Revolvers for lefties

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I'm left handed and have always found SA revolvers easy to use. Never gave much thought to it till now. Whether Colt was left-handed or not makes no difference to me, I'm a good shooter with most Ruger Blackhawks and find loading and unloading pleasantly easy for target shooting.

I used to carry a Rossi 462 or SP101 with me in my front pocket of my pants (sometimes carried both at the same time). My XDS .45 ACP rendered that moot as I find it more comfortable to shoot, carry, and like a bigger slower heavier bullet for CCW at this point. I'll never give up my snubs short of wolves growling at the door, but my XDS has been great after the first 200 rounds (the first two hundred was a pain in the neck, now it run flawless and I can run two five round mags and one seven round mag through it with rapid fire with only a break to reload.

I accepted I wasn't likely going to be reloading in a fire fight with a snub nose as I'm a civilian and likely wouldn't be taking on hardened criminals outside a mugging, so I got good with the six shots I had and made sure to practice so i could hit what I was aiming at with point shooting and rapid firing out to seven yards. I did some twenty yard shooting with the snub but that was more fun than practical.

I prefer revolvers but I have to admit that semis are easier for left handed people if they are Sigs, Glocks, or Ruger P Series pistols. 1911s with ambi safeties are good too but I'd rather have a Sig 220 out of personal preference.
 
Except for slapping the ejector with the strong hand, Ayoobs technique is identical to mine. I may have to give that a try. Looks very effective.
 
I was just practicing my left handed operation on a sp101. You guys nailed it. Left forefinger operates the cylinder release. Right thumb pushes the cylinder and right index finger ejects cases. Easy as pie. Don't know why I thought it would be an issue.
 
Clang's method for DA revolver reloading has worked for me for decades.
As far as the SA, it works perfectly for me, being a lefty.

Why would the military buy/issue a lefty gun?
Why would they buy/issue a jamomatic that poops where it eats?

The fact that which hand was dominant for Sam Colt is not documented does not automatically mean he was right handed.
To assume that is the same as to assume that he was left handed.
I think we will never know.
Perhaps he was ambidextrous?
I have no trouble capping my C&B revolvers, as a lefty, with my right hand.

Didn't cavalry use the left hand for revolver and the right hand for saber?
If so, that would explain a lot.

Who knows?
Who cares?
The righties sure seem to get their undies in a bunch over the mere suggestion of it, though.:D

I shoot handguns equally well (or is that poorly?) with either hand.
However, the SA is definitely easier for me to load as a lefty.
Especially when using 1911 mags as speed loaders with the .45ACP cylinder of my BH convertible.

BTW, I mean no offense here.

I have learned to use right handed guns as a left handed person.
Left handed guns look funny to me.
The only LH gun I own is a Savage 110 .30-06.
 
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This doesn't explain well in print, but I shoot lefty, with my right hand wrapped around my left in a 2 handed grip. When I reload I shift my left hand around the front of the frame and hit the cylinder latch with my right thumb and swing the cylinder out with my left middle and ring fingers and hit the ejector rod with my left thumb, then feed new rounds in with my right hand.

I'm not sure it's competition worthy, but it works pretty smoothly for me and does not feel unnatural at all.
 
And again, why was the capping cutout/loading gate on the right side of Remington revolvers as well??? They were forward thinking enough to add a topstrap but copied Colt on the left handed place of those features? Please.

Colt was a marketing genius and he also came from an era where left-handedness was seen as wrong and schools sought to correct it. A practice alive and well when my left-handed father was in school. Left-handed people are a fraction of the population 11-15% (today's numbers). It is silly beyond words to think that not only was Colt left handed but that he designed his sixguns for a minute fraction of the population, that the Army could've had anything they wanted in the Single Action Army but chose a left-handed design (again!) because a few casual left handed shooters think it's more convenient to keep their shooting grip while they take two minutes to reload their SAA at the local indoor range.

When these guns were state of the art fighting tools, there was no training mantra for using both hands for all purposes. If you were right-handed, you were right-handed. You did most things, especially those that require dexterity, with your right hand. If you were left-handed, you were converted and usually ended up ambidextrous. These guns were designed to be as efficient as possible because unlike the casual popping away at the range today, in those days your life depended on it. So the capping cutout was placed on the right side, so that the more dextrous right hand could be used for capping. The loading gate is a carryover from that. William Mason designed the SAA, a decade after Colt's death, in a matter of months and strictly for the Army contract. So why anyone would think Mason would design a left handed sixgun or that the Army would want one, is highly questionable.

The cavalry carried their sabers on the left side as their primary weapon. The revolver was carried butt forward on the right side so that it could be withdrawn with either hand. No, they did not charge with their saber in the right hand and their pistol in the left.

All this from a right handed shooter who loads with his left hand.
 
"dumb" handed here too

Though I don't believe SAs were built "for" lefties I sure don't see it as an big damn deal for a lefty to run. Been a lefty for nearly 55 years and running RH guns since I was 10. Buying a LH firearm would probably only frustrate me then I probably couldn't sell it.

