Curiosity - Colt 1873 SAA Safety Notch vs Hammer Down on Empty Chamber

[Pat Riot]

A discussion in another forum drove me to the brain trust that is The Saloon. And I mean that in the highest form of respectfulness. 
 

My question:

Where was it written back in the late 1800’s that one should not trust the safety notch on a SAA revolver, but leave the hammer down on an empty chamber?

Were there Army manuals that stated this?

Were there ads by Colt that said this?

Were there articles written in this regard?

 

I know that it’s been common knowledge for nearly 150 years but where was this written? Anyone know?

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

Probably in the obit sections of local newspapers reporting a gun fell out of someone's holster and fired when it hit the ground.

[Duffield, SASS #23454]

Elmer Keith tells of cowboys who had game legs because a stirrup had fallen onto the hammer and sheared the safety notch, thus shooting themselves in the leg.

I don't know whether this procedure was ever written offically.

[Irish Pat]

I bought an old 1906colt and the safety notch was broke. It is not very big to trust anyway

[Dutch Nichols, SASS #6461]

This may help with perspective. The army mandated the 1911 be carried with a loaded mag but chamber empty. Their reason, more  than one cavalry trooper when thrown had their 1911’s go bang when there was a round in the chamber, and hammer was in the down position.

 So one could assume the SAA would be even more likely to go bang if trooper was thrown, and there was a round under the hammer.

[Rye Miles #13621]

8 hours ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

A discussion in another forum drove me to the brain trust that is The Saloon. And I mean that in the highest form of respectfulness. 
 

My question:

Where was it written back in the late 1800’s that one should not trust the safety notch on a SAA revolver, but leave the hammer down on an empty chamber?

Were there Army manuals that stated this?

Were there ads by Colt that said this?

Were there articles written in this regard?

 

I know that it’s been common knowledge for nearly 150 years but where was this written? Anyone know?

Good question, I don't think it was ever actually written by Colt. It could have been written in Army manuals but I'm too lazy to research it!!

[Pat Riot]

Just now, Rye Miles #13621 said:

Good question, I don't think it was ever actually written by Colt. It could have been written in Army manuals but I'm too lazy to research it!!

Unfortunately many sites that used to have copies and pdf’s of old military manuals are either gone or there are problems accessing the links. Not sure why. 

[Hashknife Cowboy]

Wyatt Earp’s Dropped Gun Incident

Case Two: No less a legendary lawman than Wyatt Earp experienced a dropped gun accidental discharge. In what is probably the most detailed biography of Earp, Wyatt Earp: A Biography of the Legend, veteran historian and acknowledged gun expert Lee Silva researched a news clipping from the time, that he quoted in Volume 1: The Cowtown Years.

Silva found it in the Jan. 12, 1876 edition of the Wichita Beacon. It read, “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.”

Silva also gained access to some of Earp’s correspondence with his compliant biographer, Stuart Lake, in the late 1920s. He had apparently admitted that it happened when Lake asked him about it, and in a note asked Lake to leave out “the little affray with the chair.” Lake complied.

And, when Lake’s Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal did come out a few years later, Earp was emphatically quoted in it as saying professionals would never carry a live round under the hammer of a single-action revolver.

In the early 1950s, “adult Western” movies like the great High Noon and cowboy shows on TV created a new interest in the single-action six-guns of the old frontier. Bill Ruger led the charge to create them, beginning with his .22 caliber Single Six revolver in 1953, and following two years later with the first of his center-fire Blackhawk series in the same vein. Though sporting improved sights and a stronger mechanism (including, for example, coil springs), Ruger left them otherwise true to the original Colt design. Colt soon brought their equipment out of mothballs and began producing a second generation of the original, their Single Action Army. Great Western and other manufacturers got into the game, too.

[Pat Riot]

32 minutes ago, Hashknife Cowboy said:

Wyatt Earp’s Dropped Gun Incident

Case Two: No less a legendary lawman than Wyatt Earp experienced a dropped gun accidental discharge. In what is probably the most detailed biography of Earp, Wyatt Earp: A Biography of the Legend, veteran historian and acknowledged gun expert Lee Silva researched a news clipping from the time, that he quoted in Volume 1: The Cowtown Years.

Silva found it in the Jan. 12, 1876 edition of the Wichita Beacon. It read, “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.”

Silva also gained access to some of Earp’s correspondence with his compliant biographer, Stuart Lake, in the late 1920s. He had apparently admitted that it happened when Lake asked him about it, and in a note asked Lake to leave out “the little affray with the chair.” Lake complied.

And, when Lake’s Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal did come out a few years later, Earp was emphatically quoted in it as saying professionals would never carry a live round under the hammer of a single-action revolver.

In the early 1950s, “adult Western” movies like the great High Noon and cowboy shows on TV created a new interest in the single-action six-guns of the old frontier. Bill Ruger led the charge to create them, beginning with his .22 caliber Single Six revolver in 1953, and following two years later with the first of his center-fire Blackhawk series in the same vein. Though sporting improved sights and a stronger mechanism (including, for example, coil springs), Ruger left them otherwise true to the original Colt design. Colt soon brought their equipment out of mothballs and began producing a second generation of the original, their Single Action Army. Great Western and other manufacturers got into the game, too.

Thank you so much. I remember reading about this but couldn't find it anywhere. Thank you.

[Joke 'um]

We tend to confuse this with the modern meaning of the term "safety".

So, you cocked your revolver.  You decide not to fire.  You thumb the hammer and pull the trigger.  You take your finger off the trigger and slowly lower the hammer.  If the hammer slips from under your thumb, it is caught by the "safety" notch, thus preventing an AD. 

I don't think it was ever supposed to be a walkin' around cocked and locked type of safety as we use the term today.

[Alpo]

Nowadays, when you are lowering the hammer, all the instructions say to put your thumb on the hammer and to pull the trigger and after the hammer starts down to take your finger off the trigger.

 

But I don't believe that's how they used to do it. I know that's not the way I do it. I pull the trigger and lower the hammer all the way down then take my finger off the trigger. And since when I lower the hammer it takes a fraction of a second, I don't believe very many people took their finger off the trigger.

 

The reason they teach you nowadays to take your finger off the trigger, if so that the transfer bar (that is held in place by the trigger being back) will drop down out of the way. But since transfer bars did not exist back then, it would make no sense to take your finger off the trigger so the transfer bar would go away.

[Trailrider #896]

21 minutes ago, Joke 'um said:

We tend to confuse this with the modern meaning of the term "safety".

So, you cocked your revolver.  You decide not to fire.  You thumb the hammer and pull the trigger.  You take your finger off the trigger and slowly lower the hammer.  If the hammer slips from under your thumb, it is caught by the "safety" notch, thus preventing an AD. 

I don't think it was ever supposed to be a walkin' around cocked and locked type of safety as we use the term today.

I had a copy of a booklet, possibly an Ordnance Dept. manual (repro) on the Colt's Single Action Revolver, which I cannot find right now.  However, I don't recall anything in it about the safety notch being used for carry with a live round under it, or even packing the piece with the hammer down on an empty chamber.  HOWEVER...at least two incidents were reported occurring on the Big Horn & Yellowstone Expedition, Crook's column of A/D's.  In the one instance a soldier was chopping wood when his Colt's revolver discharged, killing him!   According to John Finerty, "the fightin' Irish pencilpusher", correspondent for the Chicago Times, as described in his book, "War-Path and Bivouac", "Just then we halted, and at the remount the muzzle of my carbine struck the hammer of my revolver, which by some oversight was left down upon the cartridge (italics mine).  An explosion followed."  Luckily, the bullet didn't hit him, but took a chunk out of the cantle of his saddle and lodged in the ground.  He doesn't mention whether the hammer was fully down on the primer or if the safety notch sheared, probably the former.  Nor is there any mention as to whether company commanders or NCO's had their troopers carry their Colt's with the hammer down on an empty chamber or at least on the "safety" notch.  With the imminent possibility of contact with the hostiles, I doubt it.  Just when and where people finally figured it out, I can't say.  

[Rye Miles #13621]

I heard that a lot of cowboys carried a few dollars rolled up in their empty cylinder for their funeral costs!

 

If this ain't true IT SHOULD BE!!

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

If the safety notch itself did not break the tip of the trigger could break off.  I have seen several Colts and clones with broken trigger tips.

[Dutch Nichols, SASS #6461]

Rye theTV  show mythbusters tested that 

And found that the rolled up bill would burn when the gun was fired , from the flash of powder!!