Is "Fanning" Hammer Illegal?

[Jackal]

I got to thinking this morning (scary) and going strictly by ATF wording, would fanning a revolver hammer count as making it full auto? Its technically firing more than one shot with the pull of the trigger, but does working the hammer count as "manual reloading" ?

ATF: "Any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger."

 

[The Bushmaster]

NO, but stupid and dangerous. Fanning is a hollywood invention and the weapon must be modified.

 

[Sam1911]

No, but you raise an interesting point of just how subjective regulatory interpretation of the law has to be.

The answer is NO, most clearly as you surmise: because operating the hammer rotates the cylinder which would be the action of "manual reloading."

But the answer is also NO because the BATFE has a consistent precedent of establishing what "manual reloading" means. In any revolver which operated as a semi-automatic (Webley-Fosbery for example), the line would get a little more blurry. (If, of course, somehow the W-F had to be re-coked by hand and you could fan the hammer... obviously very hypothetical.)

However, the ATF would also be highly unlikely to go after any gun where you'd still have to perform a manual operation to set off each primer. In other words, if you have to pull back and release the hammer, the ATF would almost certainly consider that to be a "trigger" function, even though that part isn't technically called a trigger. You've just bypassed the defined trigger to trigger the gun by a different means.

Remember, that cranked-trigger devices (like hand-cranked Gatling guns, or the bolt-on trigger cranks available) are deemed to not violate the NFA, even though one full rotation of the crank might fire the gun 4+ times.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Better.