Hell on Wheels - TV series

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Beauhooligan

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I have a question about the so called Griswold and Gunnison revolver featured in the series. The pistol looks more like a brass framed 1860 Army. What do you think about it?:)
 
It's actually a Brass framed 1858 Remington clone, which of course never existed.
I believe this has been addressed many times here, do a search for "Hell on Wheels".
Peace out...........
 
i believe beauhooligan was asking about the main characters piece which can't be a remmy clone as it is an opentop (unless like what happens frequently in tv and film they have done switcheroos on us mid scene then i could be wrong). one of the other characters holds a remmy on the guy under a table but thats the only remmy looking gun i have noticed. this is a really cool show thats making me want to get more BP stuff lol
heres a link to an interesting vid that has the set armourer going through the guns they use in the show. should shed some light on the pieces in question my friends :)

http://www.amctv.com/hell-on-wheels/videos/inside-hell-on-wheels-guns
 
The main character is Cullen Bohannan who shoots what is called a Griswold & Gunnison. It looks like it's a .44 caliber 1860 Colt Army, but it has brass frame, and the sleek barrel with creeping loading lever. All of the Griswold & Gunnison revolvers I've seen have brass frames, and are clones of the 1851 Navy and 1860 Army, and the 1860 clones have a 1851 style loading lever and a barrel that is turned to a round profile. The show makes noises of being "period correct", but they are not quite cutting it. The weapons pro shows a cheap Italian cap lock long rifle, proceeds to pour powder from a valved horn (instead of using a separate measure), then seats a bare round ball with no patch. This G&G is a 1851 copy, with a brass frame and a barrel that is turned round. :scrutiny:
 

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Beauholligan,
You are correct. It seems the Hollywierdos just can't do even a modicum research. The use of 1866 winchesters in 1865 and use of brass framed "fantasy" pistols that did not exist in that time, seem just unforgivable in this day and age. 10 minutes of internet research would give them the correct answers. It is nice to see a former Confederate as a hero, I wonder how they slipped that one by the PC sensors.
 
can't help but agree with the last two posts, and beauhooligan, I have the same exact revolver that is seen in your photo, took me a while to figure out what it was. I have many cap n ball guns, but it's the only one I don't shoot (after the first time I brought it to the range anyway). There are so many problems with that gun, cylinder/forcing-cone gap is way too wide for my tastes, and I don't know if it's the main-spring or the nipples, but it takes an average of three attempts for each cap to break. It looks good on the wall and that's about all it does!
 
I have seen Cullen to brandish and shoot a brass framed dragoon barrelled Navy sized revolver, not far from a real G&G's appearance and pretty much the one shown in post #4.

The opening trailer shows an 1860ish thing. As said, the prop departments are not real careful about this sort of stuff.
 
Oldguns/Newguns said:
There are so many problems with that gun, cylinder/forcing-cone gap is way too wide for my tastes, and I don't know if it's the main-spring or the nipples, but it takes an average of three attempts for each cap to break. It looks good on the wall and that's about all it does!
Click to expand...

Chances are you are using caps that are too small. My experience has been that #10 Remingtons will work on just about any manufacturers nipples first time every time. You also might try using a push stick to seat the caps when you install them.

What is your measured B/C gap? What is too wide for your tastes?

Oh,, yeah. Cullen's revolver has been called a Griswold - has not been called a Griswold and Gunnison. So, I guess you could say that the the name of a Brass framed, .44 cal, 1860 pattern revolver could be a Griswold :scrutiny:.
 
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What floors me, is that it would be a simple thing for anybody making a "historic" production, to simply become a member of this community online, post photos of the prop guns, perhaps on several threads, and ask you guys into the CW era guns, or ask folks like me into the Flintlock Era guns, what is good and bad about the props.

They wouldn't even have to identify themselves as TV types working on a show. They'd just have to start a thread with photos and say, "hey guys would these guns work for a person doing a presentation of guns from 1865?" and you'd folks would set them straight for FREE. :mad:

Geesh how sharp do these folks in Hollywood need to be?

LD
 
watching tonights episode , since when did they use a band-aid post civil war ? and when did native americans use saddles and stirrups? the surveyors wife had a band aid on her forhead in one of the opening scenes . it is not just guns they mess up on .
 
i think the only movie that used era proper armes was the birth of the nation. i think it was made in 1903. eastbank.
 
In the latest episode, I noticed that brass-framed revolvers were the rule; if there were steel-framed ones used I didn't spot them. In point of fact, the locomotive is really a much more central item to the show's theme than the guns. It's made out of wood and styrofoam, and moved by another vehicle that is digitally erased from the final pics : LINK. At least the revolvers appear to be all-metal. :rolleyes:
 
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