I have what I hope is an easy call.

As i understand it a double action revolver is what most moern guns are, each time you pull the trigger, the gun cocks it's self or you can cock it manually by pulling back on the hammer, making the tirgger more sensative to shoot.

With a single action you have to mannually pull back the hammer yourself to cock the gun before you pull the trigger. So in westerns, is fanning someone cocking the gun that way?


note, in his book on Shooting Wyatt Earp was contemptious of fanning, being what today we call "pray and spray" and was an advocate of aimed shots.

Yes, Fanning involves holding the trigger down and sweeping your hand across the hammer to rapidly pull it back. With the trigger depressed, the hammer falls back imediately. Repeat 6 times. 5 for gun slingers.

ok, thanks, I new waht fanning looked liked but i was going for the mechanics of what they were achieving. I'd think common sense would say this would just throw aim all to hell. Is there any benefit to a single action revolver in SR?

It wouldnt ruin your aim, but it was a lot less accurate than aiming a shot, since you had to aim, and compensate for the strike of your hand on the rear of the pistol.

I'd say it would make a Single Action revolver fire a 6round burst, with the standard modifiers, but double uncompensated recoil.

Righteous style points?

As for throwing aim off, yes, a lot at a distance but the current world fast draw/fanning competition is draw, fan three rounds (and hit) in like 1.3 seconds. History channel had a great special and it was damn scary.

The benefit to a Single Shot weapon is that, while still only taking a Simple Action to aim, it leaves your other Simple Action to aim or perform some other task. You can do this with Semi-Automatic weapons, sure, but that's about it.

SS weapons, such as the Ruger Super Warhawk, also tend to have a higher Power rating.

But beyond that, no. I generally like to carry a pair of 'em and use 'em akimbo, just not simultaneously. It effectively doubles the ammo size in exchange for giving you a virtual SA mode. The downfall is that both hands are now full and some GMs won't let you get away with it without imposing an off-hand penalty just for having fun with a little style.

In SR, there are four revolves. The Colt Asp which is designed to be cheap and suck(6L, SA), the Taurus-Multi 6 which has a bizzare mechanic where you can use 6L or 7M ammo in it with the firing rate being SA or SS depending on what you load in it, the cavalier deputy which holds the honor of being the absolute cheapest heavy pistol in SR when Street Index is applied(does 9M, SA), and the Ruger Superhawk(10M, SS).

So, you might say SR encourages you to use the single action revolver by letting them do more damage.

If I was going to implement it...

First, declare that all single action revolvers are SS. To tempt people to use single action revolvers, just follow the pattern set by the Warhawk - Increase the power some. I say you need at least +2 power to really tempt someone, +1 power isn't worth the downsides a revolver possesses.

Anyways, say that when fan firing the SS revolver is now considered SA. Apply +2 TN to the shots.

That's just if you didn't really want to overhaul the rules and just want a mechanic to sort of reflect something you saw in a John Wayne movie.

My main character's public gun is a colt asp, small and not likely to get the attnetion of the wrong people. but I was thinking about maybe adding an interest in other older revolver, colt peacemaker or an 1860's navy colt. Those I believe are single action. By 1889 the Webley was double action.

IIRC, the Peacemaker came in both Single and Double actions. Single in early models, and Double in the later ones. Unfortunately, the gun cabinet is locked and I'm in no mood to wake the bird up to get in there to check on the Navy Colt, as my grandfather did give me a Navy issue revolver a while back.

On Rayguns firearms site he has the Peacemaker and some of the mechanics for fanning.

Complex action to fire (quickness) rounds and another complex to reload the same amount.

As for recoil treating it like a shotgun would probably work, IE double uncompensated recoil.

Do most revolvers have a cylinder that folds out or a break? My Webley just hinges ahead of the trigger guard and when I open itt to reload the spent brass flies out, making it just easy for an action, but I guess if the cylinder just folds out it wouldn't dump as easily.

Most revolvers I have used have a pin attached to the cylinder that when pushed ejects all rounds at the same time.

Most modern double action revolvers have a cylinder that "folds" out to the left side of the frame via what is known as a yoke. (This system was developed by Smith & Wesson around the turn of the 20th century.) This exposes the entire rear of the cylinder, allowing for quick reloads. These revolvers also tend to use a hand ejector, which consists of a star-shaped piece of metal that forms part of the cylinder face. The ejector is attached to a spring-loaded rod which passes through the cylinder at its axis and usually a couple of inches beyond it. When the cylinder is unlocked from the frame and craned out, the user can simply push this rod back and eject the cases from all chambers at once. The cylinder can then be reloaded either one chamber at a time, or all chambers at once through the use of either a speedloader, which must be discarded before the cylinder can be closed, or a clip, which is simply a piece of stamped sheet steel or plastic designed to hold all the rounds together and does not need to be discarded before the cylinder can be closed.

Some revolvers, like your Webley, the Enfield revolvers, or the S&W Model 3 Schofield, use what is called the Top Break system, which I'm sure your familiar with. This system is hampered somewhat by its design and is not generally thought of to be the strongest type of revolver action. Essentially, the lock at the top rear of the cylinder, which locks the barrel and cylinder half of the revolver to the frame, is in a spot that can be particularly sensitive to chamber pressure. Very powerful, high pressure cartridges can cause the lock to either break or pop open as a round is being fired. Not a good thing.

The other common kind of action, the Gate Loading action, is what the Colt 1873 SAA uses, as well as all the other revolvers that are based on it. With this action, the cylinder is locked in place by a pin that passes through its axis. The cylinder static except to rotate by use of the hammer and/or trigger mechanisms. The gun is loaded through what is called a gate on the right side of the frame behind the cylinder. To load, the gate has to be opened, then each cartridge can be loaded into each chamber one at a time, as each chamber is rotated in front of the gate while one hand holds the hammer back slightly and the other rotates the cylinder. The gate is then shut and the revolver can be fired. To unload, the gate is opened and each cartridge has to be extracted through the use of either gravity (tilting the barrel up so that the case falls through the gate) or a spring-loaded ejector rod which rests underneath the barrel. The rod is pushed back through the chamber in the loading position, pushing the empty case through the loading gate. Very time-consuming.