Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2017 i Guns of the Old West

There is a moment in every encounter between gunmen, lawmen and outlaws when instinct takes over—the moment before your thumb tenses on the hammer, before you raise your head to stare into the face of the unknown, a silently eternal pause within a heartbeat that will decide the next moment before it happens—and then all hell breaks loose. There were men whose instincts kept them alive in the Old West far longer than many, including famous lawman Wild Bill Hickok and outlaw John Wesley Hardin. Both were murdered by men who could not face them, for if they had, they certainly would have died instead. In this issue, writer Larry Ford explores the tale of how Hickok and Hardin allegedly met in Abilene, Kansas, in the summer of 1871 and…

If you want to duplicate the feats of the legendary gunfighters of history, you must learn to shoot the way they did. It was quite different from the way modern target shooters shoot today, and gunfighters weren’t interested in passing along the tricks that gave them their edge. To begin with, they held the Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army entirely differently from the way today’s shooters do, and the gunfighters’ secret grip was the key to the effectiveness of this gun. This is part of how they were able to shoot a Colt SAA held in one hand and hit right alongside a Winchester Model 1873 or Model 1892 at all ranges. When they said the SAA was as good as a rifle, it truly was in their hands.…

The second most-issued percussion revolver during the Civil War has become known as the Remington Model 1858. This designation is somewhat erroneous, however, as it’s based on the date of September 14, 1858, when the patent was granted to inventor Fordyce Beals. The first version was called the Remington-Beals Army revolver, and it had a large frame, an 8-inch barrel and a sixshot cylinder in .44 caliber. Beals had also worked with Remington on other percussion revolver designs in smaller .31 and .36 calibers. The Remington Army did not go into serious production until 1861, and less than 8,000 were made before the New Model Army revolver became the standard design in 1863, with some 122,000 made before production ceased in 1875. There was really little difference in the Army…

Frederick Russel Burnham’s life began in much the same vein as it took during most of his 86 years. As an infant in 1862, his family was living in the Lakota Sioux Indian Territory, near Mankato, Minnesota, when the Indians went on the warpath. Burnham’s mother was at their cabin, alone with the baby, when warriors arrived. She ran from their home and placed the boy in a shock of green corn and told him to be quiet, and then she ran and hid. When she returned later, everything had been put to the torch, but the green corn didn’t burn and the baby was still alive because he had stayed quiet. Hostilities soon ended, and the youthful Burnham grew up among the Indians and learned their ways. Besides woodcraft,…

The Cowboy Fast Draw Association (CFDA) celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. Founded in Deadwood, South Dakota, which is famous for being the end of the trail for Wild Bill Hickok, the 2017 National Championship shoot will return to Deadwood during the Wild Bill Hickok Days celebration. Possibly the fastest-growing shooting sport today, CFD currently has 25 major shooting matches scheduled for this year, ending with the Fastest Gun Alive World Championship in Fallon, Nevada, in early October. I’ve competed in CFD since the early days of the sport, and I am always looking for a way to get a litte bit faster. Currently, I am trying a new CFD rig designed and made by master holster-maker and fellow CFD competitor Bob Mernickle. My sample CFD15 rig is constructed of…

While most men preferred or could only afford to carry one handgun or rifle, others chose to wear a brace of pistols around their waist. Outlaw Jesse James famously wore a pair of S&W topbreaks while his brother Frank preferred two .44-40 Remington Model 1875s. Legendary pistolero and lawman James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok always sported a pair of Colt Model 1851 Navy revolvers around his waist. And El Paso, Texas, lawman and Deputy U.S. Marshal Dallas Stoudenmire favored a .44-caliber S&W Model 3 American top-break and a Colt Richards-Mason conversion with the barrel cut down to 2-5/8 inches. He carried the latter in his left-front pocket butt-forward. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Western lawmen, outlaws and cowboys showed a preference for wearing a brace of…

