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Just a few days ago, in Maddock, I was surprised to learn that one can safely keep a round under the hammer of a double-action revolver. I was surprised because it isn't true. Consequently I thought it might be a good idea to write up some supplementary information on period firearms to complement the info available in the Maddock Information Room. This document is aimed primarily towards non-shooters but even shooters may find parts to be of interest. I intend to address some common misconceptions, the operation of cap and ball revolvers, and the current state of firearms technology in 1870. I'll wind up with some excerpts from "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshall" by Stuart N. Lake.
    I've been shooting for a few years now and have recently taken up blackpowder shooting and joined the Single Action Shooting Society. While I'm a far cry from the an expert on the topic, I do know a little more about it than the average person.

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

Ammunition is readily interchangeable.

Actually ammunition is rarely interchangeable. Different caliber bullets are different physical sizes. Smaller caliber bullets will fall out of chambers designed for larger bullets. Larger bullets won't even fit into smaller caliber chambers. Even when caliber matches there are frequently problems. The Colt Single Action Army, also known as the Peacemaker, was chambered for .45 Colt ammo. The Smith & Wesson Schofield was chambered for .45 S&W. Both guns were issued to army units. The army frequently issued those same units the wrong ammunition. This wasn't a problem for those equipped with Peacemakers, which could handle both types of cartridge. On the other hand, those armed with Schofields and issued .45 Colt were in big trouble because the bullets were literally longer than the gun's cylinder, making it impossible to use them in the gun.

Double-action revolvers are safer than Single-action revolvers.

Actually the only difference between double and single-action revolvers is that double-action revolvers cock and release the hammer with a single pull of the trigger where single-action revolvers have to be cocked by pulling the hammer back. In both cases when the gun is uncocked the hammer will be in physical contact with the chamber beneath it. If that chamber is loaded a sudden, sharp blow to the hammer will cause the round to fire. Such a blow could be the result of dropping the gun, tripping and falling down, and assorted other accidents. It wasn't until relatively recently, real time, that manufacturers began equipping revolvers with safety devices that made it reasonable to keep a revolver fully loaded.

Warning shots

Whenever I see someone on television or in the movies fire a warning shot I always cringe because its never done properly. The hero always points his gun into the air, holding it next to his ear, and fires one or more shots. Best case he's just rendered himself temporarily deaf. Worst case he's just blown out his eardrum. Gunshots are loud. Second of all, the bullet(s) he just fired into the air will come down at the same velocity they went up at. Unfortunately, since the shots weren't aimed they could come down anywhere, possible killing an innocent bystander. Third of all, the hero has just deprived himself of potentially life saving ammunition. Not too long ago a filipino police officer was killed by a knife-wielding thug. The officer fired three warning shots only to discover that three rounds left in his revolver were insufficient to stop his attacker.

THE CARE AND FEEDING OF BLACKPOWDER REVOLVERS
Considering that blackpowder revolvers were fairly common up into the 1870s, its surprising the one almost never sees them in westerns. In fact, the only time I can remember seeing a blackpowder revolver in a western was the LeMat used by the Swedish pistol champion in "The Quick and the Dead". Consequently most people are unfamiliar with the operation of these pistols.
    They are slightly more complicated than the metallic cartridge revolver and so it bears some explanation. Loading is a complicated process. It can be accomplished on horseback but it is best done at a table or workbench using a special loading box or stand to hold the gun upright, barrel pointed towards the ceiling.
    Blackpowder is carefully poured from the flask into a special measure, which is then dumped into the chamber. Though you could pour from the flask directly into the chamber, it is considered a bad idea. If, for example, you had just been firing the gun it is conceivable that something could touch off the powder as it was poured into the chamber, causing the flask to explode in your hand. Also, slight variations in the amount of powder in the chambers can have a significant effect on accuracy, making it quite difficult to tell how your gun will shoot from one shot to the next.
    With the proper amount of powder in the chamber, a lead bullet was loaded next. This was done by seating a lead ball slightly larger in diameter than the chamber on the chamber, rotating the chamber underneath the barrel, and then pulling down the lever under the barrel to operate the rammer which forces the bullet into the chamber. This has to be done because you need an effectively air tight seal on the chamber to both hold the bullet in during normal carrying and to allow the gas generated by detonating the blackpowder to build up sufficient pressure to propel the bullet at lethal velocities.
    Next, grease was applied to cover the top of the chamber, guarenteeing that it is properly sealed. When the gun is fired there is usually a blast of flames and sparks around the gap between cylinder and barrel. The grease prevents this blast from setting off other chambers in what is called chain fire. Chain fire is bad because it frequently results in your gun blowing up in your hand.
    Finally, copper caps filled with fulminate are placed on nipples on the back of the chambers. The force of the hammer striking the cap will detonate the fulminate, sending sparks through the nipple into the chamber, firing the blackpowder which converts it into a gas which builds up enough pressure to propel the bullet up to around 800 feet per second.
    Many of these revolvers are open frame revolvers, which is to say they lack a top strap, a metal bar running from the barrel, over the cylinder, to the back of the gun. This is important to note because the remains of a cap could fall down into the workings of an open frame revolver as it was being cocked for another shot, jamming the gun. The easy way around with was to elevate the gun barrel while cocking the gun so that the expended cap would fall free of the gun.
    Obviously it would be inconvenient to have to reload in this manner during a battle. Fortunately there were several options to doing so. The most popular option was to carry two or more guns at one time. This was not so that the gunfighter could blaze away with both guns at one time but rather so that he could switch to his backup gun when his first one ran out of ammunition. Another possibility was to keep the sixth chamber of your gun charged with powder, ball, and grease so that all you had to do to ready it was to cap it. This could be safely done.
    Finally, one could carry spare cylinders which are loaded and ready for use, swapping them out with the used cylinder. A good example of this is Clint Eastwood during the final gunfight at the end of Pale Rider.

