Nonetheless, back in the late 1950s, while competing in a regional fast-draw contest in Buckeye, Arizona, I remember buying a second-generation Colt Single Action from a fellow participant who was walking with a noticeable limp. When I asked him why he was selling his sixgun, he said it was because it went off in his holster. But single actions don't go off by themselves--someone has to physically cock the hammer, which this fellow apparently did while practicing fast draw with live ammunition. Even with blanks, a blast to the leg can char both denim and flesh.

The three basic barrel lengths of a Colt Single Action Army are (top to bottom) 7 1/2, 5 1/2 and 4 3/4 inches. Each will dictate how much of the front-sight blade should appear over the grooved topstrap when aiming.

The only way to draw a single action is to keep the hammer down and your trigger finger outstretched alongside the guard (which aids in pointing) until the gun is out of the holster and level with your target. It was an axiom of the western frontier that the gunmen who managed to survive weren't always fast but they were usually accurate.

Another old-time rule that had to be relearned by a new generation of single-action shooters was to load only five rounds in the cylinder with the hammer resting on the empty sixth chamber. This, of course, is to preclude any chance of the gun going off should it be accidentally dropped. Although Colt-style six-shooters (which consequently are really five-shooters) have a first "safety notch" click on the hammer designed to raise the fixed firing pin from contact with the primer of the cartridge under it, no safety should be trusted, as it is merely a mechanical device. And mechanical devices tend to break. The number of first- and second-generation single actions with broken safety notches is testimony to this.

There is a simple technique in the proper loading of the SAA. The formula is to first load one round, leave the next chamber empty and finish shucking in the remaining four rounds. Then bring the hammer to full cock, and when you lower it back down, just like magic it will be resting over an empty chamber.

An adjustable-sighted single action, as exemplified by this New Model Ruger Blackhawk (top), is the modern counterpart of the traditional fixed-sight SA, as shown in this third-generation Colt SAA (bottom).

Interestingly, much of the credit for relearning the five-shot rule goes to Ruger, which ran an ad during this period showing a single action with the loading gate open and a rolled-up dollar bill stuffed into one of the chambers. The reference was that the 19th century cowboys knew enough to keep one cylinder empty. Consequently, that provided an ideal place to hide a banknote because there was little chance of anyone claiming it while the gun's owner was alive.

Typically, when loading and unloading a traditional Colt-style single action, the hammer is brought to half cock, which frees the cylinder and allows it to rotate clockwise, thus bringing each of the chambers in line with the open loading gate. However--and here is the trick--to lower the hammer from half-cock, it must first be brought all the way back to full cock. Then, holding the hammer back with the thumb to keep it from snapping forward, the trigger is depressed and the hammer is gently lowered.

If you attempt to lower the hammer directly from half-cock, the cylinder chamber will not be lined up with the bore, and when the locking bolt rises up from the frame as the hammer is lowered, it will press against the sides of the cylinder rather than snapping into the cylinder locking notch. That means the next time you cock the gun, or manually turn the cylinder to line up the chamber, the bolt will etch a nice bare-metal mark on the cylinder, which explains why we often see so many scored cylinders on guns that are perfectly timed.