How did they do it ???

M

Magnum Wheel Man

New member
I just loaded up 50 rounds of my 1st big 45-70 load test ( sorry, all smokeless )... but I put 50 rounds stuffed with 405 grain Remingtons into the 1st plastic box of these test loads... & OMG is it heavy... probably well over 5 lbs ???

how many rounds did "someone" heading out across the country on horse back carry ( assuming 45 Colt & 45-70 ), & how the heck did they carry the rounds, what did they put them in ???
 
Good question. I always assumed they didn't carry many rounds and just made them up (re-loaded cases) as they needed them. But that's just a guess
 
I was wondering if I'd get any replys at all... thank you... even if they made up cartridges as they went, 400-500 lead bullets plus the bulk of black powder needed, & the hastle of keeping primers dry & un-contaminated in saddle bag, along with a hand loader ??? ... I could understand if they were riding with a buck board... maybe all these old westerns are way more "actionized" than real life was, but carrying several 100 rounds of 45 caliber ammo must have been tough, even if we are only talking about 45 Colt... no one knows how the "real cowboys" carried their ammo ( other than gun belts & banileros ??? )
 
Commercial buffalo hunters were the only westerners who needed all that much ammunition, and they traveled in groups with wagons to haul in supplies and haul out hides.

Heck, the US Army thought that 20 rounds of rifle and 18 rounds of pistol ammunition was enough to carry on the trooper's person and horse. Resupply was in wagons or on pack horses.
 
maybe all these old westerns are way more "actionized" than real life was
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They are, very much so. I think most would carry a box or two in their saddlebags but no more. Soldiers with 45-70's were issued 20 rounds kept in a cartridge box on their belt.
 
very interesting... kinda puts the cowboy movies, injun fighting, & cowboy action shooting into perspective...

I'm guessing not alot of "wild shooting in the air" was actually done, as is often portrayed in the movies...
 
I'm guessing not alot of "wild shooting in the air" was actually done, as is often portrayed in the movies...
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Most likely not unless you were somewhere you could get more. Ammunition in the wilds was precious and wasn't wasted. Saddlebags weren't very big and two boxes of 45-70 and one box of pistol cartridges would take up a lot of room needed for other necessities. If you're talking working cowboys on a ranch most didn't carry a gun period when they were working stock, many didn't even own a gun. If they needed one for anything it was supplied by the ranch.
 
Not entierly true..the Army use to issue wooden crates of 1000 rounds to anyone asking for it and these were available at most any western outpost...mostly hopping to kill off all the buffalo.. Easier to kill Buffalo than Indians.

Many old writings mention pulling down the rounds and selling the powder (not many liked "Govt." powder) to finance superier powder.. Yes most of this was carried in a wagon... but a few old belts I have seen carried 40 rounds.
 
This kind of reinforces what I've been reading - that we shoot more in a CAS weekend match than many of the original cowboys did in a year (some say lifetime).
 
I am sure

Hawg and MWM,

There is a sequence in Lonesome Dove in which Robert Duvall's character summons one of his chronies to the campsight with two shots from his Walker. You heard the pistol go Bang! Bang! but no smoke, no flash, and no recoil. I am sure that is perfectly accurate from a practical standpoint. We all know that BP pistols are completely smoke free and no powder burns outside of the chamber. We also no that since there is no recoil whatsoever, that any child of three could pick it up and fire it with impunity.

I was casually interested in the flick (Lonesome Dove) while I was watching, but when I heard that pistol go off and knew that the sound was dubbed in I switched over to "Open Range".
 
I am pretty sure to bison hunters had wagons with them on their hunts. They would need them to haul out the hides and meat so carrying in a load of ammo wouldn't be an issue. They also dug out the bullets and recast them.

If you look on e-bay you can find the Time/Life series of books called "The Old West". They are a good read. The one titled "The Cowboys" deals with the gun carry situation pretty well. "The Gunfighters is also good. Heck they all are.

In this book it is stated that the cowboys didn't normally wear their six shooters but left them in the chuck wagon. It related one instance where the word was that indians where ahead. They rode back and strapped on their shooting irons. When they got the the "Wild Indians" they found them to be a poor, starving group of people. They went back to the chuck wagon and stored their guns. The author stated that he didn't think anyone even needed a gun in the wild west. If you stayed out of bars you would stay out of trouble.

I personally would have prefered to have a gun. Mainly for hunting. Thats most likely why a shotgun was so popular. It served all aspects of what a gun was used for. Hunting and self defense.
 
