He had ridden southwest out of Marfa, down through Pinto Canyon. Once he hit the river, he headed upstream, through the little village of Candelaria, to a river crossing called Capote. His horse was hobbled back in the brush, and now he sat in the early morning darkness, Winchester across his lap, waiting to kill a man who had once been his best friend.

The title of the 1960s Outdoor Life magazine article was “The Art of Brush Hunting” written by John Wootters.  I started reading and quickly realized it was written about hunting near Sheridan, Texas, a small community twenty-five miles south of where I lived and where I hunted. I committed to memory everything Wootters wrote in that article. I was truly impressed that a writer, obviously from “my part of Texas” had an article in Outdoor Life and was writing about the hunting

On or before October 10, 1918, the Cameron County Sheriff William T. Vann got word that Delgado was going to cross a load of mescal at Los Tomates Bend not far from Brownsville. Vann put together an arrest team made up of a couple of his deputies, two customs officers, Texas Ranger Captain W. W. Taylor, Ranger Sergeant Delbert Timberlake, and Ranger Private Frank Hamer.

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.

The area where this story took place is some of the most remote country in the American Southwest.  On a Texas map, find the border town of Presidio.  As you look upstream on the Rio Grande, from Presidio, you’ll notice that there’s just a whole of nothing for several hundred miles until you get almost to El Paso.

It’s funny how we associate certain smells or things with memories and people. Having spent a lot of time around my mother’s parents as a child growing up, it’s not surprising I have plenty of fond recollections of them. My granddad and I had a special bond, and we grandkids all called him Pawpaw.

I’m not a gun collector. Oh, I’m sure 'nuff a firearms enthusiast, but I don’t collect in the sense of obtaining an organized representation of specific makes or models of guns. Some folks collect Colt Single Action Army’s, maybe only 1st Generations, maybe all. One guy I know collects old Winchester lever actions and further specializes in the Trapper Models.

I love guns with stories. Tales of firearms that belonged to folks of note, guns used in interesting events, or those that came from fascinating places are intriguing to this writer. They bring a particular firearm to life, even though we all know quite well that they are just mechanical devices, right?

The story goes that author Ned Buntline (real name Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr.) wanted to express his thanks to some of the Kansas lawmen who had been the inspiration for some of the books that he wrote.

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.

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...

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...

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...

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

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..

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