HOW

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whughett

whughett

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OK you experts. What was that piece that Cullen gave the greenhorn kid in the wilderness on the last episode of HOW. Looked like an old H&R break open that I have only it appeared larger. Had to have been rim fire and BP.
 
I didn't see the show either, but the only revolver I can think of that breaks "at the recoil shield" is the Starr percussion revolver. If the cylinder fell out, it was a Starr, as that always happens to me when I forget to grab it with my third hand.

Jim
 
I didn't see the show either, but the only revolver I can think of that breaks "at the recoil shield" is the Starr percussion revolver. If the cylinder fell out, it was a Starr, as that always happens to me when I forget to grab it with my third hand.
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This wasn't a percussion revolver. It was a cartridge gun, looked to be about .32 caliber, maybe .41
 
Post Civil War, 1867 or so. The lever action rifles, yellow boy Henry's, were most likely 44/40, so they had rim fires. The pistol did not look big enough for a 44. 32/20 ??
 
The .44-40 came out in 1873. Henry rifles were chambered in .44 Henry Flat, a rimfire round. Some of these rifles would be re-rigged to fire centerfire after CF rounds became available. In 1867 the most common rifle associated with Winchester would be the original muzzle loading version of the Henry. The New Improved version (Winchester 1866) was so new one would expect them to be still very rare in 1867 especially out west.
 
I wondered about the pistol also, but considering the "license" taken in movies, ,,, well.

S&W made small caliber top breaks. To me it looked like one of the 25, 30 or 32 RF's from the early to mid 1860's. Perhaps a Bacon and Bliss revolver It was small compared to Cullen's hand. Certainly did not look anything near a a 38 or 44 cal.

Only seeing it on screen for 3 or 4 seconds didn't help trying to see what it was.

I just don't know enough about the old "suicide specials" to know off hand who made such top breaks.

http://www.antiquearmsinc.com/antique-bliss-revolver.htm
 
Well regardless of what it was or wasn't Cullens advice to the kid he gave it to was chilling. Just TV drama, but historical ...........! "Three shots for the Indians one each for yourself and the wife, wife first"
 
The real relationship between some of the tribes and the settlers would be impossible to show on tv anymore. The genocidal hatred for each other would be too intense for most audiences. I remember reading a description a settler who was traveling west wrote about a lone scalp hunter she met on the trail. It was pretty intense stuff she wrote about him, almost describing the devil himself.
 
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The brutality and what passed for signs of valor and bravery on both sides was a bit too much for polite TV.

It wasn't just out west. Read about the Enoch Brown Massacre here in PA. A country school full of children hacked to death. The Hochstettler Massacre in PA. Through out my entire life, I heard of a village in the Stoney Valley of SE PA that was alleged to have been massacred by Indians, although I have not found any historical information, I found three clusters of stone foundations which were probably towns at one point. It is the same valley that was written about in the "Light in the Forest" Only two of those towns appear on old maps. At the unidentified town, there were a half dozen foundations that I could tell, perhaps more.

While the script of HOW may have been "wild westing" some. The thought of such a bitter last resort was probably not all that uncommon among frontier folk.

As for the guns available, The railroad could have afforded the latest and best for it's defense. Didn't Cullen just return from the big city, where he would have had access to the latest firearm, at least for his personal use?
 
The Enoch Brown massacre was in 1764; Brown was the schoolmaster. He and 10 children were killed and scalped; one boy was scalped but not killed. The colony of Pennsylvania set a bounty of 134 [Spanish] dollars on scalps of male Indians and 50 dollars on the scalps of females. Tit for tat and all that.

And then there was the PA Wyoming Valley massacre with larger numbers. The state of Wyoming was named after the Wyoming Valley.

Jim
 
Jim K said:
The Enoch Brown massacre was in 1764; Brown was the schoolmaster. He and 10 children were killed and scalped; one boy was scalped but not killed. The colony of Pennsylvania set a bounty of 134 [Spanish] dollars on scalps of male Indians and 50 dollars on the scalps of females. Tit for tat and all that.

And then there was the PA Wyoming Valley massacre with larger numbers. The state of Wyoming was named after the Wyoming Valley.

Jim
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Not a historian but I seem to have read somewhere that the taking of scalps was introduced to the Indians by the French during the French and Indian War.
 
I really don't watch the series much. It’s good in that it brings the old revolvers back to life like the Clint Eastwood westerns did, but it just has way too much random, idiotic, violence for violence sake scenes in it. I was hoping that AMC would have produced a better scripted and better thought out western series.
 
Crawdad1 said:
I really don't watch the series much. It’s good in that it brings the old revolvers back to life like the Clint Eastwood westerns did, but it just has way too much random, idiotic, violence for violence sake scenes in it. I was hoping that AMC would have produced a better scripted and better thought out western series.
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while the shows not perfect i believe it to be a fine show (my fav is still Deadwood), id hazard a guess that the HOW violence would pale in comparison to the real violence that occured back then
gene
 
An Amish family moved into the farm down the road and the patriarch of the Amish family looks a lot like Gunderson in his Mormon get up. Levi has the same soft spoken manner too. Kind of spooky, except that Levi's accent is Germanic not Scandinavian like Gunderson.

Watching HOW has me itching to find a copy of Centenniel to watch.
 
i kind of like the series but i havent seen all the episodes.the brutality and savagery is prob very represenative of what actually happened.only it was probably worse then than is depicted.

when the morman father whose land was being stolen shot the railroad man and then offered up his young son to be hung for the crime,was very heart wrenching.as he said in excuse"this family wont survive without me". he was probably correct.


i know its all in tv land but some of its very represenitive of what went on at that time.the guns do seem period and correct as well.although even at the time ill bet more muzzeloaders were actually still in use than it shows.
 
With all of the civil war arms that must have been avaiable to the civialian population in the aftermath of that conflict, both smoke poles and revolvers must have been in use for farmers and hunters. Working class people could not just go out and by all the new firearms that would have been coming on the scene. They were probly in use into the next century.

Just like today.:D
 
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