Over sixty years ago a cowboy from Idaho began writing about his use of heavy bullets in single action revolvers. It has taken nearly that long for the idea to become generally accepted among the shooting public and the ammunition manufacturers. And truth be told, there are many who still have not gotten the message. At least now there are some ammunition companies who regularly produce heavy bullet loads for the big-bore sixguns. 

Recently, there has been a lot of interest and posts on “Fitz” revolvers on social media. I simply shake my head at the level of pontification and commentary by folks who have absolutely no concept of the reason they existed and what the intent was in their creation. There is a huge disconnect, so I thought I would do a post to explain the historical significance of these guns.

Shane’s last article on choosing one handgun for personal defense got me to thinking. And I admire his honesty when, at the end of the article, he gave the nod to a good single-action revolver. It may come as a shock to some but, in this day of high-cap plastic guns, there are quite a few savvy handgunners who prefer a good single action when their life is in danger. They like single actions and shoot them well, so why not carry one for defensive purposes?

Tim Sundles and I were prowling around his beautiful Buffalo Bore Game Preserve and talking about guns and hunting and the usual stuff like-minded folks discuss when we get together. Tim posed one of the age-old questions, “if you could only have one handgun for personal defense, what would it be?” “One that does it all, hunting and personal defense?” I asked, with the wheels already turning in my head.  His reply, “Just personal defense.”

Why would you even think such a thing?  Don’t you know that plastic pistols and high-capacity magazines revolutionized the world?  Where have you been?  Are you some sort of Daniel Boone throwback?  Well, I can share my thinking on the subject with you although I have to tell you right up front that I’m not an operator...don’t have any tattoos...don’t even have any tactical underwear or other super-hero outfits.

So much has been written in the wild west magazines about the Kitchens Gang I figured you might be interested to hear the real story from one who had a minor hand in the whole thing.  You see, I was just out of high school and my folks put me to managing my uncle’s livery stable; the only one in our little town.

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...

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...

Back in 1930 this country was in one of the periodic messes that Americans like to stir up. They’d decided to hold the Great Depression...

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Any way you’d want to look at it, Rafael “Red” Lopez was a bad dude. Border legend has it that he was from the Mexican state of Coahuila...

Jack Taylor spotted them the minute he left his shop and started down towards the Post Office. Years ago, Captain Wright had told him to...

Instead of El Paso, this story actually starts in southeast New Mexico near a town called Eddy, now known as Carlsbad. And the central...

My first centerfire handgun was a used 4-inch Colt Official Police in .38 Special. And, already having some idea of the proper way to do...