You'd think it would be an industry standard. Even back in the day...
Howdy
Just what does 'back in the day' mean? That phrase gets used a lot, but it is meaningless. Are you talking about 1860? 1900? 1950?
Revolvers were first developed before the Civil War, Sam Colt built his Paterson Colt in 1836. There was no such thing as Industry Standards back then. Even as late as World War II there were problems with interchangeability of screw threads between British and American standards, when tanks were breaking down and replacement nuts did not fit.
But I digress.
The major makers of percussion revolvers around the time of the Civil War all made revolvers with cylinders that rotated clockwise when viewed from the rear. A popular myth has sprung up around this claiming it is because Sam Colt was left handed. The real reason is that the majority of people are right handed, and it is easier to put caps on the nipples of a revolver using the right hand for the fine motor skills required when capping a C&B revolver. If the cylinder rotated the opposite direction, most of us would be fumbling with our left hands trying to cap the nipples.
The Colt Single Action Army was simply an evolutionary step forward from the earlier Colt C&B designs. Much of the internal mechanism was very similar, so the cylinder continued to rotate clockwise. And it was still easier to load cartridges with the right hand than the left. Same with the cartridge revolvers manufactured by Remington.
When Double Action revolvers became practical, most of them had a design very different than the old Single Action Revolvers. Most had a side plate, and the mechanism was inside the frame under the side plate. To assemble these revolvers, you had to lay the parts inside in a specific order, and that dictated which way the cylinder rotated.
Here is a photo of a Smith & Wesson 44 Double Action, a large 44 caliber Top Break revolver from the 1880s. The side plate has been removed to show the internal mechanism. The arrow points to the hand. The position of the hand dictates that this cylinder rotates clockwise when viewed from the rear.
This is the very first revolver that S&W made with a swing out cylinder, the 32 Hand Ejector, 1st Model, first made in 1896. Notice the side plate has been switched to the right side of the gun. This cylinder rotates counter clockwise when viewed from the rear. Why did S&W reverse sides for the side plate? I have no idea, but that is the way every S&W revolver has been made ever since.
Here is a photo comparing the lockworks of a S&W 38 Military and Police on the left and a Colt Official Police on the right. (I have removed the hammer block in the Smith for clarity). Notice the way the hands lay on top of everything else in both revolvers. You could not assemble a lockwork like this if the hands were on the bottom. The position of the hands dictates which way the cylinders rotate; counter clockwise with the Smith, clockwise with the Colt.
That is simply the way the designs evolved. End of story. When I was a kid I remember all the ridiculous arguments about which was better, the Colt rotating into the frame or the Smith rotating away from the frame. Colt fans would say the Smith needed the extra latch at the front of the ejector rod to keep the mechanism from opening up.
It was all baloney. The designs simply evolved the way they did, and the marketing departments of both companies used to tout these so called attributes of their designs. But it was all baloney, and the argument still goes on today.
For the record, I have never encountered a S&W revolver whose cylinder was so resistant to rotating that the yoke would be forced open when working the action. If such a thing occurred, there was probably some old, dried out oil gunking up the works inside.
