A single action revolver was very likely the first center fire handgun I ever shot. I remember going out to the pasture with my Dad and a neighbor where I shot two handguns. One was a BYF44 P38 that my Dad’s father brought back from WWII and the other was my Dad’s JP Sauer & Sohn single action in .357 magnum. I am sure it was loaded with .38 Special. It was so much fun, that I can only recall feeling that plow handle grip in my tiny hand(s). I was around 7 or 8 years old.
The first non-children’s book I ever read was a Louis L’Amour. My Dad was a fan and told me to go read one when I complained of being bored one summer when I was 7 years old. That started reading as a hobby (or maybe a habit) that has stood me in good stead, being far more valuable to my education than most of the institutional schooling I have received. It also built on my love of Western movies and the guns that star in them.
My Dad had a .22LR JP Sauer Single Action, as well as the .357. That .22 had cracked the frame near the firing pin but I spent many hours as a teenager drawing that gun from a holster. A few thousand draws with several dry snaps are a lot of reps. I have a long-lasting love affair with the single action.
I didn’t own my own single action until my wife bought me the above pictured USFA for my birthday in 2010. It is a black powder frame with a spare .45ACP cylinder. I have never used .45 ACP in that gun, or even fitted the cylinder into the frame. It is the gun I look to if I am thinking of what a period correct “Peacemaker”, or 1873 “Strap Pistol” as Colt might have called it, looks like.
Fixed sight revolver problems include not hitting to point of aim. If you move the barrel on this gun, it is immediately too loose before the sights are on. I have been tempted to commit a travesty and bend the front sight, which is what they would have done back then. At the end of the day, if I had to carry the gun, I wouldn’t be too upset with that deviation. The light would have to be just right for me to pick up the sights anyway.
I know that Wyatt Earp said he calmly lined up the back sight and the front sight and Hickock was bound to have used the sights for his feats of marksmanship. However, the sights are not very good in anything but good lighting, so I guess we know why the high noon trope started (just kidding).
My Dad, who learned shooting from WWII veterans, advised to look over the top of the gun and look at what you want to hit. My Mother’s father said the same thing, and he rode the Rio Grande to keep diseased cattle out of Texas, after he came back from his WWII service in the Pacific. When I followed that advice, I shot 5 rounds in 5 seconds at 10 yards, keeping them all inside the 8-ring of a B8. I forgot to take a picture, so maybe I should tell you they were all in the black.
If I was going to shoot a trophy animal at handgun distances, then this USFA Single Action is likely what I would grab to do the deed. I would have to be choosy with my shots due to the limitation of the sights and my eyes, but the gun is accurate enough to do the job. It also looks really pretty.
Now, as much as I admire the lines of the 1873 Colt pattern guns, I more admire the 1861 Navy and a close second is the 1872 Open Top. While the top strap definitely makes for a stronger gun, the Open Top is more svelte and pleasing to my eye.
I bought a Cimarron Open Top Navy in .45 Colt because it looks cool. It is kind of fun to have an early period correct Colt that could have shared ammunition with a Winchester rifle.
In this case it would have been .44 Rimfire in a Winchester 66 (Yellow Boy) and in the 1872 Open Top. The 1873 Winchester fired the .44 Winchester Center Fire (.44-40) and the 1873 Colt would not be chambered for that round until 1878. By 1878, you could have gotten a ’76 Winchester in .45-75. While the ’73 Winchester was much livelier in the hand, the ’76 at least doubled the effective range and made hunting large game a sure thing.
It is my opinion that much of what we know of the preference for the pistol and rifle sharing ammunition is overblown. It wasn’t possible for large swaths of history and was only necessary in the time when Winchester repeaters were only available in pistol calibers. You would have had to settle for the Spencer lever action carbine for a rifle caliber between 1860 and 1876. It isn’t a bad thing but having a rifle caliber rifle has definite advantages.
Does all of that mean that I don’t have a Uberti ’66 or ’73 Winchester replica in .45 Colt? Of course I have one! It’s part of the fun! (Even if .45 Colt was never loaded in lever guns during that period.) If I wanted to be intelligently period correct-ish, the handgun would be a Smith & Wesson #3 to partner with that ’66 Winchester. The S&W came out before the Open Top. I have the Uberti ’73 replica and would just have to pretend that my Old West journey started in 1878 but I can fudge a little now with this Open Top. I am unlikely to invest in ’66 replica. The S&W just doesn’t feel like the Colt-style guns, so I will probably forego a trip down that road, too.
The sights on the Open Top are significantly worse than the USFA Single Action. I cannot even begin to see them at speed, in any lighting condition. I should get some readers and see if they magically appear but I-Phone 12 can barely make them out, so what chance do I have.
Picking up the Cimarron Open Top after handling the USFA is depressing. The USFA action has 4 bank vault clicks as you run the hammer back. The Cimarron Open Top has 3 clicks of mush and a very cheap feel to the action. Oh boy is it pretty, though! To be fair, none of the percussion guns, which this was based on had 4 clicks in the lock work.
