The question to ask is why did the Colt SAA become the go to handgun of Hollywood movies? Why not the others? Craig gives the answer. It was the only one still in production and that had the Great Western as a replica beginning in the 1960s. It was available for the rough and tumble where the others were not. Same is true of the Winchester 92.
Well, I beg to disagree. While it is true that the 1st Gen SAA was in production right up until 1940, if you look at the sales numbers for the last few years, they were pitiful. In its heyday Colt produced as many as 12,000 Single Action Army revolvers in a year. The high point was 1902 with 18,000 produced. But after 1907 sales fell off steadily. 1908 -1912 sales were 4,000 each year, with a blip of 5,000 in 1911 at 5,000. Then sales steadily declined to 2,000 in 1917, with only 200 sold in 1918 and 800 in 1919. WWI probably had something to do with that. Sales picked up again in 1920 to 3,000, but they never reached that level again, dropping to 1,400 in 1929, the year the stock market crashed. Sales up until 1940 were pitiful, which could be expected during the Great Depression.
1930-400
1931-400
1932-300
1933-200
1934-200
1935-100
1936-100
1937-700
1938-500
1939-400
In 1940 sales jumped to 859 and then production ceased until 1956 when the 2nd Gen was introduced. These figures are from Kuhnhausen's Colt Single Action Revolvers Shop Manual.
Winchester Model 1892 production peaked in 1907 with 61,422 produced. Then a steady decline to 1919 with with 32,706 produced. Sales plummeted in 1920 to 3,104, then rose steadily through the Roaring Twenties to 16,986 in 1927. Sales dropped in 1928, perhaps a precursor to the crash, to 5,633. In 1929 sales dropped further to to 2,720. In 1930 only 491 Model 1892 rifles were sold. The highest sales figure for the Depression was 862 in 1933. Sales continued to decline until 1940 with just 92 Model 1892 Winchesters sold. These figures are from George Madis' The Winchester Handbook.
My point is, I really doubt the movie studios were going to their local Colt or Winchester distributors and ordering up caseloads of new revolvers and rifles. Particularly not in the heyday of Oat Burner production, during the 1930s and 1940s. Old Colts were a glut on the market at that time. Production was down simply because of economic hard times, and because the shooting public wanted the newfangled double action revolvers or semi-automatics. Old Colts and Winchesters could be bought for a song from gun shops and antique stores. They were old, not worth much, and nobody cared if they were dropped and kicked across the floor. They simply had very little value.
No, I have no hard evidence to prove this hypotheses, but it makes much more sense to me that prop masters simply picked up large quantities of old, used revolvers and rifles. And they did not limit their purchases to Colts and Winchesters. As I said, I have seen real Henry rifles in at least two old Westerns. They had not been produced since 1866. Nobody cared much, they probably were not worth very much at the time. Watch some of the other movies made during that time. Movies about foreign wars. The movie studios owned huge stocks of all kinds of weapons. Many had not been produced for years. The great movie moguls may have been paying top dollar to their stars, but they were notoriously stingy in every other department. It simply made more economic sense for them to buy old guns at bargain basement prices. And if they wanted something special, the prop men were geniuses at modifying old guns.
In the 1980s, before the crash of 1987, the movie studious realized they were sitting on a huge pile of cash with all the old guns that had appreciated greatly in value. With typical short sighted thinking, they were all sold off. That is why today the studios have to hire specialists to supply guns for the movies. When you see a nice Colt or Schofield or Winchester or Remington in a movie today, chances are it was made by Uberti and rented to the movie company on a contract basis.
