Cowboys and guns in the 19th century

Mike Irwin said:
In those situations when you're working with a rope and a thoroughly ****** off chunk of beef, a handgun in a holster could be a significant liability if the rope got caught behind the holster.
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Actually, that handgun close at hand could be a lifesaver for a cowboy with a particularly angry piece of beef on rope (why do I get the mental image of a steak being lassoed...).

Elmer Keith (pbuh) specifically mentions in his autobiography a few episodes of needing to use his sidearm against angry and out of control animals while working cows or horses. He wasn't a cowboy in the traditional sense, but could call those guys his mentors by virtue of being born as that era was winding down.

Chris
 
I've worked with cows and trust me if you get an angry piece of beefsteak on a rope you won't have time to think about a gun much less actually try to get it. All you'll be doing is trying to get the Hell out of its way.
 
These are quotes from EK's Autobiography Hell, I Was There!
http://forum.elmerkeithshoot.org/oldforum/web/html/postc8fe.html?id=3752036 said:
On two occasions I had to stop mad cows I had roped. They wound me up and threw my bronc and came for me with sharp horns. On another occasion I had to get out of bed, saddle up a bronc, and go to the rescue of a local butcher who had tried to kill a big Durham ball with a Colt by planting the slugs in the forehead. The beast had put the butcher up a tree and, as it was cold weather, he was fast freezing when the neighbor called. When I rode up close to the tree, the bull charged. A single 265 grain 45-cal. Ideal slug, backed by 40 grains of black powder, in the forehead from my old 5 1/2" Single Action Colt did the trick. The bull stuck his nose in the ground and turned over on his back with all four legs stiff in the air, his tail stretched out toward my bronc, then he relaxed in death.
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There are more at the site listed above.

Chris
 
Close at hand and on your waist are two different things.

I'd be really curious to know if Keith either had the gun on his hip or if he had it across the saddle.

If he did actively wear a six gun while working cattle in an enclosure (branding and the like) as opposed to open range work (there you would wear a gun), he would be, I think, a very rare exception to the rule.

Most times when cowboys were actively working cattle in an enclosure there were a several assigned to just "guard" to make sure that one of the cattle didn't get out of hand while being worked.

My Great grandfather, the one with the .32 H&R, worked as a ranch hand in the Dakotas from the mid 1890s to about 1910 or so, not long before Keith.

He became a writer in later life, and one of his stories about life in the Dakotas was a description of a bull being worked in an enclosure goring a black cowboy to death before the guard could kill it with his rifle.


As for the story about the bull chasing the butcher up the tree... He knows there's a problem, so of course he's going to go armed. If the bull is mad enough to have someone treed, you're not going to rope it and lead it back to the paddock all quiet like.
 
Hardcase, I see that your no loading gate double action's recoil shield's right side edges captures the cartridges when the hammer is fully back or fully down. But what happens when you cock it if it is slightly angled upward, like as if you were shooting uphill or upward at a coon in a tree, is the cartridge next to the loading slot will either fall out or most likely get jammed trying to fall out of the cylinder. Obviously the only correct way to cock that gun is to always point it downward to cock it and then raise it up.

I mean how much could a simple and inexpensively made lousy loading gate have cost the manufacturer? That is the height of manufacturing frugality. Dangerous too because in the heat of the moment if a mountain lion or bobcat was in a tree about to pounce on you and you forgot to point the revolver downward first to cock it (and thereby capture the cartridges from falling out), you'd be cat food when that cylinder advanced and the round in front of the cutout slot jammed trying to fall out the slot thus jamming the cylinder until you backed the cylinder up to remove the jammed cartridge.
But by that time.....cat food. Lol.

.
 
Based on what I read and the pictures I've seen, I would say EK wore a gun from the time he got up in the morning till he went to sleep in the evening. Outside of that, I don't have any knowledge.

The bull and tree story wasn't my focus. I just grabbed the entire quote from the site. At that site, there was also an anecdote about his having to shoot an angry bronco while being dragged along the ground by a stirrup. In that case, he definitely had the gun on his hip.

Chris
 
There aren't that many period photographs of cowboys actually working cattle in enclosures given the state of camera equipment and film at the time.

The posed photos that are available, though, generally show most cowboys gunless.

On a cattle drive on the open range I'd suspect it would be a bit different. Cowboys wouldn't be expected to use their ropes nearly as much during a drive as when they were branding or otherwise working cattle, and the possibility of needing a gun would, I think be somewhat higher as per Keith's example of having to kill his horse.


"The bull and tree story wasn't my focus."