Bottom feeders, SA and DA revolvers, scatterguns, to semi auto rifles that used to throw brass and burned powder in my face. Not real issues. Some of us adapt and neither of my hands just hang there like a swinging "dumb" appendage. :rolleyes: If I have to swap hands to load that's ok, I can shoot with that one too, at least good enough for fist fight ranges. :D

Carry on
 
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I have a Charter Southpaw. It's a neat thing to have, but they don't intend make anything else besides a snub nosed .38. There isn't even a .22. Once you shoot a Southpaw a good bit it gets a little fiddly to reload quickly. Then, opening and closing the gun with your left hand on the grip doesn't really work all that well.

I can do all the opening, holding and closing of my Rugers and S&Ws with my off hand while the loading is done with my left. I have watched the way RH do it and have done it the RH way in reverse with the Southpaw. Running a RH gun LH'ed seems more fluid to me. That may be because that is the way I've mostly done it, but I'm pretty sure it is at least as smooth.

Every left should buy a Southpaw just to have one. It's a reminder of how often righties are wrong even when they try to design something for themselves.

Also, there are the Iver Johnson Bulldog and Nagant revolvers that load from the better side. :neener:
 
CraigC said:
And again, why was the capping cutout/loading gate on the right side of Remington revolvers as well??? They were forward thinking enough to add a topstrap but copied Colt on the left handed place of those features? Please.

Colt was a marketing genius and he also came from an era where left-handedness was seen as wrong and schools sought to correct it. A practice alive and well when my left-handed father was in school. Left-handed people are a fraction of the population 11-15% (today's numbers). It is silly beyond words to think that not only was Colt left handed but that he designed his sixguns for a minute fraction of the population, that the Army could've had anything they wanted in the Single Action Army but chose a left-handed design (again!) because a few casual left handed shooters think it's more convenient to keep their shooting grip while they take two minutes to reload their SAA at the local indoor range.

When these guns were state of the art fighting tools, there was no training mantra for using both hands for all purposes. If you were right-handed, you were right-handed. You did most things, especially those that require dexterity, with your right hand. If you were left-handed, you were converted and usually ended up ambidextrous. These guns were designed to be as efficient as possible because unlike the casual popping away at the range today, in those days your life depended on it. So the capping cutout was placed on the right side, so that the more dextrous right hand could be used for capping. The loading gate is a carryover from that. William Mason designed the SAA, a decade after Colt's death, in a matter of months and strictly for the Army contract. So why anyone would think Mason would design a left handed sixgun or that the Army would want one, is highly questionable.

The cavalry carried their sabers on the left side as their primary weapon. The revolver was carried butt forward on the right side so that it could be withdrawn with either hand. No, they did not charge with their saber in the right hand and their pistol in the left.

All this from a right handed shooter who loads with his left hand.
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Craig, why are you taking all the fun out of it by presenting facts. You should know by now that it's emotion not facts that rule the net.

Seriously, I don't know who, if, or why about any of this stuff. I just know that I can reload my single action Ruger revolvers much easier than I can reload all but a very few double action revolvers.

Truth be told it's been decades since I've needed a hand gun for anything but targets and critters. Still, given a choice of handguns for anything more serious I'd opt for my left handed 1911. Why handicap oneself at a time like that?
 
You should know by now that it's emotion not facts that rule the net.
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Ain't that the truth!


It takes two hands to reload a revolver. I have never felt that being a southpaw made the task any more difficult. In some ways, I think that I have it easier.
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I think with an efficient technique and practice, it really doesn't make a difference.
 
All I think is, I have to handle loose rounds and speed loaders with my strong right hand or I drop more then I hit the holes with.

That makes Colt & Ruger SA's load on the 'Correct' side for me.

DA revolvers I have to switch to my left hand to handle the reloads with my right hand.

So, near as I can tell, a lefty would have to swap hands one way or the other to do the same thing.

One of my sons is left handed, and he is faster then I am reloading my 'right hand' guns.

rc
 
I'm a leftie and have shot all kinds of guns all my life. I like the way my Colt Agent works, left finger pulls back the release, pop out the cylinder with right thumb, reach around with right index finger and dump empties into left hand and then reload with left hand, pop back in and go. The most critical part of the operation is putting new cartridges in and I gravitate toward my dominant hand for those types of things anyway.

I've never really understood "left vs right" with guns. Unless you had a semi-auto that ejects straight back into your forehead what is the issue? I always ran bolt actions and pump actions with my right hand ejecting out the right side. I think I would be confused with a designed "left handed" gun. It would be like sitting down at a computer with the mouse on the left side and the buttons reversed.
 
Not a lefty.

But seems to me that you could just transition it to the right hand and reload like a righty... then transition back to left hand. Would be very smooth and easy to accomplish and add only two additional steps - transitioning to right hand at the start and end - which are instantly doable.
 
dwh4784 said:
I'm a leftie and have shot all kinds of guns all my life. I like the way my Colt Agent works, left finger pulls back the release, pop out the cylinder with right thumb, reach around with right index finger and dump empties into left hand and then reload with left hand, pop back in and go. The most critical part of the operation is putting new cartridges in and I gravitate toward my dominant hand for those types of things anyway.

I've never really understood "left vs right" with guns. Unless you had a semi-auto that ejects straight back into your forehead what is the issue? I always ran bolt actions and pump actions with my right hand ejecting out the right side. I think I would be confused with a designed "left handed" gun. It would be like sitting down at a computer with the mouse on the left side and the buttons reversed.
Click to expand...
I have the mouse on my computer set up that way.
 
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