Grummz’s Beretta Stampede
Grummz is planning on getting into Cowboy Action Shooting sometime, so he’s started his collection off with this Beretta Stampede. This was the fun gun at the range. I forget what this one is chambered in…I want to say .45 Long Colt, but I’m probably wrong.
What impressed me about this sixgun was the process of loading and firing it. Let me see if I remember this correctly:
- Though it’s a six-shooter, you never keep a live round under the hammer (old revolvers didn’t have the safety features to keep it from going BOOM if you happened to somehow shock the hammer).
- Raise the hammer? Or keep it lowered? I forget
- Start loading by opening the loading gate (the cylinder is fixed, and doesn’t swing out). Load one, skip the next chamber, then load 4 more. Don’t advance cylinder after loading that 5th round.
- Was the hammer raised or lowered? At some point you lower it, and then the hammer rests on top of the empty chamber if you haven’t messed up. Which I’m pretty sure I did…will check later.
- To fire, face the target and yell something appropriate like “No one’s taking my land!” and start doing the single-action dance: thumb the hammer back, aim, trigger, repeat until empty.
- Prepare to reload! Pop open the gate and use the plunger thing to knock the brass out. There’s this cool thing you can do with your hand to rotate the cylinder as you do this. Then, for extra cool points, hold up your left arm (assuming you’re right handed) and roll the cylinder down it to check that all the chambers are empty.
- Repeat
It’s a lot more involved than just jammin’ a new mag into the grip. The gun makes a vast assortment of neat clicking noises…it’s very satisfying. I am looking forward to buying my own set of cowboy guns and giving this a try.