Does anybody here own a real bona-fide working slip gun? Has anybody ever used one? How many even know what one is?

And no, I'm not talking about a gun that a woman carries in her slip.

Dave Sinko

I had a customer that had an early Ruger Single Six with the trigger tied back. He thought it was the greatest thing around. He used to thumb off the rounds very quickly.
Didn't ever hit much but it looked pretty cool.
That was before Cowboy shooting,,but I don't supposed that'd be allowed there anyway! Really slow to load/reload as there was no half cock to set the trigger on. Sometimes he just pulled the cylinder right out of the gun, holding the hammer back at the right point to allow the hand to clear.
The gun held up great to his abuse which included a somewhat awkward form of fanning it too. A credit to the Rugers strength I think.

I read about slip guns in Elmer Keith's Sixguns with pics of some belonging to his friend John Newman. Never seen one and not my thing, but, can understand that some folks might be interested in them. Set up with a lower hammer spur like Mr Newman's they could be shot pretty fast

Yes, the slip gun is a SA revolver with the trigger either tied back or removed. The hammer is spur is then cut off with a stub welded up lower so that the hammer can be manipulated with the base of the shooting thumb. Keith said that such a revolver could be shot quickly and accurately by somebody who practiced with it enough. Newman seems to be the most well known user of such a thing but I am not aware that anybody else ever used one with any degree of notoriety. Hamilton Bowen briefly mentions the slip gun in his book, but I am not aware that he has ever built one. Making one should be a relatively easy thing to do, but my guess is that the slip gun was made obsolete by the high quality DA revolver. I'm wondering if anybody bothers with the slip gun in this day and age. It's an interesting piece of history, if nothing else.

Dave Sinko

A little off-topic, but here is a .22 rifle that also puts the thumb to work......

JoeSalter.com - Details for Winchester M. 99 Thumb Trigger 22 Rifle

Don't know why you would eliminate the SA feature on your pistol, when you can just hold the trigger back and slip the hammer anyway.

I've read about slip guns in books by Elmer Keith and Ed McGivern, but the only slip guns I've seen have been inside a museum.

Tie back the trigger on your SAA on your next range trip and let us know the results!

I have an EMF single action .45 that looks just like an artillary Colt but it won't stay fixed. So I was thinking about having the hammer made into the profile in Sixguns By Keith then remove the trigger. Less parts to break then. Keith said if you practice shooting that way you have to abandon the standard draw.
It's great that you brought this up. It's pretty much forgotton.

Be extra careful with them as there is no trigger to hold the hammer at half cock for loading and unloading,,and no 1/4 cock to catch the hammer should it slip unexpectedly while loading/unloading.
Hammer position has to be held by one hand, approximating the correct point of hammer 1/2 cock while you load.

Sooner or later while slipping rounds into the cylinder, replenishing one or two emptys while leaving the other live ones in there, turning the cylinder to correctly index it ,,etc,,that hammer held back by your hand and nothing to catch it if it falls unexpectedly will result in a suprise.


Maybe that's why the guy I knew who had the Ruger set up that way used to take the cylinder right out for loading/unloading. You still could get an unexpected firing setting it back in place though.

Interesting concept though. I think some guy named McGivern used to give a demonstration using a Colt SAA shot in slip-gun style.

There was a Colt SAA floating around the local shows for years converted to .22rf and slip-gun use by Alonzo Crull (sp?).
Short bbl, no ejector rod, altered hammer, etc. The guy wanted to pay off his mortgage I think with the sale of it (recalling his price) and it was always around. Maybe somebody else finally owns it now as I don't think I've seen it in a couple of years now.

I was in Scottsdale, AZ in 1988 at a former employers national sales meeting. As part of the entertainment they had an exhibition shooter using a slip gun to shoot ballons filled with confetti, fruits and vegetables and other things. I examined and asked if I could shoot the revolver, a copy of the SAA from Italy. It just felt WRONG not having a trigger. BTW, I coudn't hit the broad side of the barn with the thing.

Class III

There was an old city cop in my home town that carried a S&W snub nose in 38S&W (a Terrier I do beleive) and he had the trigger wired back on it and it had the small factory grips when I saw it.

Must have been able to shoot it, it was said he had four kills to his credit.

Slip guns have to be akin to playing with a mouse trap,,,sooner or later something bad will happen to you.

Interesting concept though and hats off to those that can master one with any degree of accuracy.

I forgot that McGivern had used these too. I checked his book and he has photos of a few guns that were modified by J. D. O'meara. If I'm not mistaken, O'meara was a one-armed gunsmith who did not let his "handicap" prevent him from being one of the best gunsmiths of his era. If fast shooting with a SAA is your thing and you have only one hand, maybe slip shooting is the best way to go about it?

Dave Sinko

i have an original 1877 colt slip gun , very nice original conversion , i ran across your post when doing research

Might have been something useful if you were a for real gunslinger in the era before DA revolvers......By the late 1870's there were DA revolvers available and this kind of thing would have no use.

I don't see why a cop would convert a Terrier to be used in this way, why wouldn't he just pull the trigger? If he was going to go through all the effort to have it worked over to use as a "slip gun" he could have it worked to have a super slick DA pull.

Now it would only be a novelty today, I doubt any of the SASS or CAS would allow something like this.

It's also a great way to beat the heck out of the stop notches and basically batter the gun to death, especially an older SA like a Colt that had softer steel. I tried "fanning" a repro Pietta Colt Navy revolver and I threw the thing out of time in less than 50 rounds.

Routine eleven!

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Thirty characters. Exactly...

According to a 1932 American Rifleman article by Elmer Keith
John "Jack" Berns,co-creator of the Berns-Martin holster,
originally developed the design to carry his 7 1/2" SAA
slip gun high up, secure & accessible.
Regards,
turnerriver
SWCA # 1426
NRA Endowment Life member

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turnerriver

I have tied the trigger back on a SA Ruger and played with it a bunch but never got where I could hit anything. I finally gave up on it and quit. To be proficient with one takes a talent that I don't have. Larry

Let's see, what's that old saying? Oh yeah, "An accident waiting to happen."

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed