Who here has one or more cowboy gun originals in minty condition?

Here's a link to a short video on the Smith & Wesson #3 Russian.

BringHomeTheBacon said:

I don't think pre-1895 Colt Peacemakers were ever made in either caliber, just .45 Colt??

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Colt chambered the Single Action Army for 44-40 in 1878. 44-40 was the second most popular chambering of the SAA, only surpassed by 45 Colt.

The total number of 1st Gen Single Action Army revolvers chambered for 45 Colt was 158,885 in the four variations, Standard SAA, SAA Target, Bisley, and Bisley Target of the SAA.

44-40 was the second most popular chambering, with a total in all four variations of 71,391. The 44-40 version of the Colt Single Action Army was the only version of the SAA that had its own 'model name', the 44-40 Colts were known as Frontier Six Shooters, as can be seen in this photo of an antique 44-40 Frontier Six Shooter.






The third most popular chambering of the SAA was 38-40, first offered in 1884, with a total of 50,520 SAA revolvers chambered for that caliber.


The next most common chambering for the SAA was 32-20, also introduced in 1884, with a total of 43,264 in all four variations.

I am not going to go through all the chamberings of the Colt Single Action Army, but the 1st Gens were eventually chambered for a total of 30 different cartridges, the great majority of them being offered before 1900. Only two chamberings were first offered during the Twentieth Century:38 Special in 1930 and 357 Magnum in 1935.

So clearly, if a Cowboy was able to afford a revolver and rifle chambered for the same cartridge, the most common combination would have been a Colt Frontier Six Shooter and a WInchester Model 1873, both chambered for 44-40.

Let's not kid ourselves here, the idea of a cowboy owning this pair of firearms is largely myth. The price of a new Winchester Model 1873 in 1873 was $38 for a simple Carbine, up to $60 for the fanciest grade of 1873 Rifle. The cost of a new Colt in 1873 was usually around $12. Most Cowboys only made about $20/month if they were lucky. Very few would have been able to afford these prices. Much more common would have been Cap & Ball revolvers surplussed out of the Army, such as the Colt 1860 Army or 1851 Navy, or 1858 Remington. These were commonly available for around $5 at the time.

BringHomeTheBacon said:

There was a gun ad in the 1990's. I can't remember which one, maybe Marlin. It was for a lever rifle to be a companion to a 6-shooter like a Colt Peacemaker or a Remington in .45 Colt. Back then it instilled in my head the notion that there were both pistols and rifles even back in the Old West that could fire the .45 Colt. Now, people are saying here that .45 Colt rifles did not exist during pre-1895 Old West times. The ad romanticized the Old West cowboys who wanted both a handgun and a rifle that could conveniently fire the same ammo. Now, I'm finding out there were other companion combos in the Old West which could fire cartridges other than .45 Colt. When it comes to original cowboy guns, I'm fascinated by the whole COMPANION concept. I'm sure there a lot of reproductions that could give one such a companion pair of guns.

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Whatever you remember from that advertisement, I am here to tell you no rifles were ever chambered for 45 Colt during the 1800s. NONE! Take a look again at the photo of the old 45 Colt cartridges I posted earlier. The rims were simply too small to be effectively grabbed by the extractor of a rifle. Not a problem with the old SAA revolvers that poked the cartridges out from the inside, but a rifle extractor would simply not have been able to grab those tiny rims. As I said earlier, it was not until sometime in the 1980s that rifles were ever chambered for 45 Colt. The old Winchester cartridges, such as 44-40, 38-40, 32-20, and 25-20 were designed specifically to be rifle cartridges. They had larger rims, which could be effectively grabbed by the extractor of a rifle. It was easy for Colt to chamber these cartridges in the SAA, because their overall length was not too great to fit into the cylinder of the SAA, and there was enough room between chambers to accommodate the larger rims.

BringHomeTheBacon said:

So, it seems like the Winchester 1973 and the Remington 1875 in .44-40 would have been the two original cowboy companion guns. Something cowboys might have carried on the first cattle drives since the advent of the cartridge. Somebody else here might want to cite another pair of Old West cowboy companions. A SA revolver and a lever rifle of the Old West sharing a common cartridge.

