Wild Bill vs Tutt

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Snaggletooth

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Springfield Mo is taking notice of the shootout and put down markers where the event took place on the town square. Just thought that come might stop an see it when traveling I44 in Mo.
 
I would like to see that, S. Tooth. How far is that from you?
I recently stood within a foot of Hickok's guns.
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Interesting, one of the guns looks like it has a dovetailed front sight. Not unusual for Colts.
 
pohill, is that engraved revolver one of the ones given to Hickock by some politician?
 
I took these pics at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wy. This is all they had for a description of the guns. The revolver's serial numbers are close, but only the second one has the letter E, which means factory engraved (they're both engraved but I didn't notice if they were exactly engraved).

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Springfield Mo is taking notice of the shootout and put down markers where the event took place on the town square. Just thought that come might stop an see it when traveling I44 in Mo.
Thanks for the heads-up Snaggletooth. I live just a few miles east of Springfield near Strafford but hadn't heard they were putting up markers where the event took place. Will check it out this week when I'm in town.
 
"I knew it as soon as I fired that he was dead." Foolish to take on a fellow that had grown old fighting with a revolver. Those are some revealing words to say the least.
 
Pretty good condition for guns that were presumably carried day in and day out in open top holsters.

Jim
 
James Butler Hickok was barely 28 years old when the gunplay occurred.

He possibly killed men in the 'War of Northern Aggression'. There has been a longstanding tale of him being "a sharpshooter at Pea Ridge". Indeed there exists some contemporary corroboration, via an article from the February 1, 1867 of the Leavenworth Daily Conservative of some sort of service to the cause of the Union. cf. Rosa.

[I should note the Rock Creek affair as the real beginning of his "career".]
 
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I'm surprised they purport to have his holsters; I had heard he didn't use them much, if at all. Maybe he did later in his life after all. Nice images.
 
There is at least one picture of "Wild Bill," taken at (I believe) Ft. Harker, Kansas. He is standing at the left end of a group, and wearing two ivory or pearl handled revolvers in open-top holsters. In an earlier picture, supposedly made sometime around the beginning of the Civil War he is is wearing two revolvers, butt's forward, with dark (wood?) stocks, in holsters with full flaps.

I believe that those pictures that show him with his revolvers stuck behind a belt were posed for a photographer.
 
I have always heard Wild Bill was carrying a S&W 1 1/2 .32 rimfire when he was killed because the Saloon did not allow open carry of firearms on the premises,,,
 
I have read that later in life, Hickock had the 1851 Colts converted to accept cartridges as his eye sight was failing, and he didn't trust himself with black powder any longer.

Are those engraved guns in the case converted to cartridge? As to their condition, they may have been cleaned up or even refinished at some point.
 
I noticed how narrow the belt loop is on the holster; I'd think the holster would want to kind of flap around on the belt. I guess I need to re-create that rig and see how it rides.

Speaking of riding..... We've all read how Wild Bill wore a sash and stuck his Navies in that sash as a means of carry. I've tried it, and it works great at a card table. On horseback, not so much. This explains why there are so many pics of him wearing holstered revolvers.
 
I thought there was something odd when that guy at the gun show tried to sell me that Glock 17 as Hickok's gun.

Seriously, AJumbo, I can't speak for "Bill", but I never wanted a holster that was loose on the belt. When things are serious, and you reach for your gun, you want it to be where it should be, not moved around.

Jim
 
I believe the author was using some "license" to express his opinion on that one but 28 was a whole lot of living back then.
I also took it out of context as the author was explaining how the revolver evolved during the Civil War as a preferred weapon and the first 'machine gun/pistol' used by the Cavalry and the 'Scouts' like John Mosby, Elijah White, The James and Youngers, and as Hickok has always been described.


And it was still only 1876 where on the Custer expedition to the Little Bighorn, a New York Times reporter asked one of Custer's brothers when he showed him his cartridge revolver, "Where do you find the cartridges to feed it out here?" he replied, "I have another in my saddle bags that uses 'loose' ammo." Meaning of course, a percussion revolver.

Muzzleloaders weren't replaced that fast out on the frontier.
 
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The revolvers in the Op are not converted.

Suppose I had that holster on a thin trouser belt and then wrapped my sash or cumberbun over it? Suppose I was so wearing the holster and gun and then when I sat down to cards I made a point of drawing the gun from the holster and sticking it cross wise in my sash as I sat down? Think the other players at the table might have recieved an important message?

Don't know about you guys but I own a number of holsters for different situation fro my main defensive pistol everything from a bikini like belt slide to a "shoot me first" belt pouch (which remarkably few of the folks that supposedly take note of actually do) and in between clip ons, plastic locking do hickeys and even a swiviling flap holster. Oh and for a bit I used a clip that attached under the left grip that allowed a more secure "Mexican Carry." A hundred and fifty years after I am dead a display showing any of them with my main pistol would be "correct"

-kBob
 
There were plenty of conversion systems around at the time of Hickock's death, and I think I've read that he favored the Thuer. He wasn't a man who left much to chance, and having two ways to feed his Colts would be cheap insurance.

Insofar as that front sight, if he had that work done in order to accurize his Navies, then he did nothing more than what a lot of us on this site have done with ours. If a tiny brass cone sucks today, it must have sucked in 1851.
 
Best I'm aware of on "'Wild Bill''s Guns":

http://books.google.com/books?id=p-...0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=138813 hickok&f=false

28 years is 28 years. It depends on the life lived. And J.B. Hickok's "career", while becoming legendary, was only beginning. Ab ovo, if you will. . . I took the comment contextually to mean to imply "Bill" was along in his career. I posted his age assuming that one could look and see vis-a-vis life events that it was an early event in an eventful life. The "barely" was used to make it clear that he was <2 months past his 28th birthday.

As stated, as far as his "career" it was early on. The legend was certainly beginning but this event occurred early on. The major events of an amazing life were only begging.

J.B. Hickok life afterwards is CRAMMED FULL of living, as can be witnessed in any chronology or biography index. Exempli Gratia: "They Called Him Wild Bill", note the chronology at the end of the work and note the index to the work.

http://books.google.com/books/about/They_Called_Him_Wild_Bill.html?id=gXhYxXsVhIYC

http://books.google.com/books/about/They_Called_Him_Wild_Bill.html?id=gXhYxXsVhIYC

Done here.
 
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