To some folks Claude Dallas was like a throwback to the days of old-time cowboys and mountain men, the ones who took care of their own business. Others just saw him as trouble looking for a place to happen. Regardless, he has become a part of the latter-day western legend.

One of my favorite friends from years past was Texas Ranger Lee Trimble. Lee was born LaFetra Elisha Trimble on September 29, 1892, in Globe, Arizona Territory. He never said much about his early life but, by 1917, he was a cowboy on the Brite Ranch, south of Valentine, in the Big Bend country of West Texas.

It seems common these days that folks often name deer. I’m not talking about pets, although some wild deer become so predictable and accustomed to hunter activity that they appear somewhat domesticated, even on huge ranches. We feed a lot of corn on the ranch I hunt. It helps the wild game; deer, javelinas, quail, various birds, and so on, by providing a little extra nourishment and it helps the hunter to see animals that would otherwise go unnoticed in the masses of mesquite

Wyatt Earp was a frontier lawman and Stuart N. Lake made him a legend. Some time in the early 1920s, Lake contacted Bat Masterson in New York City with the idea of writing Masterson’s life story. Probably just to get rid of the guy, Masterson told him that Wyatt Earp, living in California, was the more deserving subject. The result was that Lake published “Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal” shortly after Earp passed away in the late '20s.

Today I’m going to tell you about a gun that has cost me very little, at least to this point in my ownership of the piece. Years ago, a friend took possession of a Winchester Model 1873 in .44 WCF, A.K.A. .44-40 Winchester.  It’s the 24-inch version with an octagonal barrel and is stamped “King’s Improvement.”

I’d found a cozy little place on a Texas hillside. Sitting with my back against a cedar, with an agarita bush in front of me to break up my silhouette. I hadn’t been there all that long when a nice eight-point buck came out of the brush to get a drink at the stock tank that was about thirty-five to forty yards in front of me.

The older we get, the more valuable family heirlooms and keepsakes we’ve accumulated over the years become. To most folks these things mean very little. However, many of these items are priceless to the current caretaker. A glance around the house reveals an assortment of things that once belonged to relatives that are now gone. It will come as little surprise to y’all that many of these cherished possessions are guns.

The only travelers on the road were two horsemen. The older of the two, riding a big dun gelding, was Dave Allison, a man in his late forties with prematurely graying hair. His partner, younger by 20 years and sitting on a nice bay gelding, was Tom Allred. Both men wore white shirts and dark vests. Each had a revolver on his hip and a carbine in their saddle scabbard. One might mistaken them for father and son ranchers. They weren’t.

Bloody Christmas on the Mexican Border: The Brite Ranch Raid—The tale I’m about to share with y’all will sound a little like one of Jim Wilson’s fiction pieces, but it’s not. There are slight variations in accounts of the incident. What follows are some of the common reports gathered from multiple sources, along with information passed down to later generations from folks who were there.

In the past few days, we’ve seen that the 44 Remington Magnum has been around for seven decades. That fact alone tells us how important this fine cartridge is to the handgunning world. The sheer power of the 44 Magnum is one reason; another is its versatility. Nostalgia plays a role too. Cinema detective Harry Callahan once labeled it as the most powerful handgun in the world, and it was at that time.

Anyone even slightly aware of what’s in my books and magazine articles on African hunting knows I quite often cite Robert Ruark. In fact, if Mr. Ruark was still alive, I’d probably fall under the moniker of ‘fanboy’…or stalker. I won’t apologize for my near obsession with his output.

My guess is that when most of us imagine the old-time gun toters of the frontier we unconsciously assume that they were packing Colt single actions. And, while that might have been true for a slim majority, the Smith & Wesson Model 3 single action was always running a close second to the venerable Colt.

If you play the handgunning game long enough, sooner or later you are bound to delve into the realm of the powerful big bore revolver. For many it’s a gun that is worked up to over time. Some shooters will go a lifetime shooting the “normal” cartridges, and that’s fine.

One of my favorite authors in Shooting Times was a Texan by the name of Charles A. “Skeeter” Skelton. He was the Handgun Editor with a monthly column, and he also did feature articles for the magazine. I went to college in 1972, studying for a degree in Criminal Justice, and as Skeeter was a lawman, his articles led me into centerfire sixguns.

Our fishing tackle wasn’t state of the art, but it worked just fine. Zebco spinning reels were the norm. I can still hear the “click—ziiiing” cadence of pushing the release and slinging a lure across the water. The thrill of a bass striking a top water bait is something I miss. Most of the time we released what we caught but occasionally we took something home to fry.

Tom Threepersons was a lawman/gunfighter in the El Paso area during the 1920s. Whether you know it or not, just about everything else that you know or have read about him is untrue or undocumented. So, let’s start with the facts that can be proven.

It’s no secret that my Huntress loves big bull elk. Her first bull fell to my 7mm Remington Magnum several years ago on a private ranch near Angel Fire, New Mexico. That was a great hunt, and the bulls were bugling and herding cows in a chaotic melee of swarming elk numbering over eighty in one bunch.

It would be a disgrace to cover the subject matter of long range sixgunning without mentioning The Grand Old Man, Elmer Keith. Keith was the pioneer of the sport. Without his contributions to bullet and cartridge design, the world of sixguns would have surely progressed, but the pace and quality of said progression would have been undoubtedly crippled.

This past weekend I spent time with a great group of friends. We did some deer hunting, a lot of visiting, and some really serious gun trading. What more could you ask? So, what I’m about to tell you may sound like bragging. Okay...it is bragging. But what I will tell you later ought to make up for it just a little bit.

There are times when packing a full-size handgun just isn’t feasible. This is where the convenience of the pocket gun comes into play. A gun small enough to be carried discreetly in a pocket holster, yet large enough to shoot accurately. We’ll talk a bit about real-world accuracy with these guns in a minute.