Stephen J. Cannell flubs facts about Charter Bulldog in LAPD cop novel

I'm reading "The Pallbearers" by Stephen J. Cannell, TV screenwriter and novelist, and it's a pretty good tale of an LAPD homicide detective named Shane Scully. I've read other Cannell books but this is my first in his series about Scully and I'll go find more after I finish this one.

With Louis L'Amour and Robert B. Parker no longer with us, I'm always glad to find something good to read.

But Cannell proved he's no Stephen Hunter by flubbing a gun mention. Scully goes to the rescue of a woman who is surrounded by four gang bangers about to pick her clean or worse. But the woman says she didn't need rescuing, showing him the Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Special Revolver she had her hand on in her purse.

"It subtracts up to six and there was only four of them," she tells Scully about the gang bangers.

Wrong. The Bulldog has only five holes in the cylinder. I'm no math whiz, but you can't get six shots out of five holes in a cylinder without a reload. BlueBook says thusly of the Charter Arms Bulldog, old manufacture.

BULLDOG- .44 Spl. cal., 5 shot, 2 1/2 or 3 (disc. 1988) in. barrels, wide trigger and spur or pocket hammer, checkered bulldog grips (walnut or neoprene), blue or electroless nickel finish. Disc. 1991, reinstated 1994. Disc.1996.

Same is true for new Bulldog manufacture, which adds stainless steel, one of which I have. Oh well, I guess all novelists can't be as accurate with their gun facts as Stephen Hunter. He's the best gun writer I've seen so far.