Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2021 i Guns of the Old West

WHILE Colt Patent Firearms may have produced the first really practical revolvers with their percussion models, it was Smith & Wesson (S&W) that achieved true wheelgun practicality by introducing revolvers incorporating the bored-through cylinder that enabled them to use self-contained metallic cartridges. In short order, S&W went from making a small 7-shot, tip-up .22 rimfire, single-action (SA) revolver in 1852 to a .32 rimfire of similar design in 1861 to a top-break, hinged-frame, SA .44 centerfire No. 3 “American” revolver in 1870. This revolver was offered by Messrs. Smith & Wesson to the U.S. Military, who purchased 1000; then to the Russian military, with a contract for 20,000. This order initiated a new cartridge design, the .44 Russian, a very accurate load that became a mainstay in the S&W line.…

HE WAS A TALL, lanky man with a distinctive, unforgettable voice that begged for the dialogue of the Old West, a film genre he was made for. But, in Jimmy Stewart’s 57-year career, with 81 motion pictures, only 18 were westerns that spanned four decades from 1939 to 1976—each done in a style that drew different personalities out of Stewart as he aged. Many have become classics, though unlike John Wayne, when you think of Jimmy Stewart you don’t immediately associate him with westerns because his work spans every film genre from comedy and musicals, to drama and suspense. In fact, James Stewart was one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood film history. Born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, in May 1908, Stewart was drawn to sports, music and acting at a…

FOR THE AVERAGE FAN OF THE OLD WEST, mentioning Texas Rangers evokes visions of hard-bitten law officers like John Armstrong or Frank Hamer. While law enforcement was the Rangers’ primary duty from just after the Civil War until the present day, the early Rangers were more akin to a state militia unit. Initially raised in 1823 by Stephen F. Austin to protect settlers from hostile Native Americans (most notably the Comanche tribe), the Ranger force began as a 10-man unit, but after being formally constituted in 1835, rose to some 300 members. After Texas gained its independence from Mexico in 1836, it wasn’t long before a force of 56 Rangers was formed, but was increased to 150 men by President Sam Houston in 1841. Texas became part of the United…

IT'S NOT A MYTH; MEN WITH ENGRAVED GUNS felt a special bond with the gun that made it more than just a gun. Some men were emboldened by it, a few, perhaps, more than others, like the Dalton Gang. However, outlaws packing finely engraved handguns were few and far between. The same goes for most lawmen, though there are some very famous exceptions, and you can fill in the blanks on that one starting with Wild Bill Hickok, Bill Tilghman, Bat Masterson, and a good deal of Texas Rangers from the 1870s to the early 20th century. More likely though, an engraved gun was actually to be found in the holster, or perhaps on the desk of a wealthy rancher or a ranking military officer. Custer, for example, had a…

Much of murder culture of the Old West came from Dodge City’s 14 months of lawlessness, which yellow journalism used as a metaphor for violence and anarchy in the frontier towns. During that short time, from 1872 to 1873, Dodge City was an unorganized village barely a year old and it saw 18 murders on its streets. According to the Criminal Justice Research Center at Ohio State University, townsfolk in Dodge City “faced a homicide rate of at least 165 per 100,000 adults, per year, meaning that 0.165 percent of the population was murdered each year (in 1880, the census showed nearly 1,000 residents).” Though it doesn’t sound like much, “it means that an adult who lived in Dodge City from 1876 to 1885 faced at least a 1 in…

CHARLES DALY’S NEWEST ADDITIONS TO THE 500 SERIES LINE OF SIDE-BY-SIDE SHOTGUNS are a pair of traditional, dual-trigger, fold-up .410 models that are a delight to shoot and ideal for women and youngsters thanks to their light weight and mild recoil. I found an advertisement for a shotgun that was virtually the twin of these two in a 1912 catalog from London-based W. J. Jeffery & Co. Ltd. where they referred to it as a “collector’s gun.” Today, we would automatically think of a collector gun as something not really intended for use but desired for its rarity, beauty or great value. In the context of this vintage English catalog, the adjective “collector” refers to the gun’s actual purpose of collecting wild game. Like the Belgian original it was modeled…

IT IS ELEGANT, RUGGED IN ITS SIMPLICITY, effective on medium-size game and it recalls a great era in history. The Uberti 1885 Courteney Stalking Rifle displays all of those attributes and more. It is based on the Winchester 1885 High Wall falling-block, single-shot rifle. That rifle came into prominence as the American West was becoming not so “wild” But this Uberti replica is styled after British sporting rifles of the same era, when adventurers were challenging another great frontier for hunting and exploration: Africa. The Uberti 1885 Courteney Stalking Rifle has a proud heritage. In 1883, a representative of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company traveled to Ogden, Utah, to negotiate a deal with a young arms maker, John Moses Browning. We immediately associate Browning with the Colt 1911 pistol, Winchester…

While most westerners preferred big-bore belt or holster-size revolvers that packed man-stopping ammunition, there were those men (and women) whose concern leaned more toward their firearm's ability to be secreted on their person, rather than firepower. To this latter group, size definitely mattered, but smaller was better! Enter the derringer—those small, pocket-sized pistols that earned a name for themselves as "card table killers." Among the many derringer-type pistols that were available in the Old West, there were three that one could argue were the most popular, often evidenced by production numbers and their appearance in western literature and onscreen. I would argue that the top trio of palm-sized pistols are Henry Deringer's "Philadelphia Deringer," the Sharps four-barrel "Pepperbox," and Remington's famed Model 95, better known as their "Double Derringer." Here's…