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I hate to keep poking holes in your assumptions (actually I am having a good time doing it), but the Remington Model 1875 chambered for 44-40 was an exceptionally poor shooter. They tended to be very inaccurate because the chamber throats had been cut too large for the 44-40 bullets. Take a look at this pair of targets fired from a rest at only 15 feet. Trust me, I am not that bad a shot, my Remington was spraying bullets all over the place because of the oversized chamber throats. I don't recall right now exactly how big the chamber throats were, but they were much too large for a .428 diameter bullet. The Remington Model 1875 was only chambered for 44-40 and a proprietary Remington cartridge called 44 Remington. There were a very few, probably less than 2 or 3 that were chambered for 45 Colt for Army trials. The 44 Remington cartridge had a large heeled bullet that was larger in diameter than a 44-40 bullet. The speculation among collectors is that chambering the 1875 Remington for 44-40 was a bit of an afterthought, and cylinders were remachined for 44-40, with chamber throats that were much too big. Anyway, I was grateful all my bullets went through the paper pointy end first, and none of them went through sideways.







The Army rejected the Remington Model 1875 for several reasons. Chief among them was the fact that the ejector mechanism of the Remington was exposed to the elements.






The ejector mechanism of a Colt was protected from the elements by the ejector housing.






The bottom line is, the 1875 Remington was never as popular as the Colt Single Action Army. Colt won their first Army contracts in 1873. The army rejected the Remington in 1875. Colt already had such a strong foot hold in the revolver market, both Military and Civilian that eventually there were 356,581 1st Generation Colt Single Action Army revolvers produced, only about 25,000 Remington Model 1875 revolvers were ever produced.

BringHomeTheBacon said:

What is the quintessential caliber for an original Winchester 1873? What chambering would mounted cowboys have commonly in the scabbard carried from 1865 to 1895 in these guns?

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44wcf was the most common and the only chambering in the first models. Then 38wcf and 32 wcf came along other than 22 in a few that is the only chamberings for original 1873 winchesters.

Cowhide Cliff said:

44wcf was the most common and the only chambering in the first models. Then 38wcf and 32 wcf came along other than 22 in a few that is the only chamberings for original 1873 winchesters.

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To add a little bit more detail, the first cartridge the Model 1873 Winchester was chambered for was 44 WCF (Winchester Center Fire) also known as 44-40. The early guns had no caliber marking on them at all, since they were all chambered for 44-40. The earliest production guns chambered for 38-40 were marketed in 1879. At this point, Winchester began marking the caliber on the bottom of the cartridge elevator. This Model 1873 is chambered for 38-40 and is marked 38 CAL on the bottom of the carrier. A 44-40 Model 1873 would have been marked 44 CAL after the 38-40 cartridge was introduced.






In 1882 Winchester developed the 32 WCF (32-20 cartridge) and began offering the Model 1873 chambered for this cartridge.


The last cartridge the 1873 Winchester was chambered for was 22 Short of all things. Sorry, I do not have a date when this cartridge was first offered, But I can tell you that because the bore was so small, the underside of the barrel for this caliber was relieved to reduce the overall weight. The 'missing' metal was covered by the fore stock.

As I said earlier, 38-40 was introduced because Winchester believed they had saturated the market for the 44-40 cartridge. However, the 38-40 did not sell as well as 44-40 or 32-20.

566,487 Model 1873s were eventually chambered for 44-40, vs 24,826 for 38-40, 109,558 for 32-20, and 19,738 for 22 Short.

