty much standard practice in every shooting match I have ever had anything to do with other than some kind of CAS or IDPA match.

Eddie

 

[Malamute]

I have read an account from the early to mid 1870s where it was specifically mentioned about how the new cartridge Colts were carried. I do not recall exactly where, but will report back if/when I do see it again. It mentioned everyone carried them with 6 when they first became available, just like the percussion guns (and most if not all of the original Colts in the Cody museum have pins between the caps, many may not have survived with the tiny pins intact after the guns were abused by children playing with them and people dry firing and otherwise messing around with them), and since the new guns had a "safety" notch to safely carry them fully loaded, but they quickly learned the hazard of relying on the so-called safety notch in the hammer to keep the gun from firing if it dropped on the ground or was struck by a stirrup etc.

Ive carried both 44 spl and 45 Colt chambered Colt SAAs with the firing pin down between the rims, I found the cylinder turned and the firing pin resting on a primer on many occasions. The holster has a snug fitting half flap that completely covered the hammer, so theres no way anything pushed it back. I rode motorcycles (harleys) and hiked a lot, to it seems the natural movement was all it took. I decided to stop being so much smarter than everyone else and went to carrying it with 5 most of the time.

I think its evidence that many people think they are smarter than everyone else, or not such a bunch of old ladies as someone said, when they carried fully loaded, and NOT evidence that it was commonly believed to be safe. It sometimes caused problems. I know one guy that lost a leg carrying a 22 Ruger old model fully loaded while doing fencing work in the back country, it was several days and a long horse ride before he was able to get to a doctor, at which point there wasnt any saving the leg.

 

[Kurusu]

I know it is accepted practice now to carry an empty chamber under the hammer of a Colt SAA, but when did it start?

Prior to the appearance of the SAA, single action percussion guns were perfectly safe to carry fully loaded. They came with a either a notch or a pin between the chambers on which to rest the hammer. Even my Ruger Old Army has one, and is safe to carry fully loaded.

So - what is the earliest CONTEMPORARY reference to carrying your new hogleg with only five rounds? When the Army got them was there a manual or written directive as to how they should be carried? I bet they carried them with six. Any guidance from Colt? Contemporary magazine articles? Anything?

I know writers in this century (Keith, etc) have made reference to how it was back in the day, but I personally suspect these guns were carried loaded to the gills as a matter of course until well past the frontier days.

I would love to see some reference from before 1900 to the old load one, skip one, load four, cock and lower routine. Or any other mention of what is now the accepted practice.

Since every thread needs a picture, here is my only Colt SAA.

And some of the cap and ball six-shooters that got me thinking......

For starters, most percussion revolvers had inter chamber notches or pins. That allowed the cylinder to be locked in between loaded chambers.

For your question. I guess they started doing that after a number of cases of ventilated feet.

 

[Wyo]

The really fun part of this thread is that there are pretty guns involved.

Heck, yeah! Doesn't look like the Army recommended it, but I still carry only 5 in these two: