Carrying A Revolver

[45 LongColt]

I have been reading a few articles based on or actually written by some of the cowboy days gun slingers. It seems a number of them, with Wyatt Earp being one, carried their six guns with the hammer over an empty chamber. Is that a practice that is carried over to now days? If you carry a revolver, is the chamber under the hammer empty?

 

[Leo]

Yes, mine are all carried full. Two things: Single action revolvers of the old days had the firing pin resting on a primer. if you dropped the revolver, (or bumped the hammer spur), it would go off. After that, came floating firing pins, which needed inertia to set off the primer. That design was safer, but no longer the norm. Most revolvers of modern design are of the transfer bar design, in that the hammer hits a transfere bar that is timed to be only lifted in place when the trigger is being pulled. There is no additional danger with the hammer down on a full chamber, than an empty chamber.

 

[oldpink]

I have been reading a few articles based on or actually written by some of the cowboy days gun slingers. It seems a number of them, with Wyatt Earp being one, carried their six guns with the hammer over an empty chamber. Is that a practice that is carried over to now days? If you carry a revolver, is the chamber under the hammer empty?

Just giving you more info here...
Yes, the old revolvers, namely the Colt Single Action Army (undoubtedly the most common gun you'll see in westerns), were carried with the hammer down on an empty chamber for safety reasons because they could and did go off if dropped with a live round under the hammer.
I believe the old cap and ball revolvers that preceded the cartridge guns the likes of the Colt SAA also had to be carried in this manner.
The original Ruger Blackhawk with the three screws also had to be carried with the hammer on an empty chamber for the same reason, but Ruger came out with a retrofit kit to modify them and allow safe carry with the hammer on a live chamber.
Naturally, Ruger had also come out with the current incarnation of the Blackhawk, which features a transfer bar that makes it impossible for the gun to accidentally go off with a live chamber under the hammer, even if dropped, unless you actually have the trigger pulled.
All Ruger revolvers, both their single action Blackhawk and all of their double action models, are totally safe to carry fully loaded.
Also, all modern double action revolvers can also be safely carried fully loaded.
However, you still must carry even a brand new Colt SAA with the hammer on an empty chamber.
That also goes for nearly all of the modern replicas of the SAA made by the likes of Uberti and many others, and I'm nearly certain that all modern replica cap and ball revolvers still must be carried in the same manner.

 

[Classic]

Most cap and ball revolvers have a notch on the cylinder, between chambers to rest the hammer on. It is safe on these to load six and carry safely.

 

[Cerberus]

Most cap and ball revolvers have a notch on the cylinder, between chambers to rest the hammer on. It is safe on these to load six and carry safely.

Even so, those little nibs on Colts and notches on Remingtons were not enough for the ODGs to carry 6 loaded. The hammer on an empty chamber actually was a percussion era practice that was carried over to the cartridge era due to proper safety considerations.

 

[45 LongColt]

Some nice info there guys. Thanks a lot for the good reading.