Rust armorer found guilty

[Reiver]

“With the hammer de-cocked on a loaded chamber, the gun was able to detonate a primer "without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly," which is normal for this type of revolver, the report stated.”

That is not what took place.... as stated above all original Colts hammers rested near the primer of a loaded cylinder..fully forward, not cocked. If you struck the hammer spur hard, like with a rock, or dropped the weapon landing on its hammer it could discharge. However, you had to hit the hammer with something for this to happen...just holding it in your hand would do nada. Striking the hammer with the heel of your hand would likely give you a nice bruise but would not discharge a round unless you were the Hulk.

Many carried a Colt, myself included, with 5 rounds chambered and the hammer down on an empty chamber.

When cocked, as numbnutz did, this event is not in play. You can hit the hammer when cocked and the trigger sear will still hold it in place.

As the investigation showed...when at full cock the hammer would only fall when the trigger was pulled....numbnutz cocked the weapon and admitted as much. He pulled the trigger.

[Reiver]

I like your Original Colt but don't care for the 'safety' non original styled models...this is my snaker/varmint Colt....is very accurate as the rear and front sight in the '71 model are on the barrel.
It has the same hammer / sear system as the later Colts.
This was the modern Colt design made from the pre cartridge/cap and ball models before the '72/'73 popular Colt single action we all grew up with.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Reiver

“With the hammer de-cocked on a loaded chamber, the gun was able to detonate a primer "without a pull of the trigger when the hammer was struck directly," which is normal for this type of revolver, the report stated.”

That is not what took place.... as stated above all original Colts hammers rested near the primer of a loaded cylinder..fully forward, not cocked. If you struck the hammer spur hard, like with a rock, or dropped the weapon landing on its hammer it could discharge. However, you had to hit the hammer with something for this to happen...just holding it in your hand would do nada. Striking the hammer with the heel of your hand would likely give you a nice bruise but would not discharge a round unless you were the Hulk.

Many carried a Colt, myself included, with 5 rounds chambered and the hammer down on an empty chamber.

When cocked, as numbnutz did, this event is not in play. You can hit the hammer when cocked and the trigger sear will still hold it in place.

As the investigation showed...when at full cock the hammer would only fall when the trigger was pulled....numbnutz cocked the weapon and admitted as much. He pulled the trigger.

Yup. The idiots running cover for Mr. Baldwin do not know enough about any of this to even tell good lies about it.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Reiver

I like your Original Colt but don't care for the 'safety' non original styled models...this is my snaker/varmint Colt....is very accurate as the rear and front sight in the '71 model are on the barrel.
It has the same hammer / sear system as the later Colts.
This was the modern Colt design made from the pre cartridge/cap and ball models before the '72/'73 popular Colt single action we all grew up with.

Yeah, not a big fan of the transfer bar Rugers. They necessarily add some weight and creep to the tigger pull, and I've never felt like the added round was enough of an advantage to put up with that. At least not for where and why I pack a single action.

[Reiver]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Yeah, not a big fan of the transfer bar Rugers. They necessarily add some weight and creep to the tigger pull, and I've never felt like the added round was enough of an advantage to put up with that. At least not for where and why I pack a single action.

On our 'Gold Rush Day's' town event you see more Colts worn than anything..real Colts.
It is the official State gun of Arizona.

Lots of Cowboys still pack them when working out by themselves too....

[Jeff Higgins]

Yes, indeed. Colt Single Action Armies are still, even in this modern age, eminently useful guns. If I'm packing a sidearm, it is as often as not a Colt SAA. I like them because they are quite small, very rugged, and powerful enough (with my handloads in .45 Colt) to offer real protection when in the wilderness. I do go through them and replace all of their flat springs with music wire springs from Wolfe, but that's just me. I've had the flat trigger/bolt springs break in as little as 50,000 rounds, so I'm taking no chances...

[sc_rufctr]

In the simplest terms... Mr Baldwin may have pulled the trigger without realizing it.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

In the simplest terms... Mr Baldwin may have pulled the trigger without realizing it.

I wonder what the pull weight on that trigger is?

[Baz]

Stuff like this kinda sucks because I really enjoyed Baldwin's acting in most of his movies, "The Hunt for Red October" being his best.

That said - look at what happened to the director of "The Hunt for Red October" - Mr. John McTieirnan, who also directed "Die Hard" and "Predator"....click

It's the nature of the beast for mankind to have ups and downs. At the end of the day it mostly boils down to both Karma and/or just irresponsible behaviour....

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

I wonder what the pull weight on that trigger is?

Unless it's been worked on to reduce the pull weight, most SAA's and their clones I've seen are over three pounds, if not four to five pounds. I see no reason why a prop gun would ever receive any attention in an effort to reduce its trigger pull and, even if it did, it's almost impossible to get these things under about two and a half pounds. Unlike double actions, the rear end of the trigger goes into a notch on the hammer, directly, with no intervening mechanism to help with leverage. The hammer must fall with a certain minimum force to make the thing go off, requiring a certain minimum weight of hammer spring, which directly influences how hard it is to pull that end of the trigger out of the notch in the hammer.

In other words, there is no such thing as a "hair trigger" on a single action. It takes a very deliberate pull to make the hammer fall. Those of us who have played this game for awhile all knew, from the get go, that Mr. Baldwin deliberately pulled that trigger. Worse yet, he had to have deliberately pulled the hammer back before he did that. Two very deliberate, unmistakeable actions carried out against some very noticeable resistance.

