Do all SAA's have an offset trigger?

[Lovesbeer99]

I recently got my first SAA, a Cimarron model p, 5 1/2" in .357 mag. It feels great in my left hand but I drag wood with my right, so I took a close look at it, and the trigger is offset to the left side. Is this normal?
FYI it's purposely offset, this was not a mistake.

 

[Old Fuff]

No, it's not a mistake. Colt has been making revolvers set up that way since 1847. On the inside the cylinder bolt (the part that sticks up through the frame and locks the cylinder, and the trigger sit side-by-side. So the bolt is off-center on one side, and the trigger on the other.

Ruger revolvers are the same way, but they make the fingerpiece on the trigger wider so it appears to be centered.

 

[chriske]

I was once made to believe Samuel Colt designed them that way (trigger offset to the left, loading gate on the right, ejector rod tab on the left) because he was left-handed.
Some Texas-based firm once made "true right-handed SA's". (Longhorn Arms ?). They mirrored this setup.
Don't know if they still do.

 

[calaverasslim]

nope, they went out of business years ago.

 

[foghornl]

Hmmmm

Never really paid that much attention to how my SA revolvers were made with those offsets....now I gotta go look.

 

[Jim K]

Part of the "Colt was a lefty" story is based on the loading gate being on the right, when it seems more logical to have it on the left for a right handed person. But if the right hand is more "dexterous" (the word literally means "right handed"), it is that hand that should take on the task of handling and loading cartridges while the left hand holds the gun.

In fact, they simply adapted the old capping cut from the percussion revolvers to take a loading gate. And the capping cut was on the right because it was normal for the more "dexterous" right hand to handle the percussion caps.

Jim

 

[TehK1w1]

I wondered about the trigger the first time I closely examined our new SAA clone close up. I ended up stripping it completely to the receiver to fix a cylinder timing issue and drift out a stuck cylinder base pin, and discovered in the process that the cylinder bolt was sitting next to the trigger, so the trigger had to be offset like that.

The lockwork

Mods, sorry this pic is so huge, but I couldn't get it smaller.