Colt Single Action Army handgun (Modern Verson) Also known as the Colt Peacemaker or Single Action Army, the Colt Single Action Army handgun is a single action revolver holding 6 rounds of ammunition, that was designed for the US cavalry by Colt's Manufacturing Company and adopted in 1875, and it is perhaps the most widely proliferated pistol in the wild west.
Ammunition
The Single Action Army uses .45 Long Colt (.45 LC) cartridges, which should not be confused with the .45 Automatic Colt Pistol (.45 ACP) cartridge commonly used in semi-automatic pistols. Since the exit velocity is slower than that of modern handguns, the rounds do not penetrate through the body but tend to remain lodged. This can cause the wounds to be more dangerous, as some are known to never heal.
Operation
The term "single action" refers to the action of the hammer. Unlike more modern revolvers or pistols, its hammer must be cocked each time before it is fired. Thus, modern pistols and revolvers are regarded as "double action" in this respect, where pulling the trigger will cock and release the hammer.
Like many other contemporaneous revolvers, the cylinder of the Single Action Army can hold 6 rounds. However, because there is no mechanism which prevent a round from discharging a loaded chamber if the hammer is struck forcibly, prudent users often will only load "five beans in the wheel".
Loading
The common loading method is to Load 1, miss 1, load the rest. This causes the empty chamber to be in the place of the hammer. When the hammer is cocked, it will rotate the chamber to one with a round inside. Furthermore, as the swivel chamber had yet to be invented, Colt Peacemakers are loaded by opening a swiveling flap on the right side of the gun, behind the chamber. Each round is loaded individually as the user turns the barrel and ejects the casing with the inbuilt ejection rod attached below the barrel.
Legacy
The Single Action Army is still being manufactured today, although geniune Peacemakers back from the wild west are obviously rare and highly regarded as collectors items. The gun is perhaps most widely associated with the wild west and spaghetti westerns, although many films and cultural shows still use this.
The villain of Metal Gear Solid, Revolver Ocelot, wields a Single Action Army, commenting that it is the "single greatest handgun ever made" before doing battle. He adopts the weapon in the prequel, Metal Gear Solid 3, after he jams his semiautomatic Makarov pistol.
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