Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2024 i Guns of the Old West

Unless you looked over the masthead of the Fall 2023 issue of Guns of the Old West, you probably didn’t notice that listed under the magazine staff, besides yours truly, was “Cover Photo Jacob Bell.” Unfortunately, that was a faux pas, and it should have been Jordan Bell, my son. If you’ve been reading my material for the last few years, you might have noticed his byline at the beginning of my articles. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that he does an outstanding job, and he has many two-page spread photos to his credit. I’m lucky he took an interest in photography and developed expertise in both taking images and using Photoshop to create a finished product. For years I took my own photos, and for me, it was…

Could a technologically advanced English double-action revolver have changed the history of the Old West? Samuel Colt’s patents, extraordinary salesmanship skill and efficient, modern (for the time) manufacturing methods allowed his single-action percussion revolvers to dominate the American market through the cap-and-ball era. Aside from their varying size, the massive .44-caliber Model 1847 and Dragoons, diminutive .32-caliber Model 1849 Pocket, .36-caliber Model 1851 Navy, .44-caliber Model 1860 Army and .36-caliber 1861 Navy were all basically the same gun. Samuel Colt died in 1862, but his designs lived on, being successfully adapted to metallic cartridges after the Civil War to continue Colt’s dominance in the domestic market through the rest of the 19th century. Overseas Competition While Colt’s pistols were good, they were already slipping into technological obsolescence in the 1850s…

When it comes to tales about the American frontier, most of the stories we hear involve the brave, capable men who headed West to build a living in a harsh, untamed, mostly inhospitable land. Whether to trap beaver, hunt buffalo or just see lands that few white men had seen before, these were men whose desire to see the untamed lands led them to leave home and sometimes even family on a westward journey that often led to disaster and even death. However, often overlooked in such discussions are the incredible contributions women often made on the frontier. Sure, we read often of famous madams who supplied entertainment in the wild gold boomtowns and famous trick shooters like Annie Oakley, who toured with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. But seldom…

Do you curse when a character in some movie tosses a vintage Colt or Winchester (or any firearm for that matter) into a river? Do you cringe when Tom Selleck’s character in Crossfire Trail beats the padlock off a lock box using the “ivory grips” of what I hope was a reproduction Colt 1861 Navy conversion with plastic grips? Are you a “round counter” who points out to everyone present, “That gun won’t hold that many rounds!” What was your reaction when Tom Chaney tossed what appears to be an authentic 1860 Henry rifle in the dirt after being shot by Mattie Ross in the original True Grit (1969)? In short, are you a stickler for detail and authenticity in your cowboy films? Well then, you’re my sort of frontier…

1 FLATPACK IT! For me, cooking in the woods is one of the main reasons I go outdoors. My stove of choice is the Überleben Stöker Flatpack Stove, which uses natural materials as fuel. Twig stoves are also called bio stoves, wood stoves and, when they are homemade, hobo stoves. They can all use natural fuel like twigs, thicker sticks, conifer cones and wood pellets. They all work on the premise of a small fire in the stove with a cooking vessel on top and fed fuel via a fuel port. Traditionally, these small wood-burning stoves are meant to boil liquid in a pot or kettle or fry and sauté food in a pan. Honestly, that covers most of the basic needs for cooking in the woods. But what about…

Throughout history, firearms designs have failed. Some were poor designs while some were vastly ahead of their time but failed to overcome preconceived notions of the public. Some lacked the marketing horsepower to succeed. Some “looked good on paper” but failed to achieve full production status due to difficulties in executing the design. I suggest many of the most innovative developments in the advancement of small arms occurred between 1800 and 1900. They included from black powder to smokeless, from flintlock to percussion caps, from rimfire to centerfire, from single-shot breechloader to lever-action repeater to gas-operated machine gun, from revolver to magazine-fed semi-autopistol. All of these advancements occurred between 1800 and 1900, often creating situations where the technology outdistanced designs. Let’s face it, gunpowder, cartridges and the basic operation of…

OLD WEST LEGEND THE 1964 WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT Boxing Championship saw Sonny Liston lose to a little-known upstart with a weird antebellum name. At the time, Liston was the most fearsome boxer in the world. He had mastered his craft while incarcerated for armed robbery. His agent was a former mob hitman. Sonny Liston was considered unbeatable. His opponent, Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., took home the gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics. Despite being an 8-to-1 underdog, Clay bested Liston in the seventh round. Thus launched the meteoric professional career of the most iconic boxer in sports history. Cassius Clay’s legendary taunts became a part of sports lore. Here are a couple. “I'm the king of the world! I'm a bad man! I'm the prettiest…

Bob Mernickle, founder of Mernickle Custom Holsters, was originally a fast draw competition shooter from Canada. Bob was one of the fastest in the sport. Not happy with the fast draw holster rigs commercially available, he set out to make his own. Shooting extremely fast out of his homemade rig, Bob soon had shooters asking him to make them one like his. This was the start of Mernickle Custom Holsters. After moving to Nevada, Mernickle and close friend “Quick Cal” Cal Eilrich, the CEO of CFDA, collaborated on designing a fast draw rig specifically for the sport of CFD. This was the Quick Cal rig, which has been very popular with CFD shooters. They also produce a CFD holster for the Shootist category, which requires one to use a .45…

Although Samuel Colt had disdain for the double-action revolver, by 1873, Colt’s Vice President General William B. Franklin was well on his way to producing one with the help of Frederick von Oppen, formerly of Colt’s Liege Agency in Belgium and Colt’s London Agency by 1873. Von Oppen had much knowledge of the “self cocking” revolvers popular in England and sent three variations to Franklin by 1874—an Adams, a Webley Irish Constabulary model and a Tranter revolver, all double action. For years, there was an enormous back and forth between Oppen, Franklin and other Colt personnel over the features a Colt double-action revolver should have, what caliber(s) it should debut in, whether or not the gun should eject the empty casings all together, and even if Colt should even build…