Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Will a single action army .45 fire from no trigger pull?

I was talking SAA lockwork, not commenting on the Alec.

The vast majority of the revolver shooting public are not familiar with the work and experimentation done on guns in the past.

A 100 (and more) years ago Slip Guns were made out of Colt Single actions. Elmer Keith used to write about shooting and using them along with his gunsmith friend Harold Croft who helped him with his famous #5 revolver. Both men were quite familiar with them.


When Harold Croft came out to visit with Keith he brought a Slip Hammer gun, in .45. The idea essentially was to disable the trigger and simply utilize the hammer, drawing it back and releasing it to fire the handgun. There was noted shooter by the name of John Newman that Keith mentioned could hit a can thrown in the air multiple times before it hit the ground (according to Keith).

So to answer your question, yes. Just go back in history.

A lot of this is written about in the book Sixguns by Keith.

Yep. I remember reading that. No telling how many times I’ve read “Sixguns” and “Hell I Was There”.

On your model 34, there is a hammer block that will not allow the revolver to fire without the trigger being pulled, even when the hammer falls. I believe this is true of all modern numbered model S&Ws. Even those with the hammer mounted firing pin.

Likely wouldn't work on a j frame .22 because of bore diameter, but on any larger cal S&W revolver make sure the weapon is unloaded, cock it, and insert a pencil, eraser first into the bore all the way to the breechface and point the revolver up. If you pull the trigger with your finger, the firing pin will launch the pencil.
Repeat the exercise, but only tap the trigger with another pencil until the hammer falls, and the inserted pencil should not move. If it does move there is a malfunction in play.

I've only done this with .38/.357 revolvers. Don't think you'll get a pencil in the bore of a .22. And a .44 or .45 might be too large to center the eraser on the firing pin.

Just demonstrated this with my model 629 and a bic pen. Pull the trigger and the pen hit the ceiling. Tap the trigger with a fork handle and the pen doesn't move