If you want to see what cowboys actually carried, pull out an early Sears, Roebuck & Company catalog.
The 1897 catalog, for instance, showed that the Peacemaker cost at least $12.50.
The pocket guns that most cowboys ACTUALLY carried cost between $2.50 and $7.50.
Of course, western wear for working cowboys usually involved coveralls or overalls, flannel shirts, dusters/coats/overcoats (in season) and derbies or other hard, narrow-brimmed hats that weren't constantly trying to blow away.
Belt holsters weren't all that common and "fast-draw" rigs were almost never found on a working man.
Most of the guns shown in the previous posts have survived because they were relatively expensive near-luxury items.
The much cheaper working-class guns have been worn out and discarded long ago.

How cowboy do you want to get?

Attached photos of orig 1886 Winchesters
One in 40-65 WCF and the other in 40-82 WCF

Also an orig 1892 Winchester in 38-40 next to a 1886 Winchester in 33 WCF

Lot of nice old pics and info here- thx....
Some of the guys spoke of pocket pistols....here is an orig 1895 Remington Derringer 41 rimfire- still shoots good!

theotherwaldo said:

Of course, western wear for working cowboys usually involved coveralls or overalls, flannel shirts, dusters/coats/overcoats (in season) and derbies or other hard, narrow-brimmed hats that weren't constantly trying to blow away.
Belt holsters weren't all that common and "fast-draw" rigs were almost never found on a working man.

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Howdy Again

While some working cowboys may have worn derbies or other narrow brimmed hats, most men working outdoors under the sun needed the protection of a wide brimmed hat. A strap under the chin, called a stampede strap or stampede string, kept the hat from blowing away in a stiff breeze. In the universal sign language of the plains Indians, the sign for a White Man was a gesture of the hand indicating a wide brimmed hat. Because of their darker complexions, most Indians did not need protection from the sun. The original 'cowboy hat' was called the Boss of the Plains. A very simple hat with a four inch brim to keep the sun off the head. In the accompanying link, the sepia colored photograph shows Wyatt Earp sitting 2nd from the left wearing a Boss of the Plains hat. In the back row, the man 2nd from the right is Bat Masterson. He is wearing a derby. I do not know who the other man in the back row, also wearing a derby, is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_of_the_Plains


You are correct about fast draw rigs, purely an invention of Hollywood.

If your talking westward expansion then it HAS to be lower end guns that served a number of purposes. Wagons and horses were loaded heavy with necessary items but not much more. A gun was necessary, multiple guns was not. A shotgun filled several roles, and did it well. With shot it got small game, defended against attack by both 2 and 4 legged vermin, and could take larger game with heavier single projectiles… like minieball or slug loads. The absolute top echelon for shotguns would be a gun made for, and marked by one of the big names of the era like Wells Fargo.

“Rifles” of the time would have been civil war era muskets therefore, NOT rifles. A civil war musket typically ended up being roughly a 12ga shotgun and would have been cheap and plentiful. HOWEVER there were some very early rifles coming to market at the same time and those could easily have been bought up and carried by a well-to-do family heading out. For this category I’m leaning in the direction of a sharps carbine or a spencer. Later on came the Henry and Winchester guns.

Guns were generally illegal to carry in towns, so the man who wanted to carry a gun discretely had better do so very discretely. For that purpose there are a select few that fit the bill well and would be desirable now. An actual Rollin White Arms revolver would certainly tickle my fancy, but they were short lived and many more guns were made and sold by S&W using the licensed White patents. Effective guns don’t get much smaller or concealable than a a S&W no3 32sw topbreak. The guns are so small that they are difficult to use, but boy are they fun. Mine is in 38sw and it is one frame size larger than the 32 and even as such it is still quite small.

BUT the old west timeframe ran for so long that it bleeds right over into WW1. So realistically you could have early semiauto handguns in the mix here along with early machine guns and bolt action rifles. So with that in mind my ultimate 5 gun western selection would be…

Discrete carry, Colt Vest Pocket
Holstered sidearm, tough choice here but I’m going c96
General duty gun- Winchester 97
Precision arm- m1903
Heavy duty gun- hotchkiss rotary cannon.

Did somebody say pocket pistols?

The Old West was not quite as wild as it was sometimes made out to be. Many frontier towns, including Dodge City, Abilene, and Deadwood had laws against armed citizens. The shootout at the OK corral was about the McLaury brothers and others of their friends refusing to turn in their guns while in Dodge City.

