This Colt 1851 Navy, serial number 1388131E, is one of a pair carried by James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok (1837-1876).  During his lifetime, Hickok was a Union Army scout, a deputy U.S. Marshal, the sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas, and the city marshal of Abilene, Kansas.

W.L. “Lee” Barler was born in Llano, Texas in 1874. The Terrell County history book says Barler’s father had worked as a lawman, fought outlaws and Indians and served as a Confederate soldier during the Civil War.

The idea of a .41 caliber revolver cartridge has been around longer than a lot of folks expect. Probably the most popular was the .41 Long Colt which was designed for the Colt 1877 Double Action revolver that is best known by its nickname, the Colt Thunderer.

As a life-long western historian...with amateur status...I’ve always loved to look at the old frontier photos. But one thing that will kind of ruin your appreciation of cowboy movies and TV shows is the lack of guns showing on regular citizens. Of course, with pictures of frontier lawmen you saw all kinds of sixguns...

Anticipation of adventure filled the air as Charlie Pirtle and I loaded down his pickup with camping gear and enough food to survive several days in the New Mexico back country. With the chuck box situated perfectly, we carefully added cots...

Nothing makes me shudder and cringe like being introduced as a firearms expert.  To tell you the truth, I’ve met very few real experts in the firearms industry.  Ken...

He pulled the old ranch truck with the stock trailer holding his buckskin gelding over to the side of the county road, not far from where all the squad cars were sitting. With his spur rowels jingling softly, he walked up to a young highway patrolman and asked what was going on...

Robust. Strong. Sturdy. Sound. All these words are fit for describing Colt’s New Service double-action revolver. The New Service was an evolution of sorts of Colt’s first revolver with a swing-out cylinder...

In studying the gunfights of the Old West it quickly becomes clear that many of the most savvy shootists preferred using a rifle whenever they could get their hands on one quickly.  The handgun came into use when dealing with a surprise encounter or the rifle was not close at...

The .44 Magnum is one of my all-time favorite cartridges. But it hasn’t always been that way. We didn’t really get together until I got some firearms education and got enough nerve to do some experimentation...

You just never know what you’ll see at a small-town gun show. A few years ago, I walked into our show that’s held each Labor Day weekend at Sul Ross State University in Alpine and sauntered up...

Dan Westbrook had been a veteran of World War I. When he got home from that little fuss he went to work as a theft investigator for one...

Smith & Wesson introduced the .44 Special cartridge in 1907, in that classic revolver that is called the Triple Lock.  Although the...

Perched in an old quad-pod near a windmill in remote Pecos County, Texas is one of my favorite places to be each fall. For reasons...

In 1917, Gee McMeans was much better known than Frank Hamer. McMeans had been a Texas Ranger, the elected sheriff of Ector County, Texas...

Blue wildebeest, eland, gemsbok, greater kudu, impala, lechwe, springbok, white-tailed deer, and zebra. Right off the top of my head...

At the end of World War II, with their government contracts filled, the firearms companies got back to making guns for the civilian...

John Taffin passed away on March 10, 2025. He was 85 years old. John invited me to the Shootist Holiday in the early 1990s...It must have..

There was a time when every detective worth his salt carried some sort of snub-nosed revolver. And, naturally, a lot of citizens who felt...

Studying the gunfighters, lawmen, and outlaws of the Old West one encounters some shootouts that were unavoidable. Some were justified...