Smokepole14
Member
I’m currently reading a book on mountain men and park rangers in glacier national park. Rangers, Trappers, and Trailblazers by John Fraley. The place of time is late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Several stories I’ve read so far mentions the fur trappers being very well armed incase of a grizzly encounter, but fail to mention what they’re armed with. So far only one story about a young man in 1911 it mentioned him carrying a colt thunderer in 41 long colt. The other mountain men told him that was a very poor choice and I agree as well. It got me to thinking what would have been plenty of gun to have during this time? I posted in the black powder section because I’m assuming they would be using a black powder firearm of some kind. Smokeless was around by this time but I’m not sure how popular or prevalent it would’ve been in the northern Montana mountains. At this point in time the colt walker would’ve been the most powerful handgun available. Not sure if a cap and ball would’ve been the best choice for big game.That leaves me to thinking maybe only rifles would’ve been used. Any ideas or guessing what they would’ve been carrying?