THE STATE OF FIREARMS TECHNOLOGY IN 1870
There are four major American firearms manufacturers at the time; Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, and Winchester. There are also other, less important firearms manufacturers. It should be noted that Smith, Wesson, and Winchester originally went into business together, manufacturing the Volcanic Repeating Pistol. The Volcanic was a lever action pistol along the lines of a lever action rifle.
    Smith & Wesson eventually sold out their shares to found their own company. Their goal was to find a way around the complicated procedures necessary to load a cap and ball revolver. They were the first to build a metallic cartridge revolver and, in 1870, I believe they still hold the patent on revolver cylinders with chambers that are bored completely through the cylinder. In 1870 Smith & Wesson release the Model 3, the first large bore metallic cartridge revolver. In the three years it is produced, 8,000 are made, most of which are chambered for the .44 S&W American cartridge. 200 are manufactured chambered for the .44 Henry rimfire cartridge instead. The Model 3 is a top break revolver, which is to say there is a catch on the top strap which, when released, allows the the gun to be broken open much like a shotgun, automatically ejecting the shells, clearing it for reloading. In 1873 the Model 3 will be redesigned by a cavalry officer named Schofield, making it, for cavalry purposes, a superior gun to the Colt Single Action Army. Unfortunately, problems with ammunition will eventually lead to the gun being abandoned.
    In 1867, Colt was just starting to convert cap and ball revolvers to use metallic cartridges instead. They will not produce an original metallic cartridge revolver until 1873 when they release the Colt Single Action Army, more commonly known as the Peacemaker. Colt is still manufacturing revolving rifles but will shortly discontinue them. Colt, it should be noted, has a well deserved reputation for manufacturing guns of excellent quality known for having few malfunctions.
    After the Volcanic, Winchester primarily makes longarms; rifles and shotguns. Currently their most popular model is probably the Henry rifle, seen in the movie Silverado. Remington manufactures both pistols and rifles.
    There are also a number of exotic weapons. While none of the big four will manufacture double-action revolvers for some years still, there are other, smaller companies turning them out. Some of these guns actually lack hammer spurs so they cannot be manually cocked and thus can only be fired in double-action mode. A French company is manufacturing a "turret" revolver. This gun uses a round wheel, or turret, to hold 10 rounds of ammo. It is a large, cumbersome weapon. Another French company is manufacturing the LeMat. The LeMat is a nine-shot cap and ball revolver. The cylinder is mounted around a smooth-bore barrel that could be likened to a sawed-off shotgun, giving the weapon 10 effective shots. It is also a large gun and the mechanisms are a bit delicate. Still it did see some use by the Confederates during the Civil War. Then there are the harmonica guns. These are magazine fed guns. However, unlike modern magazine fed weapons, these guns' magazines physically moved through the weapon as they were fired, giving them the appearence of harmonicas. To see examples of these weapons check out any of the Sabato movies from your favorite video rental store. There are other exotics as well.
    Some things should be said about holsters as well. Most of us are familiar with the standard, open top holster that hangs straight down the leg. This is the primary type of holster that we see in the movies but there are other types as well.
    The crossdraw holster is just like the standard holster except the butt of the gun faces forward. This holster is a sure sign that its owner spends a lot of time in the saddle. Its not very easy to draw from a standard holster while riding. The crossdraw solved this problem by allowing the cowboy to draw by reaching across his body. The trade off was that he couldn't draw as fast as someone with a standard holster when walking. It should be mentioned, however, that there are records of gunfighters who taught themselves to be just as quick drawing from a crossdraw holster, with the same side hand so they weren't drawing crossbody, as most are with a standard holster.
    Fast draw holsters resemble standard holsters except they tilt the gun barrel forward slightly. This way if a cowboy is slapping leather and he accidentally fires too soon he is much less likely to shoot himself in the foot or leg.
    And, as with guns, there were exotic holsters as well. A good example is the swivel holster we see in The Quick and the Dead. This type of holster was attached to the gun belt by means of a swivel. The bottom of the holster was open to allow one to shoot through it. The gun itself was firmly fastened into the holster to prevent slippage and to keep it from falling out if something tipped the holster over. All one had to do to make the gun ready for firing was to shove back and down on the butt. A good gunfighter with this kind of holster was blazingly fast, making him very hard to outdraw. However, the holster did have one fatal flaw. As the flaw was not common knowledge I won't say what it is but if anyone wants to email/page me with a guess I'll be happy to tell them if they're right or wrong. I will note that this type of holster was pretty useless to anyone that didn't expect to get into a lot of showdowns.

