—“Fill Your Hand,” as told by Fred E. Sutton to A.B. Macdonald, in the April 10, 1926, issue of The Saturday Evening Post
I have seen many a movie actor pull the hammer of a six-shooter back with the ball of the thumb, but the gun fighter never did that. As his hand closed around the stock of his six-shooter, his thumb shut down upon the hammer — not the ball of his thumb, but the second joint — and as the gun was drawn free of belt or holster, the thumb pressed down and cocked it, another motion swung the muzzle forward, the thumb was lifted and the hammer fell.
The gun was never lifted to the level of the eyes, nor sighted, when quick action was necessary. That would have been lost motion that might mean death to the one foolishly wasting so much time. If pulled from the belt, the gun was fired from the hip. If pulled from a holster beneath the arm, it was fired from that level. And six shots were never fired, for the reason that no experienced gunman ever had six loaded cartridges in his gun. There was always one empty chamber for the hammer to rest upon, for safety.
An adroit gunman could raise the hammer and release it with his thumb so rapidly that the five shots would follow one another without a discernible break in the continuous b-r-r-r-r-r of the reports. That was called fanning. All the fastest shooters in the old days were fanners. They had to be to survive.
Read the entire article “Fill Your Hand” from the April 10, 1926, issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
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