LAWDOG BOB'S
OLD WEST
Fig. 1 Colts and Remingtons
Colt-style Model 1851 Navy...the brass receiver was never used by Colt, but various factories in the Civil War South did include such receivers on some of the guns they made, a few of which imitated the 1851 in overall design. I made the holster myself, based on a Federal pattern. It's non-regulation, however, because I reversed it for right-hand draw.
I like Remingtons!
Fig. 2 Closeup photo of Remingtons...notice change in grips, and addition of .31 cal. pocket pistol.
Six-guns showing two different heritages...in the left column (top) is a reproduction of a Colt 1860 Army, in .44 caliber, the most popular handgun on the northern side in the American Civil War. It is a percussion, or cap and ball, revolver. It can be loaded using loose black powder beneath either a round or conical lead ball, or loaded with a pre-charged paper cartridge using the rammer, or loading lever, beneath the barrel. Metallic caps lined with a combustible chemical are placed on raised nipples behind each cylinder chamber.The force of the gun's hammer blow ignites the caps, sending a spark into the chamber and firing the charge. Modern conversion cylinders are available for many percussion models to convert them to use cartridges, in this case .45 Colt. (Yes, the barrel diameter is large enough to handle the larger caliber bullet, although the conversion cylinder only holds five shots.)
Beneath the 1860 are two examples of later Colt-style revolvers introduced in 1873. Both represent the iconic Single Action Army in .45 Colt. These are cartridge-firing guns, and were first sold only to the U.S. Army to be used on the western frontier during the Indian wars. A year or two later, the model became available for civilian use, becoming one of the most recognizable "cowboy" handguns in history.
Fig. 1 cont...In the right column, (and in Fig. 2) revolvers of Remington heritage are featured. Each of the guns (excluding the pocket pistol Fig. 2) is based on the Remington 1863 New Model Army .44 caliber cap and ball pistol, the second most popular revolver used by Union forces during the Civil War. When Colt's handgun factory burned down in 1864, the U.S. Government placed orders for thousands of additional revolvers of this model to fills its needs. Soon after the war, Remington paid royalties to Smith and Wesson to use bored-through cylinders in its 1863 Armies and other models. Thousands of guns were converted by the factory to use the new metallic cartridges. By the 1870s, the use of bored-through cylinders was commonplace by several manufacturers, as the patent held by S&W had run out in 1868. These particular models can each fire .45 Colt cartridges using conversion cylinders, or loose powder and ball in .44 caliber. Clint Eastwood used a cartridge-conversion Remington in Pale Rider (fig. 3.)
Remington Model 1875...repro by Uberti in .45 Colt. I had the lanyard ring added to improve authenticity. I made the holster myself...it's a Dodge City design from the 1870s...Will Ghormley pattern.
Fig. 3 Clint Eastwood made the Remington 1863 New Model Army famous. The gun is often erroneously referred to as the 1858 Remington. 1858 is the patent date of an earlier version of the firearm, which was the basic pattern for the 1863 model.
RIFLES and SHOTGUNS
Fig. 4 Spencer carbine
Almost every frontiersman carried a rifle in in his saddle scabbard, whether to hunt game or for defense. Although all the movies emphasize the hardware of the pistolero, in most cases, it was the rifle that got the job done. No intelligent lawman went up against outlaws holed up in a shack in the Oklahoma Territory with only a pistol in hand. He went armed with a rifle, preferably a long barreled, high power weapon which gave him the advantage of power, distance, and available cover.
While the long guns that really won the West were probably high powered single-shot buffalo guns like the various Sharps models, or the Springfield .45-70 used by the frontier Army, the average rifle-totin' cowpoke or Plains Indian warrior carried a lever action rifle in .44-40 caliber. Many called any lever gun a "Winchester," whether it was a real Winchester or other repeating lever rifle; and there were several other makes, including Henry (manufactered by Winchester,) Spencer, Marlin, Colt-Burgess, Whitney, Bullard.
Spencers, though rarely portrayed in movies, were incredibly common rifles in the West. Thousands of these Civil War-surplus rifles made their way west in the hands of veterans and other immigrants who got the guns "on-the-cheap" after the cessation of hostilities. The frontier Army continued to use Spencers until approximately 1870. The Spencer is featured in the movies The Unforgiven and the re-make of 3:10 to Yuma.
The Henry rifle was Winchester's first lever gun starting in 1860. It saw limited but highly successful use by certain Union regiments. The Rebs called it the "Yankee gun you load on Sunday and fire all week," because of its 16-shot capacity. Not surprisingly, many Henry rifles fell into the hands of southerners during the conflict and were used with great effectiveness. The Henry is prominently featured in Lonesome Dove and Silverado.
The Winchester 1866 model was orinally called the improved Henry. Both guns utilzed toggle-link mechanisms. Changes included adding a forestock, loading gate/ramp in the right receiver side. It was the first rifle Winchester put its name on, and was popular with everyone from cowboys to outlaws, lawmen, and also Indians, who called the rifle the Yellowboy. The name stuck.
The most popular lever action in the West, and the most successful in terms of sales, was the Winchester 1873 model. It improved upon the 1866, and was chambered for a variety of calibers in the new center-fire cartridges. The most popular was the .44-40, and it was no accident Colt began to chamber its 1873 Peacemaker revolver in the .44-40 Winchester caliber, calling those guns the Frontier. Westerners found it highly advantageous to carry a pistol and rifle that used the same kind of cartridge.
Fig. 8 An 1873 rifle manufactured in 1897, .44-40 caliber.
Fig. 9 1873 saddle carbine. Note shorter, round barrel, the most popular configuration.
Fig. 10 The '73 co-starred in a movie with Jimmy Stewart.
Fig. 5 Panther, Lawdog Bob's brother, demonstrates the Henry .44-40 replica by Cimarron.
