Colt Single Action Army handgun
Also known as the Colt Peacemaker or Single Action Army, the Colt Single Action Army handgun is a single action revolver holding 6 rounds of ammunition, that was designed for the US cavalry by Colt's Manufacturing Company and adopted in 1875, and it was perhaps the most prolific pistol in the wild west.
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Ammunition
The Single Action Army uses .45 Long Colt (.45 LC) cartridges, which should not be confused with the .45 Automatic Colt Pistol (.45 ACP) cartridge commonly used in semi-automatic pistols. Standard .45 ACP ammunition is regulated to under 21,000 PSI, while .45 LC must be kept under 14,000 PSI to be safe in older guns. Despite the lower pressure, the muzzle velocity of the Single Action Army is about the same as--or slightly higher than--many .45 ACP pistols, due to its long barrel length.
Operation
The term "single action" refers to the behavior of the trigger. Its hammer must be cocked manually before each shot, and the trigger performs only a single action, releasing the hammer. Most modern revolvers are "double action," as pulling the trigger will both cock and release the hammer.
Like many other contemporaneous revolvers, the cylinder of the Single Action Army can hold 6 rounds. However, because there is no mechanism which prevents a round from discharging a loaded chamber if the hammer is struck forcibly, most prudent users will only load "five beans in the wheel." Although many modern reproductions, such as those made by Beretta, utilize a transfer-bar safety which prevents such an accidental discharge, many people still choose to load only 5 cartridges for the sake of historical accuracy.
Loading
The common loading method is to load 1, miss 1, then load the rest. This causes the empty chamber to be under the hammer. When the hammer is cocked, it will rotate the chamber to one with a round inside. Furthermore, as the swing-out chamber had yet to be invented, Colt Peacemakers are loaded by opening a swiveling flap on the right side of the gun, behind the chamber. Each round is loaded individually as the user turns the cylinder and ejects the casing with the built-in ejection rod attached below the barrel.
Legacy
The Single Action Army is still being manufactured today, although genuine Peacemakers back from the wild west are obviously rare and highly regarded as collectors items. The gun is perhaps most widely associated with the wild west and spaghetti westerns, although many films and cultural shows still use this.
A villain of Metal Gear Solid, Revolver Ocelot, wields a Single Action Army, commenting that it is the "single greatest handgun ever made" before doing battle. He adopts the weapon in the prequel, Metal Gear Solid 3, after he jams his semiautomatic Makarov pistol during combat with Naked Snake.