With Mrs. Wootters’ blessing, we’re bringing selected works of John Wootters together in a new Gun Tales book. Now you can have John Wootters back in your hands—and help make sure his work stays there for the next generation.

It may seem laughable to call the venerable 45 ACP a forgotten cartridge, yet in the realm of single action revolvers it remains almost totally eclipsed by the mighty 45 Colt. Tradition and nostalgia play a large part in this, to be sure, and there’s simply no denying that the larger case is capable of much greater performance, especially in the larger-framed guns like the Ruger Blackhawk.

“Beware the man with one gun...he probably knows how to use it.” We’ve all seen and heard that quote all of our lives. And I’d be willing to bet good money that there’s not a single member of the GUN TALES family that falls into that category.

From the time in high school when I discovered Skeeter Skelton’s articles and his admiration for the Smith & Wesson Model 27, I wanted one. The big N-frame chambered in 357 Magnum made sense to me. I think it’s one of the best-looking double action revolvers ever made. Of course, Skeeter’s editorials infused a need for a five-inch gun that still eludes me to this day. I stumbled onto one at a gun show many years ago.

Back around the air-conditioned comforts of the coffee table, we continued our dissertations on packing guns. We both came to the consensus that the mid-frame Ruger Flattop is surely one of the best, especially when it comes to building a custom gun. I just happened to have along one such custom specimen that we handled and shot during our visit. It furthered our position on the subject, and we can find no reason to change our opinion.

One of the things that facilitated this whole concept was the invention of the Hollywood fast-draw holster. I truly don’t know who first came up with the idea, but it appears to me that Arvo Ojala was right there when it happened. The main feature of the concept was that the holster had metal in the area that held the gun’s cylinder.

One of the most overlooked and important cartridges in our collection is one of the smallest and oldest. I’m referring to the 5.7x15mmR that made its debut in 1887. You’ll recognize it by its American name, the .22 Long Rifle (.22 LR). Not to be confused with the .22 Short, .22 Long, and a few others of the .22 genre, the .22 LR is its own man. Along with the .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire (WMR), it is undoubtedly the most common of the .22 rimfires out there today.

Val Browning entered the brightly lit show floor and strode confidently to his company’s large booth. He was excited to gauge the reactions to a shotgun of his own creation called the Double Automatic. The expo was for salesmen and dealers to learn about new products, and for the firearms companies to connect and fraternize with these buyers who sold their firearms to hunters and shooters.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The guys at Dodson Guns in Alpine, Texas are aware of my wheelgun affliction, especially when it comes to Ruger single actions. Occasionally they will notify me when a used hogleg wearing the famed Phoenix bird brand shows up.

Lon Parker was an Arizona cowboy. His extended family settled and ranched in southern Arizona near Nogales. In fact, nearby Parker Canyon is named for the family. And, like a lot of the Parkers, Lon served in law enforcement. He was a deputy sheriff for a time and also a Nogales, Arizona, policeman.

The organized opposition of the importation, production, sale, and transportation of alcohol was seen as a way of curbing alcoholism, domestic violence, and wait for it…saloon-based political corruption. I’m sure we all agree that combating alcoholism and domestic violence were noble endeavors. They say rates of infant mortality, liver cirrhosis, and alcoholic psychosis declined during the Prohibition Era.