This photo shows the relative sizes of four Smith and Wesson revolvers. Top to bottom are a 2nd Model Russian, No. 2 Old Army Tip Up, No. 1 1/2 Tip Up, and No. 1 Tip Up. The big Russian revolver was a 44 caliber revolver and it would have been difficult to conceal. It would normally have been carried in a belt holster. The No. 2 Old Army was a six shot, 32 caliber Tip Up. It was the largest of the S&W Tip Up revolvers. Not as large as the big Russian model, but still relatively difficult to conceal. The No. 1 1/2 was Smith and Wesson's answer to 19th Century gun control. Not as big as the No. 2, it was a five shot 32 Rimfire revolver. It was designed to be small enough to be easily concealed in a pocket. The little No. 1 fired what we would call today a 22 Short. Not very powerful, but it was very first revolver S&W made, in 1857.






A couple of Sharps Derringers. These had a cluster of four barrels. The hammer had a firing pin that rotated to fire each barrel in turn every time it was cocked. The top pistol in this photo fired a 30 caliber Rimfire cartridge, the one at the bottom fired a 22 Short.






This photo shows the arrangement of the four barrels.






Here is the 30 caliber Sharps with three 30 caliber Rimfire cartridges from my cartridge collection.






A Remington Double Derringer with a couple of 41 Rimfire cartridges. The hinge on this design was very weak and prone to cracking.






An Iver Johnson Safety Hammerless revolver chambered for 38S&W.






Here is another photo that compares the size of some S&W revolvers. The big 44 Double Action fired six 44 Russian cartridges. Very similar in shape was the 38 Double Action that fired five 38S&W cartridges. Even smaller, but still similar in shape was the five shot 32 Double Action, firing the 32 S&W cartridge.






A 38 Single Action, 1st Model, also known as the Baby Russian. This is the revolver the 38S&W cartridge was designed for.






A 32 Single Action, with five 32 S&W rounds.






A 32 Safety Hammerless. A five shot 32 S&W revolver. Notice the grip safety. Just like on a 1911, the gun could not fire unless the grip safety was squeezed while pulling the trigger. These were sometimes known as Lemon Squeezers because of the grip safety.






A tiny little 32 Bicycle Revolver. This was a variation of the 32 Safety Hammerless with a very short barrel. It had a grip safety just like the other Safety Hammerless. These were called Bicycle Revolvers because they could be easily concealed in a pocket, but brought to bear if Daisy was threatened by ruffians.

WestKentucky said:

“Rifles” of the time would have been civil war era muskets therefore, NOT rifles. A civil war musket typically ended up being roughly a 12ga shotgun and would have been cheap and plentiful. HOWEVER there were some very early rifles coming to market at the same time and those could easily have been bought up and carried by a well-to-do family heading out. For this category I’m leaning in the direction of a sharps carbine or a spencer. Later on came the Henry and Winchester guns.

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Your statement is not quite correct. The term Musket when referring to Civil War Muskets is misleading. They most certainly were rifled. The Springfield Arsenal turned out thousands of the model 1861, which was the mainstay of Union Troops. Unlike earlier smooth bore muskets, the Springfield rifled musket fired a 58 caliber Minié Ball. The base of the projectile was hollow and the overall diameter was less than the diameter of the rifling. This allowed the rifle to be loaded quickly from the muzzle, the Minié Ball slid down the barrel without engaging the rifling. When fired, the skirt of the Minié Ball expanded to engage the rifling in the barrel. Unlike earlier smooth bore muskets, the 1861 Springfield rifled musket was deadly accurate at long range.

