6 Guns, Cowboys, Hollywood and the Truth

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Corpral_Agarn said:
In Town:
IWB or in a pants/coat pocket.
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I recall a reprint of an article from the Sacramento Bee about the gold/silver mining town of Bodie, California.
Army and Navy revolvers in belt scabbards are seldom seen, the usual weapon is a Bulldog revolver in a leather or canvas lined coat pocket.
The Bee also said Bodie was known as Bad Shot Gulch because of the large number of gunfights with no casualties. It recounted one incident with many shots fired, the only injury being the cigar shot out of the bar piano player's mouth in the opening volley before he took cover.
 
We really have to keep in perspective the myth of the old west, the myth of the cowboy, and the myth of the gunslinger. They developed slowly over time. After the Civil War, as the frontier opened up and westward migration got into high gear, many stories and exploits of those struggles emerged. Breathless accounts were published in eastern newspapers of massacres, bank and train robberies, range wars, and shootouts. These morphed into dime store novels and were re-staged in Wild West shows. Hollywood movies built upon this fictional framework and added visual inventions to the story-telling to heighten dramatic effect in the new media of motion pictures. Radio serialization and episodic television each took a turn in dramatizing the stories, and over the years the conventions of the cowboy and gunslinger, and desperado became an industry of fiction and fantasy. Everything that we think we know about cowboys, if we saw it in the movies, is the product of 8 generations of fictionalization and is probably wrong.
 
jamesjames said:
We really have to keep in perspective the myth of the old west, the myth of the cowboy, and the myth of the gunslinger. They developed slowly over time. After the Civil War, as the frontier opened up and westward migration got into high gear, many stories and exploits of those struggles emerged. Breathless accounts were published in eastern newspapers of massacres, bank and train robberies, range wars, and shootouts. These morphed into dime store novels and were re-staged in Wild West shows. Hollywood movies built upon this fictional framework and added visual inventions to the story-telling to heighten dramatic effect in the new media of motion pictures. Radio serialization and episodic television each took a turn in dramatizing the stories, and over the years the conventions of the cowboy and gunslinger, and desperado became an industry of fiction and fantasy. Everything that we think we know about cowboys, if we saw it in the movies, is the product of 8 generations of fictionalization and is probably wrong.
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Don't forget novels and short stories.

Louis L'Amour is one of my favorite authors but he did 'spice' things up a bit in his stories. Although L'Amour gets a lot of credit from me for the shear amount of research he did of the old west. I think he understood the 'cow puncher' better than a lot of other writers.

The Old West is a favorite study of mine but the more I research the more I believe that people are people and really are not that much different no matter the times they lived.

Life was harder then and priorities were different but you had folks that carried concealed, workers, criminals, bums, law men, store keeps, lumber jacks, telegraph line workers, railway men, etc.

A lot like today.
 
Good Ol' Boy said:
We all know Hollywood can be "less than accurate" as far as guns in movies are concerned.

I've watched plenty of classic as well as modern Westerns and tonight I'm watching one that got me thinking. The setting is in a scene where a gunslinger draws his pistol but then when there is deemed no threat, decocks it and holsters it. Obviously it was customary to carry 5 shots in the older revolvers. But in the movies they never take the time to go back to an empty tube after decocking, they just lay the hammer down gently on what would be a live round.

Anyone know if this is now it actually worked or did they take the time to cycle back to an empty tube in the cylinder?


I'd also be interested in hearing any other "myths" of old days that HW has portrayed.
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If it is a Colt 1873, which it invariably is, there is always half-cock.

The five round thing was a result of the early double actions that didn't have a half cock and no rebounding hammer. Once those two things were invented, carrying on an empty chamber was redundant. However, some myths (revolvers must be carried on a empty chamber) die hard....
 
MedWheeler said:
^^ I wouldn't discount that just yet. Probably quite a few men did carry that way. I'd bet even more did so in the days of percussion revolvers.
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No.