Another consideration is that ammunition was relatively expensive for civilians, so it was important to make each round count. That pretty much held true up through the end of World War II, at least for my family.

My great great grandfather lived in Michigan and owned an 1861 Springfield and an 1884 Colt Lightning. He did most of his shooting in the Civil War. After that, each shot had a purpose - to put food on the table. Since the family never had a lot of money, ammunition was used conservatively. I'm sure that he'd look at our shooting today and shake his head in amazement.

On the other side of the family, the ones that came West from St. Louis, they lived in Idaho City, Idaho during the peak of the gold rush. Ratshooter's comment about bars is right on. There were plenty of fights and plenty of men died in the late 1800s in that town, but not too many were shot; most were stabbings or clubbings. And almost all were in or near one of the many saloons. In fact, my great great grandmother had never even seen a bar until my great great grandfather brought her to Idaho City. She was terrified to have her children walk past one when they went to school.

That side of the family must have owned a gun or two, but nothing got handed down, so I don't know what the situation was there. They were more into fishing (and not so financially desperate as the other side), so I've never heard any hunting stories.

None of them were cowboys, so I guess my comments are a little tangential to the thread at hand, but that's what I seem to be doing lately...
 
Many of the pioneers carried powder and ball for their muzzleloaders. The West was "opened" by the great trails in the early 1840s, before the Civil War, and before metallic cartridges were available or practical. Wagon trains also limited the carrying of firearms by members to reduce fights.

If you read up on the mountain men, most favored smaller caliber rifles because they used less powder and lead than the larger bores we see nowadays, even though they had pack animals to carry the load. In the book "Crow Killer- The Life of Ben Johnson" (the real-life story the book/movie "Jeremiah Johnson" were based on), he trades his 40-caliber for a 30-caliber muzzleloader rifle in Saint Joseph on the advice of an experienced trapper because it used less powder and lead.

The Winchester 1873 ("The Gun That Won The West"), and its predecessor the Winchester 1866, were chambered for the 44WCF (44-40) cartridge, a vast energy improvement over the Henry rifle chambered for 44 Henry Flat which was also popular among frontiersmen. The Spencer carbine and other military rifles were very common on the frontier. These rifles (and the many other black powder cartridge rifles) nearly wiped out the large herds of elk, antelope, and deer on the Great Plains, even with their mild energy levels (they got a lot closer to their quarry than we do, and were better trackers). The 45-70 was considered greatly overpowered by many, but ammo was cheap and available in remote areas due to the Army being on the frontier, so rifles chambered for it were relatively common.

One group the 45-70 was common among was buffalo hunters. Buffalo hunters were buying the best quality, most powerful rifles available because they wanted to kill as many animals as possible before the herd spooked and ran away with their bufflao hides intact. They were professional hunters, and like professional hunters at any time in history, they wanted and got the best available. They bought long-range target rifles chambered for long-range cartridges because it allowed them to harvest more animals before having to move, and few people want to be within 100 yds of a buffalo herd when it stampedes.

We have been greatly deceived by Hollywood's portrayal of the West, but we have also been deceived by Hollywood's portrayal of love, war, marriage, business, etc, etc, etc.
 
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There is a sequence in Lonesome Dove in which Robert Duvall's character summons one of his chronies to the campsight with two shots from his Walker. You heard the pistol go Bang! Bang! but no smoke, no flash, and no recoil. I am sure that is perfectly accurate from a practical standpoint. We all know that BP pistols are completely smoke free and no powder burns outside of the chamber. We also no that since there is no recoil whatsoever, that any child of three could pick it up and fire it with impunity.
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And guns then also carried more bullets than the cylinder should hold. Ken Costner's SAA in that one movie, OPEN RANGE with him and Duvall carried 13 or so shots in the one sequence where he shoots all shots at one person without reloading. ;)

From what I've seen in photographs, pioneers and other early settlers used a lot of shotguns as opposed to rifles and pistols, and the ones who did do a lot of shooting had pack wagons to carry things as others have said. Do a google on Buffalo Hunter images.

The Doc is out now. :cool:
 
Ken Costner's SAA in that one movie, OPEN RANGE with him and Duvall carried 13 or so shots in the one sequence where he shoots all shots at one person without reloading.
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I have read that he did indeed reload his revolver but something so unexciting ended up on the cutting room floor.
 