Fig. 6 1866 Winchester rifle, NRA museum.
Two different '66s. On top is a Centennial 66, a .30-30 Winchester Model 94 Commemorative with gold-plated reveiver, manufactured in 1966 on the hundredth anniversay of the introduction of the Winchester Model 1866 rifle. Shown below the '94 is a Uberti 1866 short rifle chambered in .45 Colt. I always wanted a Centennial 66...it took me 50 years to obtain one! I think both guns are beautiful.
Fig. 7 Lawdog's Model '73 in modern .357 mag/.38 Sp caliber, paired with a Uberti clone of the Colt Peacmaker, in .45 Colt. This Model '73 was made by Chaparral, and required extensive tuning by a gunsmith to make it "match-ready." With its 24-inch barrel, it shoots right on target, although its hefty octagonal barrel makes for slower target acquistion. I like the aesthetics of a full-length rifle, however.
Winchester next developed the 1876, based on the toggle link action, but with a larger receiver than the '73. It was chambered for larger, more powerful cartridges. The limits of the toggle link action were overcome for Winchester by John Browning, when he developed the Model 1886 lever action rifle, replacing the toggle link with a more efficient and stronger sliding breechblock action.
Browning eventually took the 1886 design further and developed the model 1892, which Winchester chambered in .44-40 and other calibers formerly assigned to the 1873. Two years later, Browning developed the Model 94, which, though similar in appearance and design to a '92, was capable of handling high powered, smokeless cartridges, such as the .30-30. The 94 became a sportman's favorite over the years. As for the '92, it was in production as late as 1941,and became the iconic lever action rifle of Hollywood movies and western television programs, even though it was developed very late in Western history.
I owned a Model 94 when I was in college. It was a pre-1964 model with beautiful walnut stocks, flawless dark bluing, and a ramp sight on the front end. It was chambered in .32 Winchester Special. I placed it in my Dad's care while I went to graduate school, since he lived on a large wooded lot in southwestern Wisconsin where deer hunting was considered quite good. I later found out Dad had sold my gun to a Wisconsin farmer for a mere $25.00! I was devastated. (Recently, I obtained a commemorative 94, the Centennial 66, manufactured by Winchester in 1966. It has a gold-plated receiver and forend cap, 24 inch octagonal barrel, saddle ring, and crescent buttplate. it's a beaut! See image on upper right, next to '66 discussion.)
Years later, when I got started in the cowboy shooting sport, I decided I needed a second rifle, and bought a Rossi-manufactured clone of the Winchester 92 in .45 Colt, a modern chambering. I wanted to create a turn-of-the-century Western impression, and mated the 92 with a pair of Colt-style .45 Single Action Armies , or "Peacemakers.".
Fig. 11 Rossi '92 short rifle (octagonal barrel, 20 inch barrel.) Though uncommon "in the day" compared to round-barreled carbines, short rifles are favored in western shooting competition for their balance.
Shotguns, or scatterguns as they were sometimes called in the West, were the most ubiquitous firearm on the frontier. Everyone from sodbusters to lawmen, express guards, and even Confederate soldiers carried them and used them to great effect. Shotguns were issued to Army units in the field to facilitate foraging for game. Some Indians carried them but they were generally unpopular among Indians, compared to rifles.
Breech-loading shotguns didn't make their way into the West until around 1870 or so. Before then, shotguns were muzzle-loading firearms. The breechloaders had been around a few decades, mostly in Europe, but it wasn't until 1874 that Remington began importing affordable breechloaders. Colt began manufacturing a hammered double-barrel shotgun in 1878, and reproductions of this gun are popular among cowboy shooters. Hammerless doubles didn't appear until about 1883. There were also lever action shotguns (Winchester) and some pump action guns in the late 1880s and into the 1890s, but by far the most commonly used scattergun in the Old West was a mule-eared (hammered) double barrel shotgun. Unlike the "sawed-off" barrels we see in western action shooting (the 20 inch barrels are legal with the Feds) most shotguns of the period had long barrels (as evidenced in period photos.)
I have two shotguns for cowboy shooting. Both are 12 gauge Baikal (Russian) guns imported by Remington. They are double-barreled guns, each with 20 inch barrels. One is hammerless for a late 19th century impression (1890s-early 1900s;) the other has external hammers for an earlier kind of impression. Visually, the hammered breech-loading shotgun could "pass" for a muzzleloader in an 1860s, post-Civil War impression.
Fig. 12 Confederate re-enactor (Panther) with muzzleloading shotgun.
Fig. 14 My two Baikal "doubles," both in 12 gauge. Imported by Remington.
Fig. 13 Replica of Colt 1878 model hammered shotgun.
Muzzle-loading rifles are not used in Cowboy Action Shooting (reg. TM Single Action Shooting Society.) However, Civil War re-enactors and mountain man re-enactors, not to mention traditional-style hunters use these firearms. Cowboy shooters may forget that at least half the history of the Old West featured the use of flintlock and percussion rifles and pisitols. It wasn't until the 1860s that cartridge-firing, breech-loading rifles and pistols came into their own.
My muzzle-loader is a Hawken-design percussion rifle in .54 caliber, manufactured by Thompson Center. The Hawken was one of the most famous "plains rifle" designs of the 1830s-50s, and was well-regarded by western frontiersmen. I stripped the factory varnish and re-stained the stock, applying a rubbed oil finish to make the gun look more authentic. It originally had modern hunting sights, so I replaced these with traditional sights from Track of the Wolf. I've used it for hunting, as well as Civil War live-fire events, and the occasional CW re-enactment and mountain man turkey shoot.
Muzzleloaders
Fig. 15 Lawdog and Panther at a Civil War re-enactment. Note Hawken rifle.
