The old west.

[Glock 31]

As I understand it, most old west style single action revolvers, (like 1860's models), have a load gate for loading and unloading. The only kind of revolvers that use a chamber that swings down to the side, (the kind that accomodate speed loaders), are the more modern dirty harry kinds.

I have played the video game, "GUN" and though I know it's a game, which is bound to have inaccuracies, I was wondering if it is possible to find, special order, or if it's absolutely necessary, build an old style revolver such as the Colt navy or Colt peacekeeper, you know the ones like Wyatt Earp may have used, that have a drop down chamber to accomodate speed loading?

I assume that most western movies are more accurately depicted than the ones of today. If shootouts like in the movies did really happen in the old west, and the guns of those eras had to be loaded and unloaded one shell at a time, how did they have such long drawn out battles when most of the time people would be reloading? If there is a single action out there with a drop down chamber, I want to know about it.

 

[Rimrod]

I don't know of any swing out cylinders on old west guns but then I am not an expert in that field. I do know that early S&Ws were top breaks though and their larger caliber models were popular with gun fighters such as Virgil Earp, Frank James and John Wesley Hardin. I have a couple Navy Arms replicas of the S&W Schofield and they can be loaded with speedloaders for the model 25.

Movies are nowhere like the real gunfights of the old west. Most of them did not take too long such as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral which lasted between 15-30 seconds. And there was a technique they used for a fast reload that was simply to draw another gun. Some of the bank/train robbers of that time carried several revolvers hanging off of their saddle. Even the 1858 Remington could be quickly reloaded with an extra cylinder but that was slow compared to pulling a second revolver.

I heard that the movies favored the Colt revolvers because they were more available and more durable than many of the revolvers that were used in the cowboy days and there were many used then. It was more a matter of convienence to the prop people but an injustice to history.

 

[Mike Irwin]

The swing-out cylinder originated in this country with Colt in the 1880s, so technically it would have been possible for those guns to be "Old West" guns. Smith's first swing-out cylinder hit the market in 1896. Again, depending on your definition of the "Old West," they could have been used.

The Colt Peacemaker was the most common revolver with a loading gate. Remington also made revolvers with loading gates, the 1875 and 1890 the major ones, but didn't come close to competing with Colt.

In the 1860s most "Cowboy Revolvers," or what we'd consider to be such, were cap and ball, as large caliber cartridge revolvers were still in development.

One of the methods of "speed loading" the early cap and ball, or cap and ball conversions (converted to take metallic cartridges), was to actually remove the cylinder from the gun and replace it with another one. If you ever watch the movie Pale Rider with Clint Eastwood you'll see this. At least one company made a reproduction of this kind of revolver.

 

[gak]

Also, it's always hard to think of folks in the "old days" having tactics or procedures like the modern military, but when two or more good (or bad) guys were present in the same spot, they "spelled" each other - "reloading...cover me!" - I think even the film Butch Cassidy... had some of that action. (though they also certainly did their share of shooting beyond the 5 or 6 capacity!). Even this method had its ultimate limitations (5 or 6 shots are just that) but helped in one person reloading while the other kept firing. There's a hilarious scene with James Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff where he tells the bad guys across the street "Hold it..." while he reloaded--and they did! Don't think that happened a lot in the real "old West."

 

[model 25]

In the old movies the stars were not always gun savy. Lots of them didn't know squat about guns so the film makers had to build guns that looked like peace makers but were really doublaction revolvers. They did this by adding a ejector rod housing along the barrel. Made it look like a colt but when you watch the gun battle they shoot double action.

You might persue that course, make your revolver look like a Peacmaker. Then you have the best of both worlds.

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