Like I said, these idiots don't even know enough about any of this to tell good lies about it. But, they do count on their adoring fans and apologists to not know either. The fact that this had to go all the way to an FBI forensics test is ludicrous but, in the end, probably necessary to convince folks what really took place. Experienced single action shooters knew from the first report but, then again, we see self appointed experts who have never handled one who think they know better. We see that at play on this very forum, every day, on a myriad of topics...

[Reiver]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

In the simplest terms... Mr Baldwin may have pulled the trigger without realizing it.

If his role entailed him as a 'shootist' and he'd been doing draw/cock/fire, then as a neophyte, muscle memory may have simply taken over.

He still pulled the trigger and aimed a weapon at folks for a joke. Some joke.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

In the simplest terms... Mr Baldwin may have pulled the trigger without realizing it.

Originally Posted by Reiver

If his role entailed him as a 'shootist' and he'd been doing draw/cock/fire, then as a neophyte, muscle memory may have simply taken over.

He still pulled the trigger and aimed a weapon at folks for a joke. Some joke.

The problem with this is that Mr. Baldwin first had to pull the hammer back to its fully cocked position. Look at the photos above. Look at how far back that is. A very long arc, against noticeably stiff resistance making four very audible and tactile clicks along the way. There is simply no way he could have cocked the hammer without realizing it.

[Crowbob]

Do we know the status of the gun before it came to be in Baldwin’s hands?

Was it cocked, decocked, partially cocked?

If the gun was decocked before he even got his hands on it, while holstered, it is possible he didn’t pull the trigger.

Just sayin’. I’m not defending the guy in any way. But it seems to me, from everything in this thread, it is possible, however unlikely, that the gun fired without Baldwin having pulled the trigger.

To reiterate: I’m not defending him. He is ultimately responsible for what happened even if he didn’t pull the trigger. The man probably thinks that even though he quick-drew a weapon and aimed it somebody but did not pull the trigger he should be absolved of any responsibility.

Now, did he somehow impact the hammer with sufficient force to fire a round? If the the gun was decocked, per what I’ve read here, he had to have for it to fire.

[flatbutt]

Maybe I'm being thick headed but how can a revolver in a de-cocked status have enough energy to activate a primer?

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

Maybe I'm being thick headed but how can a revolver in a de-cocked status have enough energy to activate a primer?

Applied external energy....IE: stuck with any object, say a rock or the forehead of a liberal..

I just saw an old interview [Dec?] with Alex Baldwin where he said "I let go of the hammer and it just went off". That would suggest that the sear didn't hold the hammer in place or he didn't cock the pistol enough to engage the sear.
Still sounds like bullshyt to me.

[sc_rufctr]

So anyway... They whole thing has been determined to have been an accident.
IMO Mr Baldwin is off the hook legally for now but there will likely be some legal "costs" ahead of him.

Meanwhile he'll never admit fault or liability but because of that he may find in time dealing with what happened difficult on a personal level.

RIP Ms Hutchins.

[Henry Schmidt]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

So anyway... They whole thing has been determined to have been an accident.
IMO Mr Baldwin is off the hook legally for now but there will likely be some legal "costs" ahead of him.

Meanwhile he'll never admit fault or liability but because of that he may find in time dealing with what happened difficult on a personal level.

RIP Ms Hutchins.

Sociopaths don't seek clarity. They are "clear" from the jump and they don't care about anything other than how it affects them. He murdered a friend because he was too important to think about what might happen or who might be affected.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Unless it's been worked on to reduce the pull weight, most SAA's and their clones I've seen are over three pounds, if not four to five pounds.

Like this? (ugh)

[Jeff Higgins]

You guys are thinking way, way too much in terms of modern firearms, with their decockers, safeties, and such. These guns simply do not work that way. They are very, very simple mechanisms.

The only way to "decock" one of these is to hold the fully cocked hammer, by its spur, with the thumb. Pull the trigger, and carefully lower the hammer while controlling it with that thumb. When that hammer is lowered, to its rest position (fully forward) there is no "stored energy"as there would be in, say, a "decocked" Glock.

If there is an empty chamber aligned with the hammer and the barrel (as there should be), the hammer will be resting on the frame. If there is a live round aligned with the hammer (and the barrel), the hammer mounted firing pin will be resting on that round's primer. There will not be enough energy stored in the system, via spring pressure, to detonate that primer and fire that round, regardless of how the gun gets handled or jostled about. That firing pin, mounted to that hammer, is resting very lightly on that primer. It would take an external force - a sharp blow - to that hammer and firing pin assembly to drive it with enough force into that primer to detonate it. A force equivalent to dropping that gun from some height, or striking the hammer spur deliberately, with some force, with something like a hammer. As Reiver points out, we cannot hit that hammer spur hard enough with our hand to ignite the primer. If we tried, our only reward would be a deep, painful gouge in our hand, and the gun still would not fire.

[sc_rufctr]

Originally Posted by Henry Schmidt

Sociopaths don't seek clarity. They are "clear" from the jump and they don't care about anything other than how it affects them. He murdered a friend because he was too important to think about what might happen or who might be affected.

IMO Alec "Baldballs" is way more guilty of (insert your preferred descriptor here) than anything The Idiot Chauvin did.

DC was trying to do his job, very poorly as it turned out.
AB was careless and/or ignorant but we still don't know how that live round got into the gun.