The classic 6" revolver: once the dominant sixgun for target and police work, it still maintains a popular following with shooters

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Among those who like wheel guns, there are those with a particular fondness for 6" barrels. Their popularity has waxed and waned over the years, and they are far less common than their 4" siblings, but some feel this format has never been exceeded for a combination of balance, pointability, power and shooting potential.

Though the defining Colt Single Action of the late 19th Century was available in almost any barrel length a customer chose to order, the three "standard' formats were 4-3/4", 5-1/2", and 7-1/2". The latter was the "cavalry" length, the former was the "civilian" model, and the 5-1/2" style, also known as the "artillery model" occupied the middle ground. Only 1/2" off from the barrel length under discussion, the 5.5" was the compromise gun, and is still seen as such by many in SASS, the Single Action Shooting Society.

In the first half of the 20th Century, the 6" double action revolver was extremely popular in law enforcement. It was seen as more accurate and easier to shoot well with. Foot patrol was far more common then, and a couple of ounces more weight and two more inches of barrel weren't much of a handicap. Sixgun-wielding hunters and hikers didn't see much handicap in the extra length, either.

Six-inch and 6-1/2" were extremely common preferences when sportsmen ordered their Registered Magnum .357s from Smith & Wesson in the early days of handgun hunting, though the original 8-3/4" and subsequent 8-3/8" barrel lengths were also popular, and Smith & Wesson didn't even bother to make their .38/44 Outdoorsman in a shorter than 6" length. If you wanted a Smith or Colt standard-frame .38 Special with adjustable sights, you wouldn't find it in either catalog with a less than 6" barrel.

By the mid-20th Century, police deployment patterns had changed with the times and most cops were riding in police cars. Six-inch barrel revolvers were long for bench seats. Some, such as Florida's Highway Patrol, stayed with cross-draw holsters for their long barrel Colt .357s, and others went with swivel holsters to make seating easier. By the 1970s, however, the long-Tom revolvers were seen as anachronisms, and the 4" barrel service sixgun ruled. Still, the New Jersey State Police stayed with 6" Ruger Security-Six .357s until their adoption of the HK P7 auto, and FHP with their cross-drawn Colts, until the adoption of the Beretta auto and strong side hip holsters, both in the early 1980s.

Today, the 6" revolver has all but disappeared from street policing. I can think of only one cop who carries one, a Midwestern detective who stubbornly wears a 6" S&W Model 629 .44 Magnum to work daily.

Though the 10" sight radius of the old United States Revolver Association was the factor causing S&W to shorten its .357's longest barrel to 8-3/8" for strict compliance, history shows the 6" was by far the most common barrel length chosen by the targeteers. Up through the early 1960s, the period during with the .38 Special revolver ruled the Centerfire stage of bull's-eye, this was certainly the case. Six inches was the standard length of the Colt Officers Model (later the Officers Model Match) and the Smith & Wesson Military & Police Target (later given its more familiar name, the K-38 Masterpiece) from their early 20th Century inception through the lamented discontinuance of each.

Colt's great Python. introduced in 1955, was at first available only with a 6" barrel, and it may well have been the most popular length over the course of its long and stellar tenure of production. Few realize the Python, one of the all-time great .357 Magnums, was originally intended to be a super-deluxe .38 Special target revolver, and was only chambered for the .357 round as a last-minute afterthought, in hopes of additional appeal to the outdoorsman market.

The Colt ruled in bull's-eye until target shooters went to autoloaders for the Centerfire events. It did not have a spectacularly better trigger pull in single action than its S&W counterpart, but its long-action hammer was easier and more efficient to cock with the shooting hand thumb, and bull's-eye gunners shot almost exclusively in single action. When PPC shooting, a double-action game, became popular in the early 1960s, the S&W K-38 quickly became the odds-on choice. Again, action characteristics were the reason. In DA as opposed to SA shooting, the S&W had a smooth, even resistance to the trigger pull from the beginning of the stroke to the shot, while the Colt's two-stage pull "stacked"--growing heavier at the end of the firing movement.

When Jim Cirillo and Austin Behlert created the first heavy-barrel "PPC revolver," 6" was the almost universal choice, being the longest allowed by the rules. The coming of the PPC gun limited the conventional 6" .38 and .357 revolvers with factory barrels to the Distinguished event. Indeed, this game is the reason Smith & Wesson L-frame revolvers were dubbed "Distinguished Combat Magnums" by the factory. To this day, the S&W L-frame with 6" barrel is a popular gun among recreational shooters.