Note the numbs in between the nipple-wells. Now look at the hammer, it has a notch in the face. The hammer notch is lowered onto the numb, and the cylinder in locked in a safe position.

img_4747.jpg

$_1.jpg

Like so:

DSCN0548.jpg

What's the point of having six chambers if you are going to leave one empty?
 
It was load one, skip one, load four. It was the only reliable way to carry a Colt Model 1873 so that it did not discharge if dropped, or did not damage the gun if dropped. If the gun was dropped while on the quarter cock or half cock the hammer could be damaged.

Did everyone do this back in the 1870s? No way to know and likely not everyone. We do know that it was done though and that it carried over to the 20st and 21st Century. It's the way to carry old 3 screw Rugers, and Colts and their clones.

Did some carry on the quarter cock? Maybe, but the gun was vulnerable then if dropped. So I don't see that being a particularly popular way of carry. I haven't read of it being popular but then I haven't read everything out there.

Someone here said it and it was true, the most popular guns back then were small pocket guns, inexpensive and easy to carry. Most folks probably did not carry while working or carry period unless they felt the need.

We know more about holsters and the guns then about how most folks used and handled them.
 
Creaky_Old_Cop said:
I always thought the shortcoming in the Peacemaker was the lack of an intercept notch between chambers like the 1851 Navy and 1860 Army (and most others for that matter) where the hammer/firing pin would rest in a notch between the chamber so it wouldn't rest on a percussion cap. Thus, you could load SIX into your SIS shooter, and not have to dick with the skip load method. Of note, the Schofield COULD have the hammer rest between chambers as the cylinder was free to rotate if not a half or full cock.
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The hammer rested on a pin between chambers in most cap-and-ball revolvers. The Colt SAA had no pin, because the space needed by the pin was now occupied by the rim of the cartridge.

On my Colt SAA in .357, I can rest the firing pin between chambers, with a rim on each side. I can't do that with a .45.
 
lysanderxiii said:
View attachment 759860
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I have ridden for horses since I could walk and I can tell you that that rifle is going to be a sore knee after about an hour. I suspect that this fella doesn't do this often, over rough country, or for long periods of riding.
lysanderxiii said:
To say the low slung holster is an invention of Hollywood is probably incorrect. More likely a result of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show...
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I think it was more like the Uncle Mike's holsters of today and/or the wannabe tactical crowd.

Lots of those photos from back then were staged using props the photograph company would lend out for the photo.
 
Corpral_Agarn said:
I have ridden for horses since I could walk and I can tell you that that rifle is going to be a sore knee after about an hour. I suspect that this fella doesn't do this often, over rough country, or for long periods of riding.......
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I dunno.....I've seen plenty of photos just like that. I've also seen photos with saddle ring Winchester carbines plainly hanging, open, attached by the saddlering. I suppose it was according to what the individual had and could afford.
 
Tommygunn said:
I dunno.....I've seen plenty of photos just like that. I've also seen photos with saddle ring Winchester carbines plainly hanging, open, attached by the saddlering. I suppose it was according to what the individual had and could afford.
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I have seen quite a few as well but usually the rifle is oriented at an angle so that the bulk of the scabbard is not directly beneath the knee. I will see if I can find one or two.

There is a thread here on Saddle Rings and their purpose, but it would agree with you that people who did not have scabbards just looped the rifle over the horn and held in place with a free hand.

ETA: this guy will have a much more comfortable ride:
cowboy1.jpg
 
Yeeeeup..angling the scabbard would seem the best way to go!

Another point to angling is the rifle would be less likely to fall out, even if it was still tied with a thong to the saddlering, which might break or come loose, or even not be there!
 
Tommygunn said:
Yeeeeup..angling the scabbard would seem the best way to go!

Another point to angling is the rifle would be less likely to fall out, even if it was still tied with a thong to the saddlering, which might break or come loose, or even not be there!
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Agree.