WYATT EARP
Wyatt Earp was considered to be one of the deadliest men in the old West. He combined a natural skill with guns, an apparent complete and utter lack of fear, and a great deal of intelligence to deadly effect. Many bad men backed down rather than draw against Earp. In his long life he was involved in many gun battles but never suffered a major wound, leading many to conjecture that Earp may have own the first bulletproof vest. Earp, however, denies it.
    Perhaps the definitive biography of Earp is Stuart N. Lake's "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshall". This is the only biography for which Earp consented to be interviewed. I highly recommend reading this book. It is well written and very involving. I frequently find myself having trouble putting it down, due in large part to the recounting of actual events by the likes of Bat Masterson in addition to Earp. In any case, the following excerpts are what Earp had to say on the subject of gun handling. Pay attention because this is one of the all time great gunfighters and he learned from some of the other all time great gunfighters, men like Wild Bill Hickok. These are rules and ideas formulated by men who's lives depended on their skill with their weapons:

"I was a fair hand with pistol, rifle, or shotgun, but I learned more about gunfighting from Tom Speer's cronies during the summer of '71 than I had dreamed was in the book. Those old-timers took their gunplay seriously, which was natural under the conditions in which they lived. Shooting, to them, was considerably more than aiming at a mark and pulling a trigger. Models of weapons, methods of wearing them, means of getting them into action and operating them, all to the one end of combining high speed with absolute accuracy, contributed to the frontiersman's shooting skill. The sought-after degree of proficiency was that which could turn to most effective account the split-second between life and death. Hours upon hours of practice, and wide experience in actualities supported their arguments over style.
    "The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was the the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live long on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick-shooting -- grandstand play -- as I would poison.
    "When I say that I learned to take my time in a gunfight, I do not wish to be misunderstood, for the time to be taken was only that split fraction of a second that means the difference between deadly accuracy with a sixgun and a miss. It is hard to make this clear to a man who has never been in a gunfight. Perhaps I can best describe such time taking as going into action with the greatest speed of which a man's muscles are capable, but mentally unflustered by an urge to hurry or the need for complicated nervous and muscular actions which trick-shooting involves. Mentally deliberate, but muscularly faster than thought, is what I mean.
    "In all my life as a frontier police officer, I did not know a really proficient gunfighter who had anything but contempt for the gun-fanner, or the man who literally shot from the hip. In later years I read a great deal about this type of gunplay, supposedly employed by men noted for skill with a forty-five.
    "From personal experience and numerous six-gun battles which I witnessed, I can only support the opinion advanced by the men who gave me my most valuable instruction in fast and accurate shooting, which was that the gun-fanner and hip-shooter stood small chance to live against a man who, as old Jack Gallagher always put it, took his time and pulled the trigger once.
    "Cocking and firing mechanisms on new revolvers were almost invariably altered by their purchasers in the interests of smoother, effortless handling, usually by filing the dog which controlled the hammer, some going so far as to remove triggers entirely or lash them against the guard, in which cases the guns were fired by thumbing the hammer. This is not to be confused with fanning, in which the triggerless gun is held in one hand while the other was brushed rapidly across the hammer to cock the gun, and firing it by the weight of the hammer itself. A skillful gun-fanner could fire five shots from a forty-five so rapidly that the individual reports were indistinguishable, but what could happen to him in a gunfight was pretty close to murder.
    "I saw Jack Gallagher's theory borne out so many times in deadly operation that I was never tempted to forsake the principles of gunfighting as I had them from him and his associates.
    "There was no man in the Kansas City group who was Wild Bill's equal with a six-gun. Bill's correct name, by the way, was James B. Hickok. Legend and the imaginations of certain people have exaggerated the number of men he killed in gunfights and have misrepresented the manner in which he did his killing. At that, they could not very well overdo his skill with pistols.
