Virginian Re-run

[SIESTA, SASS #21303]

Trampus was in a stagecoach rollover durring a robbery and lost his memory. A local rancher and his family were trying to help him, but a crooked sherrifs deputy who had been in on the stagecoach hold-up with his older brother was trying to pin the robbery on Trampus and kill him before he could prove different. Pretty weak plot. The sherrifs deputy tried to ambush Trampus at an old cabin. He took aim with his 5.5" Colt single action and fired twice and missed. Trampus ducked around the corner of the cabin as the deputy rushed in and fired 3 very fast shots through the open door with a large frame double action revolver. The deputy ran back into the yard and turned around with a 5.5" colt single action in his hand. What they could do on TV!!!!!

 

Siesta

[Tom Bullweed]

In 1877 Colt had double-action medium-frame revolver in .38 and .41. In 1878 Colt had their large frame revolver in .44WCF, just five years after the SAA was introduced. S&W, M-H's, Kerr's, Adams and Whiyneys were also popular double-action guns of the 1870's. I like to see all kinds of factual guns in our Westerns.

My choice in 1880 would have been:

1878 Colt Double-Action in .44 WCF

1876 Winchester in .45-60, 22" barrel

Colt Root Revolving Shotgun, 12-gage, 24" barrel, 4-shot

None of these guns are allowable as main match guns in CAS matches. Our rules just equal the field, they do not really represent what was availabel 'in the day.'

[Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283]

Yeah, but Hollywood did not make much effort to be historically accurate with their firearms in those days.

 

Watch The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence sometime. When Jimmy Steward shoots Lee Marvin, the gun in his hand is clearly a modern double action revolver. The propman put a fake ejector housing on it to make it look something like a SAA, but that was fake. It was a modern DA revolver, not an old Lightning or a Thunderer or a MH. When the script called for rapid fire, they would just hand the actor a modern revolver cobbled up to look like a SAA. In the next scene he would have a SAA in his hand again.

 

In those days the major studios owned huge quantities of guns that they used to outfit actors for all kinds of movies. They would cut down real Trap Door rifles and make them look like flint lock pistols, with a fake flint lock. They used them in pirate movies, so they could reload them with blank cartridges, rather than having to stuff loose powder into them. I have actually seen a real Henry a couple of times, once in The Man From Laramie, and believe it or not Tom Cheney in the original True Grit was carrying one. Probably not worth a whole lot of money back then. But mostly, they would remove the fore end from a '92 and paint the frame to make it look like brass.

 

In the 1980s, Hollywood realized that they were sitting on a whole lot of money with all those old guns, so they sold them all. Now they don't own any. When a movie is made today, the producers have to hire an armorer to supply guns, mostly replicas. That's why the movies you see today have more realistic guns then those made in Hollywood's heydey, because the armorer can rent them firearms that are historically accurate for the time frame of the movie.

 

Right now, there is an episode of The Virginian on at my house, and there is a guy carrying around a 'Hollywood Henry'. Clearly a Model '92 with the fore end removed to make it look like a Henry. 92's were so dirt cheap in those days that the prop men did anything they wanted to them, rather than go to the trouble to get something authentic.

[Red Hooker]

..... 92's were so dirt cheap in those days that the prop men did anything they wanted to them, ...

Including throwing them on the ground, putting squibs in the stock to simulate a near miss, et c., and, of course, not cleaning them after a hard day's shooting BP blanks. No pristine collector's dreams in those guns which were sold off.