Since its component parts can be folded inward towards the cylinder, it is easily concealable inside a pocket. It was common to leave an empty chamber with no cartridge under the hammer, as the weapon has no trigger guard or safety catch.
Bright idea: put a loaded gun with no safety in your pocket.
To be fair that accurately describes the precautions taken with many early revolvers. It would objectively be safer at the cost of a round of capacity. A lot of mechanical safeties and safety conventions weren’t around at the time.
Well your quote is saying it was common to leave an empty chamber under the hammer, so that’s about as safe as it gets.
It wasn’t/isn’t even uncommon to carry a revolver in one’s pocket fully loaded (with a round under the uncocked hammer), but generally there would be a trigger guard to help prevent the trigger being pressed through one’s clothes or by other contents in the pocket. But these would also generally be double-action revolvers with very heavy triggers.
Bright idea: put a loaded gun with no safety in your pocket.
To be fair that accurately describes the precautions taken with many early revolvers. It would objectively be safer at the cost of a round of capacity. A lot of mechanical safeties and safety conventions weren’t around at the time.
Well your quote is saying it was common to leave an empty chamber under the hammer, so that’s about as safe as it gets.
It wasn’t/isn’t even uncommon to carry a revolver in one’s pocket fully loaded (with a round under the uncocked hammer), but generally there would be a trigger guard to help prevent the trigger being pressed through one’s clothes or by other contents in the pocket. But these would also generally be double-action revolvers with very heavy triggers.