When you start talking about Henry and Winchester rifles, I think what you mean to say is repeating rifles. The Sharps rifles started out as firing a paper cartridge, later a conventional cartridge with a brass case. But the Sharps rifles were always single shots. The Spencer, Henry, and Winchesters were repeaters. The development of self contained metallic cartridges around the time of the Civil War made repeaters possible. The tiny lever action Volcanic rifles and pistols were among the first repeaters, but they were under powered. When shirt manufacturer Oliver Winchester took over the Volcanic company, buying out a couple of guys named Smith and Wesson, he hired B. Tyler Henry to completely redesign the Volcanics, with a bigger 44 caliber cartridge. The Henry rifle patented in 1860 but not produced until 1862, was the result, and it was the predecessor to all the Winchester lever action rifles that were to come later.

Not an original, they start at about $30,000 and go up from there, this is my Uberti replica 1860 Iron Frame Henry. Not chambered for the original 44 Henry Rinfire cartridge, it is chambered for my favorite rifle cartridge, 44-40.






And I only fire it with cartridges loaded with Black Powder.

The only original that I have is an 1873 Winchester in 44-40.

BringHomeTheBacon said:

So, the army and law enforcement might have had the bulk of those shiny and pricey new Colts and Winchesters back then. They were paid for by taxpayers. The common working cowboy likely had cheap hand-me-down surplus gun from the military

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Actually, Winchester never made any large quantity sales to the Army.

Colt, yes, but not the Army.

Not for lack of trying, even back around 1860 Oliver Winchester was trying to interest the Army in his Henry rifle. Union soldiers purchased Henry rifles with their own funds, but Winchester never succeeded in making any large sales to the Army. Winchester did win contracts to supply rifles to foreign governments, but not the American Army. The army was still wedded to the Trapdoor Springfield single shot rifles for a long time.

I will have to look up how many Single Action Army revolvers Colt sold the Army. I seem to remember there were something like 13 different contracts over the years. I will look up in one of my books how many pistols Colt sold to the Army over the years.

jeepnik said:

Well, it mostly depends on what you consider the cowboy era. Movie wise the Wild Bunch is a western. They used 1911's and 1903 rifles and 1917 machineguns.

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"Movie wise" Cowboys and Aliens is a western. The bad guys (the really bad guys) had some pretty sophisticated weaponry. But just goes to show that hollyweird's definition of "western" isn't really Western.

Winchester '73's, manufactured after the .38-40 was introduced, also had a caliber marking on the top of the barrel, just in front of the receiver. Mine, a 24" octagonal barrel version, had .38 W.C.F. It also had a sliding door built into the butte plate for the storage of a four piece cleaning rod in the stock. That orifice also worked well to hold several cartridges in lieu of the rod.

The .22 versions were the only ones that didn't have a loading gate on the side of the receiver.

You also have to remember that, here in America, the term "cowboy" was a pejorative that was almost interchangeable with "rustler" from the 1770s to the 1920s.
When the Earps called their opponents the Cowboys they weren't complimenting them.
-So OF COURSE "cowboys" carried lots of sneaky, cheap hide-out guns... .

The real “guns that won the west” were probably Springfield trapdoors, surplus cut down civil war muskets, cap and ball revolvers, and yes, 1866, 1873 Winchester repeaters, along with Sharps and Remington Rolling Block single-shot breechloaders. The Winchester was the era’s equivalent of a high tech “assault rifle,” while the big single shots were considered a lot more effective for hunting or real fighting at range.

Speedo66 said:

Winchester '73's, manufactured after the .38-40 was introduced, also had a caliber marking on the top of the barrel, just in front of the receiver. Mine, a 24" octagonal barrel version, had .38 W.C.F. It also had a sliding door built into the butte plate for the storage of a four piece cleaning rod in the stock. That orifice also worked well to hold several cartridges in lieu of the rod.

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Caliber markings varied over the years. This 38-40 Model 1873, which shipped in 1887 has the caliber marked in script on the bottom of the cartridge elevator.






It also has 38 CAL in script marked on the barrel.






When I bought this rifle at a large gunshop a number of years ago, the dealer opened the sliding trap door for the cleaning rod to make sure a cleaning rod was not one present. "You never know", he said. I had of course already checked. I suspect it is relatively rare to find an old cleaning rod inside today, they probably got lost or rotted away years ago. By the way, none of the modern replicas of the 1873 Winchester have this trap door in the butt plate. At least the ones made by Uberti do not.






