TEN GREAT GUNS
Wild West weaponry wish list
THE guns used on the once wild and lawless American frontier have always fascinated me. By the time the Wild West was tamed, a great variety of weaponry had been used and it is my dream to experience the thrill of firing as many of those historic guns as possible. I haven’t done too badly having fired various Winchester lever-action rifles and Colt revolvers of different calibres, both caplocks and cartridge takers.
However, having fired only the more popular weapons used in the West, my wish list remains just that. Here are ten great guns I’d still love to shoot.
1. Top of my list would be the Paterson
Colt invented by Samuel Colt in 1834. This famous five-shot pistol was the first of a long line of revolvers that played a big part in Western history. First developed as a pocket pistol, the cap-and-ball Paterson was soon brought out as a larger belt or holster pistol. So armed, a company of Texas Rangers defeated a war party of 80 Comanche warriors who expected the Rangers to still be armed with single-shot muzzle-loaders.
Many years ago when dealers began stocking black powder guns I handled the first Paterson Colt replica I had ever seen. If I hadn’t been broke at the time I would have snapped up the gun. Sadly when I was later flush, the Paterson had been sold.
2. Another good looking cap-and-ball revolver I would like to fire is the 1863 Starr Army revolver as used by Clint Eastwood in the movie Unforgiven. During the Civil War, the U.S. Government purchased 25 000 of these .44-calibre guns for use by northern troops. The interesting thing here is that the first two models of the Starr, a .36 Navy and .44 Army model, were double-action guns produced in 1858 but the later 1863 model, was single-action. You would think the U.S. Government would prefer to arm its cavalry with the faster firing
double-action gun but apparently they chose the single-action version because it was cheaper!
3. In 1855 Sam Colt’s factory manager, E K Root, patented what they called The New Model Pocket Revolver. This fascinating little five-shot percussion revolver was different in almost every respect to the regular Colts of the previous twenty years. Also known as the Colt Side Hammer or Root revolver, the calibre was either .28 or .31, and barrel lengths ranged from 3½ inches to 4½ inches. I don’t recall ever reading of an incident where one of these guns were used but I have seen an old photograph of a young George Armstrong Custer as a West Point Cadet holding one.
4. Colt’s first double-action revolver brought out in 1877 is another sixshooter I’d like to get to grips with. This model was offered in two calibres; a .38 called the Lightening and a .41 called the Thunderer. It’s the Thunderer that takes my fancy because that’s the weapon Sheriff Pat Garret removed from
Billy the Kid’s dead hand that fatal New Mexico night in July 1881. It has always been a mystery what Garret did with the gun – maybe someone in America has the Kid’s Thunderer without knowing they own one of the most famous guns in Western history. Incidentally, the .44-40 Colt Peacemaker used by the sheriff to
end the Kid’s life was sold to an anonymous Texas collector by Pat’s son, Jarvis Garret.
5. The Smith and Wesson American model was another large-calibre weapon used out west although not as common as the Colt. It’s a handgun rarely seen in Western films and I know it only from photographs in books. It is referred to as the Smith and Wesson American because Russia ordered a large consignment that had slight cosmetic changes made to suit Russian Army taste – hence you also get the Smith and Wesson Russian.
The Russian gun also used a specially designed cartridge that was more powerful, known as the .44 Russian. The S&W factory worked full-time to meet the contract for supplying 250 000 revolvers to Russia and some historians feel this was the reason Colt dominated the Western scene.
To my eye, the Smith does not have the graceful lines of a Colt but it certainly does have the advantage of being much faster to reload because of its top-break system. I have often wondered how many men lost their lives in the heat of battle due to the painfully slow loading procedure of a Colt revolver. Apparently the U.S. Army realised this and some cavalry regiments were eventually armed with Smith and Wesson sidearms.
6. A seldom-mentioned six-shooter is the .44-40 Merwin Hulbert Army model produced between 1870-1880. I have seen the occasional old photograph of a Westerner posing with one of these revolvers but have never read of one being used in any narrative on the old West. The interesting thing here is that Merwin Hulbert & Company was merely a dealer and the guns bearing their name were actually made by Hopkins and Allen. It is not known who actually designed this gun that had what Flayderman describes as “a unique extraction and loading mechanism.”
Only a few thousand Army models were made without any interest being shown by the military. The company went on to offer various pocket models but production figures were also relatively low. Why this weapon never caught on makes me curious. Jeff Cooper referred to it as a gun ahead of its time in design. Maybe the folks out West found the unique operating system just too darned complicated?
7. The first shoulder gun on my wish list would be the caplock Sharps that took a paper cartridge. I have done a lot of shooting with my centre-fire Sharps that takes a metallic round but have never seen the earlier caplock version as used in the American Civil War. All early Sharps rifles used a percussion cap but, a few were also fitted with the Maynard tape primer that was similar to the roll of paper caps we used in our toy guns as kids. Because shooters did not have to fumble with small percussion caps, the Maynard system provided a faster rate of fire but it wasn’t a good idea for a gun being used in all weather conditions.
8. A famous rifle I have always had the greatest desire to
own, shoot and hunt with, is the Springfield Trapdoor rifle. The trapdoor breech was the brainchild of Erskine S Allin of the Springfield Armoury. The first model came out in 1866 and took a .58-calibre rimfire cartridge – as far as I know this was the biggest rimfire round ever made. The final model came out in 1873 taking the .45-70 Government centre-fire cartridge. That’s the rifle carried by General Custer’s command when he led them to their doom in the bungled battle of the Little Big Horn. It has always been a mystery what the victorious warriors did with the more than 400 Springfield rifles and Army Colts they captured that day because only a handful were handed in when the tribes finally surrendered.
9. Next on my list is the Remington Rolling Block – either the rifle or handgun. The latter was the last single-shot handgun used by U.S. armed forces. The rolling block mechanism was invented by Leonard M Geiger in 1863 and, when he joined Remington, he worked with Joseph Rider to improve the action. The first Rolling Blocks were bought by the U.S. Navy but they soon caught on and the Remington factory produced hundreds of thousands of these very strong, breech-loading rifles in different models and calibres for armies all over the world.
I would settle for the standard sporting rifle taking the .45-70 cartridge. I like this calibre because I am familiar with it having owned an Italian-built copy of the rare Colt double-barrelled .45-70 rifle. I turned out dozens of black powder .45-70 cartridges using my simple Lee reloading set. Incidentally, the Rolling Block rifle went modern around 1897 when a 7mm version was produced.
10. The last firearm on my list is the beautiful Winchester 1866 known as the Yellow Boy on account of its brass receiver. I have examined (with great envy) original Yellow Boy rifles but have never fired one. This was the gun that followed the famous Henry rifle and was also the first firearm to wear the Winchester name. Like the Henry rifle, the Yellow Boy was a rimfire.
In the 1980s after a prairie fire swept over the Custer battlefield, a team of archaeologists led by Dr Edward Fox recovered many fired .44 rimfire cases used in repeaters and hence the story that Custer’s men were out-gunned by Sitting Bull’s warriors. The truth is that Custer was out fought because he was out thought, out manoeuvred and outnumbered. Today Italian-made replicas of the Yellow Boy taking a .357 centrefire cartridge can be bought. I reckon this would be just the business to use when hunting the thick East Cape bush for pigs, duiker and bushbuck.
Well, that’s my wish list of ten great guns I’d love to shoot. But this is only the beginning because there are many more I’d like to get my hands on. Oh my, so many guns... so little time.