In Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, McCarthy makes reference to the fact that the men armed with six shot revolvers would permanently fill one chamber. In John Sepich’s Notes On Blood Meridian, he off-handedly confirms this, but no information is given on why this would be done.
Can anyone give me an idea as to what purpose this would serve? (Blood Meridian takes place on the Texas - Mexico border between the years of 1849-1850, if thazts any help.)
I’ve never heard of anyone ‘permanently filling’ one chamber, but it was common practice to leave one chamber empty. Early revolvers (and some new ones) had the firing pin as part of the hammer. (Black powder revolvers such as the Colt 1851 Navy had a hammer with a flat face because such firearms used percussion caps.) If the hammer rested on a loaded chamber, then a blow to the hammer, such as dropping the gun, could fire the charge. So people left one chamber empty and rested the hammer on that chamber for safety. On a side-note, Colts (and I assume others, but I’m not familiar with them) had notches between the chamber that the hammer could engage. This was supposed to keep the cylinder from rotating, and to keep the hammer from accidentally discharging the gun. I have heard (but have no cite) that this was not completely reliable.
The reason it was done is that putting the hammer of the gun down on a loaded chamber allowed the firing pin to make contact with the primer of the cartridge. A good jolt, fall or dropping the gun would many times make the gun discharge. Not a good situation. I’ve heard of old timers rolling up a dollar bill or the equivalent at that time into the chamber to make sure it was never loaded.
As somewhat of a six gun enthusiast, I know that through a simple loading procedure, one can insure that the hammer always falls on an empty chamber. If I can figure that out, I can’t think it would have been beyond the frontier types to do the same without resorting to permanently altering their gun. Essentially, one loads the first chamber, skips the next and then loads four more. After the fourth chamber is loaded and the cylinder advanced, the hammer will fall upon the empty one.
Thanks guys.
+1 rep for the SDMB General Questions Crew
I’ve heard similar, but it was for the gunfigher’s “buryin’ money.”
Western pulp BS, most likely.
I almost mentioned that, but didn’t. One of the most popular pistols in the Old West was the Colt 1851 Navy. The chamber is maybe an inch deep. A .45 Long Colt cartridge, as used in the Colt 1873 ‘Peacemaker’ is about an inch and a half long. I don’t know, but I’ve always assumed that Old West banknotes were larger than today’s; so it would take some folding and rolling to get them to fit. It might also be difficult to get one out of the end of a front-loader, and remember that the cartridge pistols of the day didn’t usually have swing-out cylinders. There were top-breaks, but ISTM that there were more gate-loaders.
Never heard of ‘permanently filling’ a chamber, either. Sounds like someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about. As everyone else has said, carrying with an empty chamber is fairly normal with those older revolvers, but removing the ability to load 6 if necessary and making the process of having the safe section in the right place doesn’t make much sense.
Can’t say it was never done, but I’d want to see some evidence before I believed it.
I’d also wonder at the damage hitting a unyielding solid would do to the hammer and, following, what on earth the benefit would be to fill it rather than leaving it empty. On an anecdotal note, however, my granddad mentioned that the revolver he got off his brother as a present had an engraved mark on the outside of one chamber, which was supposed to be the one to the “left” of the empty chamber. (So if he felt around the barrel when wearing the weapon and didn’t detect the engraved mark with his fingers, the gun was effectively safe.)
(For the sake of full disclosure, my granddad’s brother went to the US in the early 1930s and bought the revolver as a souvernir which he sent to his lil’ bro back in Norway. And my granddad has Alzheimers, so the information he gave me isn’t exactly reliable.)
If a revolver does not have a transfer bar safety, or a hammer block safety, it is always best to rest the hammer on an empty cylinder. Expend a little effort and one can determine if either safety device is present on their weapon.
My CC revolver has a transfer bar, and I safely keep all five cylinders loaded.
That’s what I forgot to post in my first reply! I had a feeling I was forgetting something.
For those who don’t know, a transfer bar is a bit of metal that rises between a firing pin and the hammer when the trigger is pulled. If the trigger is not pulled, the hammer cannot connect with the firing pin.