Yeah, I thought it was a rather unfocused addition to the discussion at hand. :D
 
Hardcase, I see that your no loading gate double action's recoil shield's right side edges captures the cartridges when the hammer is fully back or fully down. But what happens when you cock it if it is slightly angled upward, like as if you were shooting uphill or upward at a coon in a tree, is the cartridge next to the loading slot will either fall out or most likely get jammed trying to fall out of the cylinder. Obviously the only correct way to cock that gun is to always point it downward to cock it and then raise it up.
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Bingo! Yes, if it's pointing too far up and you aren't quick about cocking it, a round will get jammed in the slot. It's a double action gun, so I guess that they figured that you'd be aiming it level when you pulled the trigger.

Now, the nutty thing is that it takes all of about five seconds to pull the cylinder and dump the empties. I don't know why they even bothered with that cartridge slot in the first place - if a guy actually had to reload, there's no way that he'd do it with that slot. He'd just pull the cylinder, dump the empties and drop five new rounds in and put it back together.
 
Who cares if the bullets fall out in that scenario. If you're relying on a .38 S&W against a cougar you'd be cat food any which way! lol

So, I take it that the op question of cowboys owning guns has been settled enough to move on to how they carried what they owned?
 
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"Hard Pan" .32RF Suicide Special

Here's my son's .32RF suicide special that has the name "Hard Pan" on the barrel. The barrel is ~2.75" long and the gun cost $15 at the local Cabela's. According to the suicude special gun-data page it was made by:

HOOD FIREARMS COMPANY. Norwich, Ct. Manufactured Firearms from early 1870's to late 1880's .

http://www.gun-data.com/suicide_specials.htm
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Here's my son's .32RF suicide special that has the name "Hard Pan" on the barrel.
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I love the names on these things - it's like a skinny, five foot tall guy being named "Brutus". :D

If you're relying on a .38 S&W against a cougar you'd be cat foot any which way!
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Well, at least you could claim that you went out with a fight...sort of. :rolleyes:
 
My question is where do you get your information?
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My grandfather left home when he was 12 (acctually he was run off by his mother because she couldnt handle him) to work on the ranches in Neberaska and Colorado. His father gave him this Smith Model #3 in 44 Russian. He carried it as a cowboy, prospector and miner until he gave it to my father, and it will go to my oldest son.

Yeap cowboys carried guns, (but mostly in their saddle bags) they did in the late 1900s and they still do today (around here anyway).

guns%20004.jpg
 
i don,t know how many people owned firearms or carried them,but i do know they knew how to use them, if the james and youngers were alive today they would tell you just how well they knew how to use them. eastbank.
 
As I said I'm a 4th generation Westerner who is now in Florida. It has always been my understanding anyone on the open range carried a large caliber revolver while on horseback. Maybe its regional, my family was from W. NE-E. WY and what kraigwy said is the same stuff I was told.
When branding calves, etc- totally different thing- you are in a safe area and no one wore a hogleg while doing that type of work. We also have to look at a time frame- are we talking about the cattle drive era or the latter fenced in ranch era?
There's some BIG ranches in Florida. One is 400,000 acres. Yep, 400K- it's chopped up into different tracts but that's the over all size. I bought a beat up Colt from a guy working on one of the ranches. $150- good price but the gun was REALLY in bad shape. He used it as a hammer to fix fences- no kidding- I always thought that stunt was pure Hollywood.
In any event the available evidence seems to suggest big revolvers were pretty common- as already stated by someone else- there are many tales of all the Texas cowboys going up to the Kansas cow towns- they all loved their revolvers, a lot of towns had them check the guns. I realize there's some wiggle room to all this but there seems to be more historical evidence carrying guns was common as opposed to historical evidence that carrying guns was uncommon. I can't recall anything of that nature.
 
Uh, that first picture looks a lot more like a grizzled 49er from the California Gold Rush...

The second is a studio photograph. Problem with studio photographs is that they often kept props around for the subjects to use to add interest to the photograph, items like knives, guns, tools, etc.
 
First is Daniel Freeman, The "first homesteader", who settled in Beatrice, Neb. 1863.
The second is Nat Love, a real guy, a real cowboy who did happen to have his picture taken in a studio wearing his own clothes and carrying his own iron.
 
I knew the second guy looked familiar.

When I was a kid my Parents invested in the Time Life series of books on The Old West, and his picture is in it.

Looks like he's not carrying a handgun at all. The belt seems to be a cartridge belt for his rifle rounds.

Judging by the rifle and the cartridges in the belt, it looks like a Winchester model 1894.
 
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