I once noted on these pages, many moons ago, that if the cartridge had not been invented, the ROA may well have been what the percussion revolver might have ended up like in the1970s.
It's hard to say why it become such a hit in the USA, given to obvious - to me - antipathy of the original poster, although he says otherwise. He is unlikely to be alone in his opinion.
It begs the question why people buy what they perceive as either a replica, or a vague lookalike, of a familiar-looking gun at all. Just how much like a real Hawken does the any modern version look like? I've read enough here over the years I've been here to know that to many American shooters they some of them are as much like a Hawken as they are a M16.
However, we are talking about the ROA, which is not, as some note, a copy of anything, although it owes much to one particular gun whose name momentarily escapes me, and it's NOT the Remington NMA.
I guess it was such an obvious take on a generic 'old gun' but in modern format, using modern materials and a massive coil spring instead of a flat one, and looking as solid as Mt Rushmore, and it was going to appeal to people who wanted the feel of a old-style pistol, but the convenience of stainless steel - as soon as it arrived made in that material. It looked like it would last for ever, maybe longer, and certainly my own, bought on my birthday in 1986, cleans up well enough to be taken for one maybe a couple of years old. Nevertheless, it has had, MUST have had, 20,000 shots down it since that day. Maybe more.
I know that for most of you living in the US of A, the rationale behind the relatively huge sales is vague. Not so here in UK, where 99% death of our pistol shooting took place by October of 1997, by which time we had all handed in our cartridge-firing handguns, except in Northern Ireland, where they were exempted. The crazy rush to have ANY kind of a replacement big-bore handgun, even a muzzleloader like the ROA, was hard to resist, and for a while, nobody in the world outside the US bought more of them than the shooter on Mainland UK. Even today, with a good second-hand ROA STILL costing way more than almost any other BP handgun, sales are strong, and would undoubtedly be even stronger were it to come back into production. Indeed, I have waiting list of around ten or more people if and when mine comes up for grabs.
I'm sure you can see why any handgun that LOOKS like a proper handgun, as we know it, Jim, is going to take preference over an abortion, no matter how well it shoots.
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