I did not bring it out for this little jaunt but I have a Cimarron replica of the 7th Cavalry Colt Single Action Army that would have been at Little Big Horn. It has the 7.5″ barrel and while the action has 4 clicks, it feels similar to the Open Top. It goes to show that the quality of the USFA guns is amazing. It is too bad that they stopped producing them.
One of the funnest things about single action revolvers, for me, is the loading and unloading. Whether you are an “unload, then load one, skip one, and load four” kind of person, or if you like to “kick one out, stick one in”, they are great fun. Holding your hands just right and using the loading hand to catch any live ones that come out is part of the challenge. Now, imagine doing that on horseback, or while moving from one piece of cover to another.
Unlike many people, I do not subscribe to the “you can’t reload a revolver in a fight”. One of the reasons for that could be the time I have spent with one of these. Neither loading gate nor swing open/ out cylinder guns are easy to reload under any kind of stress but it has been done. If you run out of ammunition and don’t have a second gun, then you should get the one you have reloaded. Can you do that while you are running from cover to cover to buy you time? I guess you should practice it and see. It takes me over 2 seconds to reload a semi-auto. I am not going to be able to stand still to do that, either.
Shooting groups with single action revolvers is more challenging than a single action auto. The lock time, from when the trigger breaks until the hammer falls, is a lot longer. The hammer also occludes the sights in the last instant before it hits the firing pin. That oft’ forgotten fundamental of follow through is very important with these.
I shot one almost good group with the Open Top, even with the stray out to the low left, it was still respectable. The sights are mere suggestions but the gun shoots well.
These replica Colt style single action revolvers are all 5 shooters with 6 charge holes. There is no safe way to carry the gun with 6 rounds in it. It is also unsafe, if it still has rounds in it, when you de-cock it at the end of a fight. I let the hammer down and then pull it back to the safety notch if I am stopping shooting in mid-cylinder. I do a number of draws in each range session from this set up. For me cocking the hammer on the way to the target is different from flush on an empty and from the safety notch. What are the chances that I would holster a gun that was partially loaded, then have to draw it again? Pretty slim but not zero. Something else to consider is that you now have one round mixed with empties if you cock the gun again. It is definitely for thinking gunfighters.
You aren’t really talking about carrying one of these, are you? Maybe. I do not have any intention of putting one of these on when I am headed to town. I could see me wearing one on the place and need to take my wife to town for an emergency and ending up in the much bigger hospitals and cities in my part of the state. In that case I would like to be prepared. Besides, it is a challenge, and it keeps life more interesting than just shooting Glocks.
This USFA Rodeo was bought specifically as a carry single action for when I was in the mood. The other guns are period correct-ish fun guns. This is my working gun. This gun has a square cut rear notch and a wider front sight that I have put a dab of white paint on. These guns have a matte blue finish and are not as polished but the gun works and shoots as good as the more expensive ones. The gutta percha copy rubber stocks work better with gloves or when wet, though they do abrade the hands when shooting heavier loads for 50-100 rounds.
Modern carry .45 Colt loads are really not a thing. They are most often underloaded so they can be shot in actual period Colts. Modern .45ACP carry loads, like Federal HST, are as good as anything that currently exists.
We have had the neighbor’s cows on our place for the last few weeks. Where I live it is pitch black if the moon and stars are not out. All the light pollution on the horizon gets closer every year but it is still country dark here, for now. I have walked within 10 yards of a cow before I saw it in the dark. If the cows get uppity and decide they want to show me who is boss, then I would like to have the Lost River +P 255 gr .45ACP load on me. My days of pretending to be a bullfighter and Heisman the forehead of a cow, bull, or steer are likely over, so I will have to resort to deadly force. Was I to need to go to town suddenly, I would not feel badly armed with that but would likely change out to 230gr Federal HST, which is carried in a speed strip in my pocket. The gun is most often in a Simply Rugged Sourdough Pancake with the IWB straps, so I can choose from inside or outside the waistband. All shooting on this trip was done from OWB.
HST shoots to the same place as the Lost River load, with the HST being slightly more controllable. I do the majority of my shooting with these guns one handed. If I am playing with “cowboy” guns (Steve also sometimes called them “Matt Dillon pistols”) then I run them one handed. That is how I learned and that is how they did it. If I have time, I am sure I will go to two hands in a fight, so I do some work with the new-fangled way of shooting them, too.
I forgot to take a picture of the three modified 5-yard Roundups I shot. There were 4 rounds out of the black but within the 8-ring, all weak hand only. I start with the thumb on the hammer for the ready starts. I am nearly slipping the hammer to make the times while dealing with recoil of non-cowboy loads.
It is interesting that the original .45 Colt load would have been about a 250gr bullet at around 900fps. Cowboy loads are downloaded to make the game faster. They are closer to the shorter .45 Schofield load, which the Army used a good bit of because they had Colt and S&W revolvers for a time. It is where the Long Colt terminology came from.
With .45ACP and the serious purpose loads that are out there, we have returned to the original loading and it does roll the gun in the hand a bit. It is less painful to shoot in the single actions vs the double actions but it takes a nimble thumb to get the gun back into action quickly.
They aren’t the best guns to plan to defend your life with in this day and time but they will work. Moreover, if you shoot them a lot because you like them and choose to carry them because you shoot them a lot, then that sounds pretty smart, to me.
