Guns for the modern day cowboy.

Easterner here, so I don’t count as a cowboy (though I fancy myself as fitting in well with them). BUT, many farmers in the southeast shouldn’t be left out of the “firearm as a tool” equation. Coyotes kill calves, deer destroy Crops, and livestock occasionally needs to be put down. The term “we used everything but the squeal” (referencing butchering hogs) didn’t come from Wyoming, it came from the Carolinas. My grandpa, dad, and uncles killed many a hog with a .32 revolver held about 6 inches from the base of the skull at the back of the neck. Butchering time was usually right after Christmas. It was so as it was the beginning of the coldest part of the year, and meat could be preserved by salt curing without spoiling unless the winter was unusually warm. We always had crackling biscuits for a couple of months after. Every truck had a rifle behind the seat, usually a bolt action rig in a common caliber like .30-06 that doubled as a hunting rifle. .22s were used a lot to harvest small game growing up. Rabbit and rice was a semi-common Sunday dinner at my grandmothers house. I’m not very old, and I know of these things mostly because my family continued to do them more out of tradition than necessity. When my father grew up in the ‘50s it was more of the latter. Very few people ever walked around with a gun on their hip unless there was a need, like mending a fence through a bog in the summer (snake season).

The main difference in rural East vs West today, having spent my life in the east and and least some time in the west, is Easterners in many areas have forgotten/lost their traditions over the past 50 years due to transplants and urbanization. I hope the “Cowboys” of the West pay attention to us and don’t lose theirs as well.
 
HiBC said:
Using the gun butt for driving nails would seem to me Hollywood fiction.

And the design for the SAA grip frame straps would not be happy.
Click to expand...
I was paraphrasing comments made by a lamenting SA collector/gunsmith from a dimly remembered article in a 1980's gun magazine. The author was remembering the number of guns he had seen. Of course I could understand where one is too many but the comments were that he had encountered "many" used and abused as hammers in one way or another.

And who among us has not used something as a hammer because it was handy?
 
Originally Posted by HiBC View Post
Using the gun butt for driving nails would seem to me Hollywood fiction.

And the design for the SAA grip frame straps would not be happy.
I was paraphrasing comments made by a lamenting SA collector/gunsmith from a dimly remembered article in a 1980's gun magazine. The author was remembering the number of guns he had seen. Of course I could understand where one is too many but the comments were that he had encountered "many" used and abused as hammers in one way or another.

And who among us has not used something as a hammer because it was handy?
Click to expand...

Fair enough,I suppose.

Just my guess? Among the "real deal" folks,the ones who had to pay for those Colts,the ones who counted on them with their lives ....I'm skeptical they were abused as hammers very often.

But ,like the 1934 Ford Victorias that were chopped into dirt track racers,and the barrels of 1903 Springfield rifles and Mausers out on the hardware store floor, "Them old clunker" guns,cars,motorcycles,etc suffer periods of being under appreciated and abused. That leads to attrition, then scarcity. We don't miss water till the well runs dry. But that seldom happens with the fellow who dug that well or earned that Colt SAA . Taken for granted. Like our Constitution,huh?

A lot of old Colt SAA's became Hollywood props. As Hollywood props,I have no doubt the stage hand would pound nails with one.
I can't say I know this,I'm speculating,but I suspect using a Colt SAA in a western film for a hammer may have been written into scripts by observing the stage hands and film crews who had little regard for the props. That Colt may have served near 100 years ...., How long does a Crescent Wrench hold up to being a hammer? I suppose about as long as a Colt SAA.
Of course,from the film screen the practice might become "normalized" among the unimformed.
Thats my guess.
Just a thought.....The image of the range cowboy of history? They had low regard for barbed wire fences. I doubt many would beat up their guns fixing it.
 
Last edited:
stretching the definition of 'cowboy' a bit here: but many, many moons ago I worked as pack string wrangler in Western Montana. I carried a .44 mag. Lot of others carried .357

They were for bear/moose encounters that got out of hand.

Never fired mine outside of a range.
 
I was at a small gunshow several years ago, looking for a S&W K-38. One fellow had a 4" and a 6", both in good shape, price was $425 for each. I did a thorough inspection and they were mechanically fine. The deciding factor was that somebody had used the butt of the 6" for a hammer and there were nail head rings in the buttstock. So, Hollywood or not, some idiots actually do hammer nails with their revolver. I bought the 4".
 
