ELi5: In a wild west movie or game, when a gunslinger puts their revolver into their holster it often makes a “click”. (for example in Red Dead Redemption 2). Would this happen in real life, and if so, what is it caused by?
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I was usually under the impression they tend to pull the hammer back on the revolver, to save a little time in pulling the trigger and to show intent you are really planning to fire. If holstering the weapon they would slide it back in and simultaneously flick the hammer back into neutral and that would be the click sound.
It’s just the firearm equivalent of the “Zing!” sound a sword must make as it’s drawn. It’s Hollywood Law.
It’s a best practice safety thing. Some revolvers called single action require you to pull back the hammer with your thumb and the trigger only releases the hammer. Pulling back the hammer locks it, this is called cocking the gun. A double action revolver allows the trigger to pull back the hammer and release it when you pull it all the way back. But most double action revolvers can also lock the hammer manually because squeezing the trigger fully can affect your aim. There are hammerless revolvers which are always double action, where it’s an internal mechanism and squeezing the trigger hard is the only way to fire. Jostling the revolver while cocked could also accidentally fire it. So when you holster the weapon you’d want to deliberately uncock the hammer or check that’s it’s uncocked if you were not sure how you left the hammer.
When you see a gunslinger use their off hand to swipe the back of a gun while quickly firing that’s usually a single action. When Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood movie character) pulls out his enormous 44 magnum and locks the hammer, he’s actually just getting his double action pistol ready for a clean shot.
It’s a dramatic effect added to indicate that the gunslinger eases down the hammer on their single action revolver, making it safe. De-cocking the hammer on a real revolver doesn’t make this sound.
It’s just the firearm equivalent of the “Zing!” sound a sword must make as it’s drawn. It’s Hollywood Law.
I was usually under the impression they tend to pull the hammer back on the revolver, to save a little time in pulling the trigger and to show intent you are really planning to fire. If holstering the weapon they would slide it back in and simultaneously flick the hammer back into neutral and that would be the click sound.
Old style single action pistols had a “Safety” setting where you’d pull the hammer back to a locking notch. This clicked. Pulling the trigger (single action) would not move the hammer or fire, so it was an early style of safety. You’d have to fully retract the hammer (another click) then pull the trigger to fire.
Lots of single action pistols had a tang on the hammer so you could thumb cock and fire. Some designs allowed you to “fan” the hammer tang for rapid fire. Old TV westerns made this famous in gunfights. You could fire all six in under two seconds. Aim, however, was a different issue.
It’s just the firearm equivalent of the “Zing!” sound a sword must make as it’s drawn. It’s Hollywood Law.
It’s an added sound to indicate heightened or lessened danger, I think it probs my corms from the old movies when characters would cock guns to show that they were serious or deadly. The sword version of this in various media is called “Audible Sharpness”. Most media add a sound or sounds to tell you that a dangerous thing has been deployed or put away, otherwise they’d have to use dialogue and/or an action sequence, it’s mostly just a convenient shorthand for the viewer to know how heavy and/or real the shit is at the moment.
Old style single action pistols had a “Safety” setting where you’d pull the hammer back to a locking notch. This clicked. Pulling the trigger (single action) would not move the hammer or fire, so it was an early style of safety. You’d have to fully retract the hammer (another click) then pull the trigger to fire.
Lots of single action pistols had a tang on the hammer so you could thumb cock and fire. Some designs allowed you to “fan” the hammer tang for rapid fire. Old TV westerns made this famous in gunfights. You could fire all six in under two seconds. Aim, however, was a different issue.
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