I always assumed they didn't carry many rounds and just made them up (re-loaded cases) as they needed them.
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I had to giggle at this for a second... :D

What does a hundred pack of 45/70 brass weigh? 3 or 4 lbs? OK OK :D

What does a LB of powder weigh? {one lb. of course;)}

What does a couple hundred 45 slugs at say 350 grains weigh? :)

Seems to me that reloading on the range will force you to carry even more weight than if you only carried a hundred or so rounds...


Now the posts are great, the answers are brilliant. But, remember all the cowboy movies you've ever seen, the OLD ones form the 20's and 30's where the Wild West was Fresh in everyone's minds especially the actors.

Every cowboy camp and every range camp weather herding cows or sheep had a fire going... On that fire there was a big tub of beans, but I'm 100% positive that they did a LOT of lead smelting and bullet making and reloading at the same time...
I mean how many trading posts did you see the Bad guy's and Good Guy's going into in the movies? A lot right? What did they buy?

1: 2 lbs of Bacon or other dried cured meat.
2: 2 lbs of Flour and or corn meal.
3: 1 or 2 lbs of gunpowder.
4: Actual lead slugs or moulds for slugs..

All for hunting and reloading while up in the mountains trapping...

I have found half molds for slug smelting out in the desert at old abandoned encampments while metal detecting and treasure hunting as a kid...
I'm SURE I've seen this related in the real old movies that were representations of the way it was...
 
Here is a question

We have already mentioned in this very thread, that ammunition was not plentiful and was expensive enough that the average person simply could not shoot indescriminantly.

The fellows on the forum who shoot regularly may go through five hundred rounds per week probably significantly more in some cases. Their proficiency, I assume must reflect that high level of practice.

My sense is that the shooting ability of the average cowboy was probably not very good. I also think that the proportion of people who shot a lot in the 1870s was not much higher than it is today. (Though I have no literature to support this.) A good reason to go to the shotgun.

I also believe, though I have less support for this than my first contention, that the condition of the weapons was probably not as high as it is today because of the inability to take care of the pistols as we do today. I have pistols that are 35 years old which look and act like new.

A person on horseback and a group of persons living out of a wagon, must have to prioritize very carefully in their choice of what things they can take along and what things they can do without. I would think that a bore brush is pretty low on the priority list, though I could be wrong. One might respond that a pistol can be cleaned quite well with a small piece of cloth, a pot of heated water and a stick. This is true enough, but I would think that even rags might have been a bit hard to come by on the trail. And...If you don't have a screwdriver, you can't get inside the pistol. Did a cowhand carry a screwdriver in his saddlebags? Perhaps there was a small kit of tools in the wagon which doubled as a repair option for the wagon, the weapons and anything else that was subject to mechanical failure.
 
OLD ones form the 20's and 30's where the Wild West was Fresh in everyone's minds especially the actors.
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Even in the 1920s, most people did not know what life was like on the frontier. Most of them had never been on the frontier, but lived in cities or on rural farms in the eastern half of the nation. And their opinion of the Old West was heavily influenced by dime novels and potboilers, cheap thriller novels about events on the frontier. One gentleman in a biography I read said that frontier life in the books was a lot more exciting than life on the frontier.

If you look at old Colt deluxe pistol cases (the wood ones), they typically had a screwdriver, a flask for powder, and a ball mold right next to the pistol, so it is highly likely that some people cast their own balls and loaded their own ammo. But original molds are not as common as you might think, probably got tossed in the shed and left behind on trips. Lead is heavy to carry, and the risk of injury when smelting in an improvised camp is high, so many probably did not cast their own. Shotguns were common, and people used nails, rocks, and the infamous dimes for projectiles, but lead shot is very versatile when you don't know what caliber or gauge you will be loading next, and balls were available in any town where there was a blacksmith (just about all towns of any size).

Carrying your belongings in saddlebags on horseback limits you to about 40 lbs of gear, about what you could store in a backpack, so you have a change of clothing, raingear, spare boots, and as much food as you could carry. If you have a pack horse, it could carry another 200-250 lbs, still not a lot of weight in an era when things were made out of cast iron, brass, wood and leather. So, not a lot of room to spare for smelting pots, molds, and lead ingots. I will assume that folks did not carry a lot of implements and supplies for reloading, but probably bought ammo when they needed it, and were very careful of how and when they shot.

I am in the camp of believing that most people simply did not shoot as much as shooters do nowadays (with the possible exception of professionals of various kinds, both good and bad), but that there were a lot more guns available on the frontier than we might otherwise suppose.
 
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