While we are on the subject, collectors recognize three different Models of the 1873 Winchester. They are classified by the sliding dust cover on top of the frame. The dust cover on the 1873 Winchester was a new feature, it did not exist on the Henry or Model 1866 Winchester. When the action was worked, the bolt slid the dust cover back so an empty cartridge could be ejected. The dust cover remained back until the shooter pushed it forward manually, there was no mechanism to slide it back in place. I have taken the liberty of scanning a page from George W. Stone's excellent book, The Winchester 1873 Handbook, to illustrate the three styles of dust covers. The First Model 1873 had a dust cover which slid between two raised rails machined into the top of the frame. A 'thumbprint' was engraved into the dust cover so it could easily be slid back in place. In 1879 the second style of dust cover was introduced. This one slid on a rail screwed to the top of the frame. In 1882 the third style of dust cover appeared. It was similar to the 2nd style, but the rail in the center of the frame was an integral part of the frame, not a separate part screwed in place.






My 38-40 1873 from 1887 is a 3rd Model, with the rail machined onto the top of the frame.






With the dust cover slid back, the bolt is exposed. The screw at the front of the dust cover secures a small tab which slides into a slot just above the chamber. Yes, at some point some Bozo massacred the screw trying to remove it. He also cut a groove in the top of the dust cover, probably trying to remove the screw.






All Uberti replica 1873 Winchesters are the 3rd Model, with the style of dust cover pictured above.


As I mentioned earlier, the dust cover was an innovation with the Model 1873 Winchester. The tops of the frames of the Henry rifle and 1866 Winchester lacked a dust cover and were open to the elements. This is a view looking down into the top of my Uberti replica of the 1860 Henry, with the bolt locked forward in battery. Nothing to keep dust and crud out of the frame.

Mosin77 said:

The real “guns that won the west” were probably Springfield trapdoors, surplus cut down civil war muskets, cap and ball revolvers, and yes, 1866, 1873 Winchester repeaters, along with Sharps and Remington Rolling Block single-shot breechloaders. The Winchester was the era’s equivalent of a high tech “assault rifle,” while the big single shots were considered a lot more effective for hunting or real fighting at range.

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One could claim many different firearms were 'the gun that won the west'.

As I believe I said earlier, The Gun That Won The West was an advertising slogan made up by Winchester to increase sales of the Model 1873 Winchester. Nothing more than an advertising slogan.

Regarding the 'big single shots' of the day, they all fired cartridges much more powerful than the Henry and early Winchesters. This is because in 1873 the mechanism of a repeater was not strong enough to handle the more powerful cartridges. They were chambered for what we call 'pistol caliber' cartridges today, such as the 44 Henry Rimfire, 44-40, 38-40, and 32-20.

Check out the chamber of a Sharps or any of the other single shots of the day. They were massive, with thick chamber walls to contain the pressure of heavy caliber cartridges such as the 45-70.

That changed in 1876 when Winchester brought out the Model 1876. A larger version of the Model 1873, it was chambered for more powerful cartridges such as the 45-75 and 45-60.

After John Browning designed what became the Winchester Model 1892, he sold the patent to Winchester for a 'beefed up' version of the 1892 which Winchester marketed as the Model 1886. The Model 1886 was a massive rifle, fully capable of firing the 45-70 cartridge. And it was a repeater, unlike the 'big single shots'.

A Model 1886 Winchester with a 45-70 cartridge.






Looking down at the locking lugs from the top.






The action is open in this photo. The massive locking lugs have been drawn down, allowing the bolt to open and cock the hammer.






Looking down into the action.

Driftwood Johnson said:

I do not know who the other man in the back row, also wearing a derby, is.

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That was Ignatz Gersowitz. He suffered from a condition known as Dromosagnosia and was trying to go to Toledo, but wound up in that picture instead.

Are you sure it was not Leonard Zelig?