Fanning six-guns...
Howdy All,
The problem with fanning is what happens once the hammer reaches the rear end of the travel. Most sixguns have some overtravel; that is, the hammer travels further past the full cock notch until it bottoms-out on either the top of the backstrap or, much worse, shoves the hand up against the "star" on the back of the now stationary cylinder.
If the bolt /cylinder stop has popped up into the notch like it's suposed to the hand is either gonna get buggered up or the star on the back of the cylinder will get mangled. So while fanning you have the trigger held back and the hammer batters these parts 4-5-6 times in a row. You'll have screwed up some parts pretty quick if y'all do this very often.
Now Rugers have a coil mainspring with a strut which can be easily fitted with a overtravel stop. Brownell's sells 'em. You can fan away and nothing will get screwed-up. Fast draw specialists like Bill Munden offer very expensive "fast-draw" action jobs which I assume include some sort of overtravel stop.
I really would love to see one of his action jobs to see what his overtravel stops consist of. I'm willing to bet he just installs a Ruger style coil conversion.
Now I have installed low-rent overtravel stops in a few of my six-shooters.
Nothing more than a #8 set screw behind the trigger guard running vertically to contact the mainspring as the hammer pushes it downward. It works fine and prevents the hand/star from damage but in NO WAY could it withstand regular fanning.
Now I just got a Pietta 1851 "Ols Silver" which is unique in having NO HAMMER OVERTRAVEL ! the back of the hammer hits the backstrap right as the trigger pops into the full-cock notch. Even so, I'm not gonna start fanning away like the "Man With NO Name"...
The metal at the top of the backstrap ain't all that thick, don't really want to find out what happens when it's pounded on repeatedly.
Happy Trails,
Slim