[servo1969]

[Farmer Dean]

That’s why modern single action guns have a transfer bar.

[Thane_Banquo]

Love Hickock45. Best thing on Youtube.

[JamesA]

I load 5 if I’m carrying, hammer on empty chamber and 6 if I am at the range shooting.

[smokingfrog]

Safety first!

[BipolarBob]

Did I shoot five rounds or six? To tell the truth, in all of the excitement, I forgot myself. I guess the question you have to ask yourself is “Do I feel lucky”.

[sickoflibs]

Ping!

[umgud]

So, we only load 5 in a 6 round cylinder? What is it was a 5 round clinder? Would load just 4? Is one chamber always meant to be empty?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember reading, years ago, of a man around Tulsa OK who opened his truck door and out fell his old model .44 mag Ruger. It landed on the hammer and Boom. DOA.

I believe it was this incident that caused Ruger to redesign their revolvers and offer a free conversion for the others.

On article at the time said you could load six if you placed the hammer firing pin between two cartridges in the cylinder. I tried this and it did not work with the .45 Colt.

[Disambiguator]

The one empty chamber rule applies if the firing pin is part of the hammer, or manufactured so that the hammer rests on the firing pin, such as on older-style SA revolvers and cap & ball revolvers.

Any modern revolver with a transfer bar can safely be carried with all 6 chambers loaded in spite of what some armchair warriors might say.

[Jack Hammer]

Just personally (shooting now for something going on fifty years) I load five if there’s no transfer bar, and keep the hammer down on an empty chamber; I load six if there is a transfer bar.

[MasterGunner01]

I have an Armi Jaeger Dakota .357 Mag SAA built by Hammerli (1969-1972). The Dakota uses the same fixed firing pin as the Colt SAA, but the Hammerli engineers added a very unobtrusive safety to the hammer. This is a knurled cam that, when rotated forward, moves the hammer back to retract the firing pin. In this way, there is no chance of an accidental discharge when the hammer is down on a loaded chamber. This hammer retract cam is so simple, I don't understand why other manufacturers haven incorporated it into their replicas. The cam is very small, simple, and corrects this Colt design flaw.

[cpdiii]

13 +1 in the tube, 9mm powerball in a Browning Parabellum or 7 +1 in the tube if carrying my 1911 45 APC. Relative to these two weapons, one must not try to improve on perfection!

I love revolvers and have several. My carry weapons are semi-automatics.

[kendwell]

On a MODERN carry revolver, some folks load with next chamber empty, so that IF someone wrests revolver away, first shot is a dud.

Likely not a common practice now, but still useful.

[logi_cal869]

No doubt academic: Know your weapon, know your rounds.

I’ll be the first to admit I did now know this (don’t have any time on SA revolvers; don’t think I’ve ever even held one).

Great post!