Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Safe to carry revolvers w all cylinders loaded?

Is it safe to carry a revolver - specifically my S&W 617-6 .22lr with all the cylinders loaded? I have been just loading 9 and leaving an empty under the hammer, but was wondering if they have a 'transfer bar' or some other 'safety' that makes them safe to carry fully loaded.

I used to carry my three screw Blackhawk loaded with six rounds and the hammer resting on one..... if I was just about to fire it.
For hunting or working around the place, I would practice the load one, skip one, cock and drop the hammer on the empty cylinder.

The transfer bar is meant to make it possible to carry fully loaded.

But just as other "safeties" they are mechanical devices. And can and DO fail.

To be secure, and have more peace of mind, I would leave one empty. Unless your shootin away.

yes the 617 would be safe carrying six

Especially in his case since it's a 10 shooter.

Yes, the S&W DA revolvers have a hammer block safety. Nice pictures here:
http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-re...-you-need-hammer-block-modern-s-w-3.html

Interesting link - thanks. One more question, is it ok to dry fire the 617? Part of the issue with loading 9 - unless I'm paying attention it sometimes gets dry fired on the empty cylinder. I can not see where the fireing pin hits anything so I'm assuming it is ok. Would be nice to be able to dry fire for practice if it does not harm anything.

Nope. A rimfire cartridge is primed around the rim and the firing pin crushes the rim between the pin and the chamber edge. Do it enough dry and you will peen a tiny notch in the cylinder making ignition unreliable.

True dat. Safe enough to dry fire centerfires, but not so with rimfires.

save some spent cases and "dry fire" on them.

i would personally not dry fire any type of .22 rifle or pistol for the above mentioned reasons.

just don't do it. take it out shooting more. dry fire the centerfires.

-tom

Once bought a 3 screw Single-Six that had been dry fired alot.

It had a "burr" in each chamber of the cylinder from the firing pin hitting the edge.

Got a lot of missfires. I should have looked closer befor buying...

A chamber iron works best, but I did the burr removal with a small round file.

Virgil B.

That is why you put some spent cases in ( if you can't use live ammo )
They will peen down too, but just replace them after a while

You can buy 22 snap caps. They are just plastic blanks.

I try not to ever dry fire any gun too much.

Instead, I try to live fire as often as possible!

Almost all modern revolvers are safe to carry with all chambers loaded. This includes all Smith, Colt, and Ruger Double action revolvers. They either have a transfer bar or some kind of safety bar that blocks the hammer unless they are fully cocked.

The major exception is revolvers modeled after the old Colt Single Action Army, such as the original Ruger (before they introduced the transfer bar action), and modern replicas of the SAA - although some of them also have a transfer bar type action and are safe with a fully loaded cylinder.

I agree with the others that you should avoid dry-firing a rimfire revolver because with continual dry-firing the firing pin can hit the cylinder rim and raise a burr. Centerfires are perfectly safe to dry fire.

Or you could simply buy a gun that doesn't allow the firing pin to impact the chamber. I dry fire the crap out of my Ruger MK III Standard model, and S&W 617 with absolutely no ill effects.

Heck, the manual from Ruger even instructs you to dry fire it as part of the disassembly process.

That's true, but I would also add unless the trigger is being pulled. I don't know why anyone would pull the trigger without the hammer being cocked, but that could cause the transfer bar to be engaged, and if the gun were struck or dropped it would be the same as a revolver without a transfer bar.

Only thing I'll add is that the snap caps are worth it. I agree that you can't dry fire a rim fire. But fired cases have one draw back. They look like any other case. The snap caps are easily identifiable as such. I used to laugh at snap caps. Until a buddy was using empty cases to dry fire. Or so he thought. He's an idiot for not double checking. Only damage was to his ego and my trust in him. But I got to thinking that if they were snap caps, it MAY have been a little easier to identify them as such and may prevent that momentary case of stupid. Couple bucks for snap caps just won't hurt anyway.