The whole Republic Pictures lot was excited. For the first time, many of our cowboy heroes were going to appear in the same picture, Bells of Rosarita, starring Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes. Roy was finally going to fulfill every kid’s “what if ” fantasy. What if Roy, along with his pals Wild Bill Elliott, Bob Livingston, Don “Red” Berry, Allan “Rocky” Lane and Sunset Carson, saddled up together to fight them outlaws? Every kid cowboy on the planet wouldn’t sleep a wink until he saw this film! The Crossdraw Kid, who heard the news from his neighbor, actor Tom London, knew he had to be in that picture. The Kid was in luck—his dad worked at Republic, and The Kid was sure that somehow he could find…

John Henry FitzGerald was a colorful, charismatic late 19th and early 20th century gunsmith and marksman who found fame as one of Colt’s most celebrated personalities. I have to classify FitzGerald as such, since his reputation was nearly as legendary as the company he went to work for in 1918. By then, the Old West of FitzGerald’s youth was winding down, although in many parts of the Southwest and the Oklahoma oil fields, it remained rough and tumble well into the 1920s. By the time he went to work for Colt, FitzGerald was already in his early forties. Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1876, he had grown up in the last great decades of the American West and was infatuated with the tales of famous gunfighters. A big, strapping…

ONE might regard the handgun as the easiest and most practical self-defense weapon of choice in the Old West, but for a great majority of men, especially ranchers, farmers and lawmen who often had to face down a rowdy group of liquored-up cowboys, a 12-gauge shotgun was the most practical, most intimidating and easiestto- handle firearm on the American frontier. Either for self-defense or hunting, the double-barreled shotgun has many purposes that pistols alone could not equal. A simple shotgun in the hands of a farmer, his wife, son or daughter, defending their property or home, was far more menacing. Even frontier town lawmen and outlaws reached for a shotgun when the numbers were not in their favor. A double-hammer gun might not have been as glamorous as a shiny…

THE new Western film Abilene, due to hit theaters this year, features Luke Hemsworth as Wild Bill Hickok and Kaiwi Lyman-Mersereau as John Wesley Hardin. Written by Michael Lanahan and directed by Timothy Woodward Jr., the film retells the story of Hickok and Hardin’s encounters during the summer of 1871 in Abilene, Kansas, placing these two historical Western icons together on the big screen. To understand where Wild Bill and Hardin’s contact begins, we have to travel back in time to Waco, Texas, in 1871. City Marshal Laban John Hoffman was getting a shave in a barbershop when an unidentified man rode up on horseback, dismounted and entered the barbershop to examine the lathered face of the marshal. The man then walked behind the barber’s chair and shot the marshal…

Mike Harvey, the CEO of Cimarron Firearms, is largely responsible for the authentic shape, fit and finish of the Italian-made copies of the legendary Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army revolver. According to Mike, “For the past 30 years, Cimarron has worked continuously to perfect the authentic detail, fit, finish and function of our line of Frontier firearms.” My first Italian-made Colt SAA replica, from approximately 40 years ago, was imported and marketed by Allen Firearms of Santa Fe, New Mexico. That company imported Uberti firearms and went out of business in 1987. I wasn’t happy with that gun because, while it generally looked like a Colt, it lacked many of the finer details, and the hammer was soft. I soon had to have the hammer notches welded, re-cut and…

The Bowie knife is a product of the Old South and its history of swordsmanship. Early immigrants brought the sword-fighting skills of their homelands to America, where they were blended in the rough and tumble of the New World. The Bowie brothers brought their Scottish family traditions and learned from local masters like Don Jose “Pepe” Lula, who was a famous instructor in New Orleans where the Bowie brothers engaged in the slave trade with the patriotic privateer Jean Lafitte. While swords were necessary for battle and duels, carrying them was no longer fashionable. Men tried sword canes, but they were too light for serious use against real swords, and the lack of a guard meant that just letting your blade slide down to your opponent’s hand was an effective…