A lot of old Colt SAA's became Hollywood props
Click to expand...
Could be, but more than likely those prop guns were Great Westerns or some other "kinda looks like a Colt" clones. Sometimes they would screw a piece of pipe to the side of a revolver to make it look like a single action ejector rod housing. Colts were always expensive, outside of Hollywood not many cowboys could muster the money to lay out for the good stuff. Bill Ruger built a whole business making single action revolvers for people who souldn't afford Colts. Lots of pictures of late 1800s-early 1900s cowboys with everything from Iver Johnsons, US Cycle Works, Harrington & Richards, etc, for posing with. Cowboys are migrant seasonal workers, after the Indians were rounded up there's not a lot of use for a gun that cost as much as a cowboy makes in a month unless you were going to go into some illegal business.
 
Honestly, the modern cowboy would probably have a GLOCK and a AR. Guns were used mostly for keeping pest animals and predators away from cattle. Additionally, most were poor. The gun that won the West wasn't a lever action and it was a six shooter. It was a milsurp front stuffer like a Enfield 1853 or a Springfield 1861 that was converted into a single shot shotgun.

That was capable of defending hearth and home, putting meat on the table, etc... especially since your average person wasn't hunting deer everyday but small game like rabbit and game bird.
 
Contrary to popular belief cowboys back in the day didn't own guns. If guns were needed they were supplied by the ranch they worked for. Guns weren't worn all the time. Look at old pics of cowboys actually working and you will see no guns. Of the ones that did own guns they were small and cheap. Farmers were the ones likely to have a cut down Springfield made into a shotgun. I have seen a lot of these.
 
I have farm/ranch right up the street from me. Nary a horse to be seen, but side by sides and 4WD are all over the place. Only horses I see out here anymore are someone's saddle horse walking up the side of the road, and generally the rider is unarmed, though once or twice I'll see someone with what appears to be a single action revolver. Of course I don't visit every single ranch or farm out here and this is only anecdotal at best - since we went Constitutional Carry ten years ago most people opt for concealed since there is no cost/BS involved any more.
 
Cowboys may not have made much but they had a free place to sleep and free food and few opportunities to spend money unless they were in town. As long as they were smart they could have afforded a decent firearm much the same as a person could today if they didn't have a mortgage or car payment.

The issue is that they were probably much like people today. Money in, money out.
 
I think it comes down to the keyword....."cowboy". Not "Ranch hand", "farm hand", "herdsman", etc, etc. While the portrayal of the "wild west" may not be 100% accurate, real cowboys lived on their horse and spent time in areas where there was a threat of local natives, bears, cougars and wolves had to protect the stock they guarded, from the same. This took a firearm of some kind. They also for the most part took advantage of what they could shoot to supplement their food supply. I sure what they carried or if they carried was as varied then as it is today with modern day gun owners.
 
had to do some thinking and phone a friend. Interesting thing he pointed out was that one of the biggest factor was ease of use on a horse and that cowboys preferred auto loading rifles like the remington model 8. With that in mind, I would have to say an AR10 in 308, paired with a Glock 21 (45acp)

For the rifle, the ar platform is reliable and easy to maintain. 308 is an effective catrige with basic soft point ammo and it has a good effective range.

For the pistol Glock, as it is reliable and durable. It is also light weight. 45acp is still a common cartridge and seeing this as based on pure utility, meaning ball or hard cast lead ammo, 45 seemed best. I considered 10mm however it is too uncommon and expensive. 9mm was too ineffective in ball ammo.
 
Last edited:
Contrary to popular belief cowboys back in the day didn't own guns.
Click to expand...
There are plenty of period photographs showing cowboys with firearms, most of them cheap guns. Cowboys owned stuff, but didn't have a house or the wherewithal to lug a gun around. They were far more likely to own a knife to defend themselves with.
If guns were needed they were supplied by the ranch they worked for.
Click to expand...
That's because ranch owners knew better than to trust those garbage guns in their cowboys' hands to work if it really came down to it. But many ranch owners didn't allow their hands to carry guns for safety reasons. And some cowboys didn't carry guns because of the chance of losing it.
Cowboys may not have made much but they had a free place to sleep and free food and few opportunities to spend money unless they were in town.
Click to expand...
Cowboys still had to supply their own saddle, clothing, boots, and try to save enough to survive through the winter after roundup. They were hired for the season. Still are. You don't need cowboys when the herd is sold at market. Most cowboys are and were migrant workers.
The issue is that they were probably much like people today. Money in, money out
Click to expand...
People haven't changed much in 10,000 years.
 
We ride trail mules all over creation from Tennessee to Wyoming. I still carry either a Single Action .45 long Colt revolver and a Henry lever action .22 magnum......
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top