Damn this National Prohibition anyway! The idea that you can suddenly pass a law and people will just immediately quit drinking booze amazes me. What it’s done is make a whole lot of otherwise lawful people into outlaws, and it’s gotten some awfully good lawmen shot to pieces, too.

For a long time, I ignored the concept of the Bisley grip frame. It didn’t look like the traditional plow handle of the sleek Colt Single Action Army. Nor did it share the similar graceful silhouette of the classic Ruger Flattop, so it couldn’t be as good. Same can be said of the curved lever versions found on some lever action rifles. You don’t know what you don’t know.

Nostalgic. Uniquely American. Just plain cool. The lever action rifle is an icon of the United States. It stands as a symbol of our western culture. Since 1860, the lever gun has been answering calls from riflemen. It has seen battles against man, tangled with surly bears and defiant Cape buffalo, and accounted for all manner of wild game in the hunting fields.

Elmer Keith and Skeeter Skelton were both fans of the 32-20, and both used the 32-20 as a field sixgun. Both chose the Colt SAA in 32-20 and used heavy loads for that time and platform. Back in those days, some 32-20 factory ammunition was designated “For Rifles Only,” and while Skeeter wrote that he shot the Rifle Only loads in his Colt SAA, they were definitely not for use in the other lighter-framed and thinner-cylinder 32-20s of the day.

After the furor of the Lincoln County War died down, Billy the Kid and some friends formed an import/export company. That is, they would export New Mexico cattle and horses to Texas and Colorado where they were sold without the benefit of a legitimate bill of sale. Then this enterprising group would gather up some loose Texas and Colorado livestock, and take them back to New Mexico. One of the stalwarts of this gang was a former Texas cowboy going by the name of Billy Wilson.

By now it shouldn’t surprise you folks to learn that I like single action revolvers. And, while I revere the classic Colt Single Action Army, my real love is the original Ruger Flat Top in .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum. Great guns and cartridges right there, but they are also perfect vehicles for the various custom projects that might come to mind. A good example would be my recent project of converting a Flat Top .357 to .41 Special.

My pretty cowgirl wife, Sylvia, and I were working cattle about thirty miles from town on a warm fall day when a very brief episode occurred. It involved a rope that left me missing the end of one digit from my strong-side hand. Yes, that is right—my trigger finger.

What is a woods gun? Depending on where we are, what we’re doing, and what our anticipated targets are, a woods gun can be most anything. Handguns, handy rifles, and even a short-barreled shotgun can serve us well for woods bumming. My unofficial definition most often relates to a revolver worn while out and about in the great outdoors, because they are what I prefer.

Revolvers are a questionable choice. In fact, there is almost no way to make a logical argument that revolvers are better than a modern polymer-frame pistol. They’re slow to load. They’re slow to unload. They have a low capacity. The sights are old. They’re heavy. They’re wide. They’re long. They take an hour to reload under stress. And they haven’t adapted to the modern accessory ecosystem. But at least they’re much more expensive, and ammunition is harder to find, and is a

There are shooters and there are gun guys. The distinction between the two is seldom blurred. As with any rule or generality, however, the fun is in breaking it. With that in mind, I give you the Savage 99. I want to take you on a tour through the inception and evolution of this iconic platform. Before we embark, I want to break down our premise—The Gentleman of Lever Guns. What does this mean and why does the Savage 99 qualify?

I’ve always been intrigued by the classic look of these stocks and remember seeing the Bear Hug Grips advertisements in the magazines years ago. John Taffin often wrote about them, and many of his good revolver photos depicted fine sixguns wearing these stocks.

If I showed you a room with 200 men in it and told you to pick out the Texas Ranger, you would have selected Joaquin Jackson. He looked like what a Texas Ranger ought to look like, and he acted like one, too. He, in fact, was a Texas Ranger from the crown of his good Resistol hat right down to his custom made boots. I won’t try to tell his life story—he did a good job of that himself in his two books, “One Ranger” and “One Ranger Returns,” which I encourage you to read.

My friend John Taffin wrote quite a few books and I have every one of them. The last time I spoke to his wife Dot, she related that there was yet another book on the horizon. I even have a guest chapter in John’s “Book of the Smallbore.” I learned a lot from that writing experience. If you are not careful this “gunwriter” thing can turn into a lot of work.

“The Land of Thirst,” better known as the Karoo, sits in the southern region of South Africa. It’s amazing how so much of this country near Cradock reminds me of my home in far West Texas. Steep desert mountains, rock-littered ground, red soil, and thorny vegetation. If the acacia trees were replaced with mesquites, you’d hardly notice the difference.

There were those who preferred the Smith & Wesson Model 3 and others who sang the praises of the Remington sixguns, or the Merwin & Hulbert guns, to name just a few. Another revolver that probably doesn’t get its share of the credit is the Colt Bisley single action.

Dual cylinder revolvers are nothing new. Ruger currently catalogs a couple of Blackhawks with 45 Colt/45 ACP and 357 Magnum/9mm cylinders, as well as the Single-Six in 22 LR/22 WMR. Nighthawk Custom’s top shelf Korth Mongoose sports a 357 Magnum and 9mm cylinder that is easily exchanged to make a two-for-one gun. If we account that 38 Specials can be fired in the 357 cylinders, we can call it a three-in-one gun, which further justifies the upper-investment price of such a fin

It was mid-November 1978. I had been on the job as the editor of GUNS magazine for just eight months as I found myself on a jet traveling from San Diego to St. Louis. This was to be my first national assignment, and to say I was somewhat trepidatious would be an understatement on a grand scale. Barely twenty-five years old, my journalism school training and my life-long passion for firearms and hunting had gotten me the job.

Folks like you rarely pass up the chance to look at an old Colt single action, whether at a gun show or at your local gun store. Do you realize that you might well have actually held the gun that Wyatt Earp used at the OK Corral fight? And that could likely be true because no one bothered to make a record of the actual gun that he used.

As a gun writer with the opportunity to test and try different rifles, I’ve used a number of different rifle models and cartridges for buffalo in many different countries. Some have been good, some have been great, and others are near and dear to my heart—I made them permanent residents at my home. Let’s take a look at some of the buffalo rifles I’ve loved over the years.

Bill Ruger’s original Blackhawk we now know as the “Flattop,” is one of the undisputed classic single-action revolvers. The XR-3 grip frame nestles in the hand like that of the famous Colt Single Action Army. Aesthetically the Ruger resembled the Colt somewhat, but it demonstrated a good adjustable rear sight and a ramped front, something Colt didn’t do until 1961 with the New Frontier.