    "Hickok knew all the fancy tricks and was as good as the best at that sort of gunplay, but when he had serious business at hand, a man to get, the acid test of marksmanship, I doubt if he employed them. At least, he told me that he did not. I have seen him in action and I never saw him fan a gun, shoot from the hip, or try to fire two pistols simultaneously. Neither have I ever heard a reliable old-timer tell of any trick-shooting employed by Hickok when fast straight-shooting meant life or death.
    "That two-gun business is another matter that can stand some truth before the last of the old-time gunfighters has gone on. They wore two guns, most of six-gun toters did, and when the time came for action went after them with both hands. But they didn't shoot them that way.
    "Primarily, two guns made the threat of something in reserve; they were useful as a display of force when a lone man stacked up against a crowd. Some men could shoot equally well with either hand, and in a gunplay might alternate their fire; others exhausted the loads from the gun on the right, or the left, as the case might be, then shifted the reserve weapon to the natural shooting hand if that was necessary and possible. Such a move -- the border shift -- could be made faster than the eye could follow a top-notch gun-thrower, but if the man was as good as that, the shift would seldom be required.
    "Whenever you see a picture of some two-gun man in action with both weapons held closely against his hips and both spitting smoke together, you can put it down that you are looking at the picture of a fool, or a fake. I remeber quite a few of these so-called two-gun men who tried to operate everything at once, but like the fanners, they didn't last long in proficient company.
    "In the days of which I am talking, among men whom I have in mind, when a man went after his guns, he did so with a single, serious purpose. There was no such thing as a bluff; when a gunfighter reached for his forty-five, every faculty he owned was keyed to shooting as speedily and as accurately as possible, to making his first shot the last of the fight. He just had to think of his gun solely as something with which to kill another before he himself could be killed. The possiblity of intimidating an antagonist was remote, although the 'drop' was thoroughly respected, and few men in the West would draw against it. I have seen men so fast and so sure of themselves that they did go after their guns while men who intended to kill them had them covered, and what is more win out in the play. They were rare. It is safe to say, for all general purposes, that anything in gunfighting that smacked of show-off or bluff was left to braggarts who were ignorant or careless of their lives.
    "I might add that I never knew a man who amounted to anything to notch his gun with 'credits,' as they were called, for men he had killed. Outlaws, gunmen of the wild crew who killed for the sake of brag, followedthis custom. I have worked with most of the noted peace officers -- Hickok, Billy Tilghman, Pat Sughre, Bat Masterson, Charlie Basset, and others of like caliber -- have handled their weapons many times, but never knew one of them to carry a notched gun.
    "There are two other points about the old-time method of using six-guns most effectively that do not seem to be generally known. One is that the gun was not cocked with the ball of the thumb. As his gun was jerked into action, the old-timer closed the whole joint of his thumb over the hammer and the gun was cocked in that fashion. The soft flesh of the thumb ball might slip if a man's hands were moist, and a slip was not to be chanced if humanly avoidable. This thumb-joint method was employed whether or not a man used the trigger for firing.
    "On the second point, I have often been asked why five shots without reloading were all a top-notch gunfighter fired, when his guns were chambered for six cartridges. The answer is, merely, safety. To ensure against accidental discharge of the gun while in the holster, due to hair-trigger adjustment, the hammer rested upon an empty chamber. As widely as this was known and practiced, the number of cartridges a man carried in his six-gun may be taken as an indication of a man's rank with the gunfighters of the old school. Practiced gun-wielders had too much respect for their weapons to take unnecessary chances with them; it was only with tyros and would-bes that you heard of accidental discharges or didn't-know-it-was-loaded injuries in the country where carrying a Colt's was a man's prerogative.