Can you pull back on the hammer just before it locks and slip your finger off. Or is there a safety feature that makes it impossible without the trigger being pulled. Doesn‘t the transfer bar release once the hammer is pulled?
It depends on the model of revolver. Modern revolvers which use a transfer bar cannot be fired without pulling the trigger. However the original single-action revolvers from the 1800s and early 1900s don't have transfer bar safeties. As a result if you load all six chambers, the hammer is literally resting on the primer of a live round. If you drop one of those revolers and the gun lands and hits the hammer sufficiently hard, it will transfer the energy into the primer and may fire the round.
Depends what type of revolver. A earlier 20 century SW with the firing pin on the hammer possibly. Any earlier revolver with a firing pin on the hammer, especially some of those older .22 top breaks most likely. Something with an transfer bar No. Like an Iver Johnson for example, they could be fired unless the trigger was puller. They had the patented Hammer the Hammer safety mechanism which they would actually hammer the hammer with a hammer on a loaded gun. No accidents with this gun. They advertised is as one of the safest revolvers whether it fell off a bed side or desk for fell down a cliff while tromping threw the woods.
Most modern double action revolvers have a transfer bar safety. It doesn't actually release anything what happens it the transfer bar rises between the hammer and the firing pin when the trigger is pulled. The hammer strikes the transfer bar which rests against the firing pin. The firing pin cannot contact the firing pin; so if the trigger is not pulled the handgun will not fire. In revolvers that do not have this feature, however the cylinder turns as the hammer is drawn back either in double action mode by the trigger pull or in single action mode by thumbing the hammer back. Until the hammer is pulled back fully the chamber in the cylinder does not line up with the barrel precisely. If the firing pin were to strike the primer in this condition, the results could be damaging to the revolver or even splatter lead and or copper from the bullet out of the cylinder gap and strike the shooter, bystanders, or objects that you do not intend to hit.
