Is it ok to load all chambers in a Revolver?

Why wouldent it be ok to load all chambers ?

People who fire single action and blackpowder leave 1 unloaded as a "safety" leave the hammer down on that chamber. But really up here you are shooting at the range not carrying them around on the sidewalk so there is no need.
 
There is no reason the gun can't handle having all chambers loaded and fired; it was designed for it.

I think what you're asking about is whether it's safe to carry a fully-loaded revolver. Which in your case it is. With the transfer bar safety, the hammer strikes the bar, which strikes the firing pin, and the bar is only raised into position when the trigger is pulled back. Iver Johnson used to advertise this system starting back in the late 19th Century as completely safe, ‘hammer the hammer’ (whack the pistol with a mallet), with pictures in their ad.s of little kids playing with daddy's gun and not accidentally setting it off.

This is different from guns where the hammer contacts the firing pin directly, or where the pin is installed on the hammer itself. With this system, if you leave the hammer down over a live round, and apply force to the hammer (drop it, for instance), there is a greater chance that the hammer will break out of rest position and drive the firing pin into the primer.
 
Yes you can load all the chambers no problem.

-edited, thought he was asking about the legal capacity, not from a safety standpoint
 
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ForaFewDollarsMore said:
So I own a Ruger Single Six Single Action Revolver with a safety transfer bar. Is it ok to load all chambers?
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It's actually better to load all chambers. That is a Rimfire .22LR
You don't want to load it cowboy style, five rounds and an empty
chamber under the hammer, in case your horse's trot or canter
is too abrupt. Because if you load five and do not start at the correct
chamber or count up to five shots fired, your 6th trigger pull will have
the hammer's striking pin hit an empty chamber's rim and, with time,
will do damage to the gun.
 
An old model single six without the transfer bar COULD concieveable set off a round with the hammer down if it was hit hard/sharply enough. New model, no worries.
 
The not leaving the hammer down on a loaded chamber was an old cowboy thing from the days before they came up with stuff like transfer bars.
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Not only. I mean, Smith & Wesson's revolvers had a hammer-mounted firing pin until the 1990s, just for example. Nice pointy thing on the hammer, hole in the frame it goes through, big soft primer on the other side. Sure the hammer has a lock in the rest position, but parts can wear, and accidents sometimes happen to apply much more force to the hammer than anticipated.

You should NOT leave the hammer down on a chambered Tokarev pistol, because it moves freely in the down position, and the firing pin is long enough to contact the primer. Use the half-#### safety notch, or carry it un-chambered.
 
And as I said, the transfer bar safety was invented before the turn of the last century; it's nothing new.

I personally like to buy the older Smiths, and authentic single action replicas, with a pointy hammer. I'm a traditionalist (and I'm not the only one).
 
The stories you hear about cowboys leaving a chamber empty to lower the hammer on are all false. I am not familiar with the modern revolvers but for the black powder cap and ball guns you load all six chambers and lower the hammer between two of the caps = safe.

That is why they were called six shooters not five shooters.
 
When I did my ATT course at the range, the instructor made a point of telling us to load 5 in a revolver (6 shot) cuz as he said "it's easier to keep track of 5 than 6, and the boxes usually have ammo in rows of 5 anyways". I load my Rugewr Super Redhawk (44mag) both ways, just depends whether I'm in a 5 mood or a 6 mood. ;)
 
A lot of SAA style guns originally had a pointed firing pin attached to the hammer. Some of these were incapable of lowering the pin between the chambers in the cylinder (firing pin doesn't actually go through the frame during normal conditions. BUT, if the back of the hammer was struck a solid blow, like a stirrup falling on it from a saddle horn, or the pistol falling out of the holster onto the ground and hitting the hammer first it could force the the hammer and therefore the firing pin ahead through the frame and into a waiting primer). Bang, an accident. With those guns, 5 in the cylinder made sense. With a transfer bar, six is not an issue. - dan
 
dan belisle said:
A lot of SAA style guns originally had a pointed firing pin attached to the hammer. Some of these were incapable of lowering the pin between the chambers in the cylinder (firing pin doesn't actually go through the frame during normal conditions. BUT, if the back of the hammer was struck a solid blow, like a stirrup falling on it from a saddle horn, or the pistol falling out of the holster onto the ground and hitting the hammer first it could force the the hammer and therefore the firing pin ahead through the frame and into a waiting primer). Bang, an accident. With those guns, 5 in the cylinder made sense. With a transfer bar, six is not an issue. - dan
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Nope. The original Colt SAA and some clones allowed the hammer to reside through the frame. If the gun fell inertia could drive the cartridge back against the firing pin. My El Patron has a safety notch about a quarter inch off the frame where I can rest the hammer as a safety precaution. If I don`t use it and rest the hammer against the frame I could experience a round going off if the gun were to fall as the firing pin extends past the frame and rests on the cartridge primer. This is the reason Ruger went with the transfer bar system. S&W DA revolvers with the firing pin on the hammer use a different system where the hammer at rest is not fully down and the firing pin does not extend past the frame. If the gun was dropped and the hammer hooks broke you can get an AD.

With SAA guns you still see lots of folks loads one, skip one as a method of loading five rounds in their guns.

Take Care

Bob
 
only time I've seen issues that make people hesitate to load them all is with the big boys, if you search YouTube for .500 S&W where the recoil brings the gun up, people release the trigger during the recoil, then cannot control it so clinch their whole hand again squeezing off a second shot straight up as it's a SA/DA
 
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