Been looking over a bunch of photos now. Seems to vary on style quite a bit.

BTW I think the fella you posted in the suit with the horse is Wyatt Earp.
 
Going back a generation, I have seen Plains Rifles with much wear ahead of the lock at the balance point where they were carried many miles across the saddle in a ready position.
 
Jim Watson said:
Going back a generation, I have seen Plains Rifles with much wear ahead of the lock at the balance point where they were carried many miles across the saddle in a ready position.
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When my Great Grandfather would take his rifle, he carried it across the saddle bow as well. If I recall from the last time we pulled it out of the safe, it had wear marks in similar location.
 
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Great picture; nice to see a fellow lefty with revolver, rope, and rifle all handy on the left side.

I have a '73 Winchester made in 1889 where the forearm is softly worn down, looks like it spent much of its life in a horse born scabbard.
 
Speedo66 said:
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Great picture; nice to see a fellow lefty with revolver, rope, and rifle all handy on the left side.

I have a '73 Winchester made in 1889 where the forearm is softly worn down, looks like it spent much of its life in a horse born scabbard.
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I actually think this particular fella is right handed.

Most cow punchers keep the right side of the saddle free of any items that could get tangled in a rope used for roping calves and cows. It is also one of the reasons you see lots of cross draw rigs.
 
I remember one movie that addressed the "empty chamber under the hammer" issue. In Centennial, the cattle drive episode, one of the young men (Jim Lloyd) who joins the drive doesn't have a gun. The others urge "Mule" Camby to sell him one since he always has a couple of extras. At first Camby doesn't want to, but is eventually persuaded to sell him "an old Army Colt." When he hands the gun over to Lloyd, he tells him to never keep a cartridge under the hammer and explains why. Another drover speaks up a says something like "That's true. A man that loads six doesn't know dung from apple butter." The he adds "If a man can't handle things with five shots it's time to get out of whatever it is he's gotten into." Again, that might not be the exact quote, but it's close.

I've never really looked closely but the gun Camby hands over, appears to be some type of Remington more so than a Colt, but I'm far from an expert on such things. Later when Lloyd uses the revolver to kill an indian, it also appears to be a Remington. Whatever it appears to be a period correct cap and ball revolver. By "cartridge" I assume he meant a paper cartridge, but it is a movie.
 
I'd also be interested in hearing any other "myths" of old days that HW has portrayed
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I don't think it counts as myths but the most common are guns that have an unlimited supply of ammunition despite never being reloaded.

The ludicrous sounds of ricochets are so goofy I have to laugh. Kind of the same with the "peeeecheww" sound of silencers in movies.
 
Corpral_Agarn said:
I actually think this particular fella is right handed.

Most cow punchers keep the right side of the saddle free of any items that could get tangled in a rope used for roping calves and cows. It is also one of the reasons you see lots of cross draw rigs.
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In the article you posted from Theodore Roosevelt NMP, they talked about the cowboys keeping their ropes on the right side so they could grab them fast, but I suppose human nature makes anything possible.
 
Speedo66 said:
In the article you posted from Theodore Roosevelt NMP, they talked about the cowboys keeping their ropes on the right side so they could grab them fast, but I suppose human nature makes anything possible.
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To me, it looks like the rope you see on the left is not one for roping.
Looks kind of like a lead rope, to me.
I do the same thing but usually with a whip on the right side:
1E-r2XuUtnZTHZQWHM9d1yoOSz_HZ_safYslxl40pxMVeSc8Op9KB9pz-l7b6OMiQt9m_HwjIjI9vLWhUFY=w403-h603-no.jpg

ETA:
When I do bring a rope, its on the right:
ebV3ulqqoQ5qnAAsL4SlsXkYTt_urEA1aMBYVVLFRRzUaVDKACAU__w_m7vw0t5APAyPT4ufrnxUpzSEtWW_QBMi=s543-no.jpg
 
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