Revolver handgun history question.

B

Burkewhb

Inactive
Does any knowledgeable gun guy out there know if there were actually gunmen
in the old West who could fire a large revolver from the hip with the accuracy
shown in many Hollywood scenes, like in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,
where Clint Eastwood blows away Angel Eyes from about 80 feet in the final
duel scene, or where Marshall Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke used to shoot a guy 50 yards away before every show?
Could men like Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok and John Wesley Hardin actually shoot that well, or is this just Hollywood BS?
 
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From what I've read, only Wild Bill Hickock was a marksman with the handgun.

Most shootings took place at very close range, or else a rifle was used.

Bob Wright
 
I think you will find that Wild Bill Hickok was very good at any distance. I doubt the street standoff happened as often as Hollywood makes out because most lawmen who lasted used a shotgun or rifle to put the odds in their favor.
 
I don't know about the Olde Weste, but I used to be able to roll cans at 30-40 feet with a Ruger Single Six or double action with a K-22 point shooting. Not hard at all, just takes practice.

Not many shooters actually fire "from the hip", that is with the gun actually held back at the hip. The term is usually used by non-shooters for point shooting, that is keeping the gun at roughly belt level but with the gun arm extended out to the front and the gun visible to the shooter.

But the hero wins most Hollywood shootouts for one simple reason - the script writer is on his side.

Jim
 
At very close distance (in a saloon) a great deal of skill is not necessary to hit a human sized target. I think the main fabrication of Hollywood is the street shootout where the shooters are 30 yards or more away. In that case I would imagine both shooters had probably just about emptied their guns before it was over (and maybe even had to reload or pull another gun). In IPSC/USPSA type matches it is common for people to shoot and hit very close targets without using the sights at all. I know I didn't. Shooting fast from the hip is a valuable skill to learn but there are times when you really need to use the sights. You have to consider that in the old west ammunition was a valuable commodity and not available everywhere like it is now so an individual who could afford to practice enough to become skilled at shooting from the hip was probably not very common. One aspect of the old west that always amazed me was the role of the gunsmith who was necessary to keep all those old single actions and lever guns running. Colt single actions in particular had a very high spring failure rate, the leaf springs under the hammer and the cylinder locking bolt broke all of the time. When Bill Ruger introduced his SA revolver he wisely replaced all of the leaf springs with music wire coil springs. It is pretty rare to see a Ruger SA with a broken spring in it.
 
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Short answer: No.

Longer answer: The classic Western-movie standoff, with two gunmen facing each other in the street, is largely a mythological Hollywood creation. Real Old West towns were never as lawless as Hollywood makes them out to be, and in cases where they came close, most of the lawlessness consisted of drunks shooting each other at across-the-room distances, or more commonly across-the-card-table distances, usually over petty squabbles. :rolleyes: That said, the actual frontier could be a lawless place, but the real-life "Good Guys vs. Bad Guys" long-range shootouts generally occurred out in the boonies and involved rifles rather than handguns.

It's useful to note that the classic big-bore revolvers usually featured in Old West movies- i.e. SAAs, S&W Schofields, Remingtons, etc.- sold in very small numbers. The revolvers that sold in large numbers at the time were small 5rd top-break .32s and .38s from S&W, H&R, etc. These were the real "Old West" guns, and they were chosen for the same reason a present-day CHL holder will buy, say, a Ruger LCP- he/she wants something that is easy to carry and conceal, and he/she is more concerned with averting a mugging than shooting it out with a heavily armed gang in the middle of Main Street. :)
 
When you look at current shooters like Bob Munden and consider that the gun design is essentially the same then it seems reasonable. The metallurgy and reliability might have changed, but not human reflexes. If a man can do it with a 'retro' model 1870's colt than why not an original model 1870's colt?
 
Wasn't that long ago it was considered THE way to shoot a revolver up close.
With practice, its doable. I still think it only takes a nano second longer to get the front sight between your eye and the target and assure a tad more accuracy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViX9D9TJ8k8

I seem to recall interviews with the old west gunfighters, they indeed used thier sights at any kind of range.

However, theres something to be said for the modern technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA-xIssgT-o
 
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One of the reasons that cap 'n' ball revolvers remained popular for so long after the introduction of cartridge guns, was that the former didn't rely on pre-loaded cartridges that were often hard to get. How many wild west pistoleros had access to tens of thousands of rounds of practice ammo, as is common today?
 
I have heard of some of the Duelists in that period, and I would not want to go against them.

Dueling pistols had simple sights, if they had sights at all. Duelists practiced and got very good at pointing and hitting.

I am convinced Charles Dickinson's skill with a handgun is the primary reason he escalated his dispute with Andrew Jackson to a duel; he thought his abilities would win him another.

If you search the web you will find that day of the duel, Dickinson was practicing in front of friends, and shot the cords supporting apples dangling as targets. I guess he wanted to prove that an apple was a big target. Anyway, that is most impressive.

He did in fact hit Andrew Jackson exactly where he wanted, but Andrew wore a big loose coat and the bullet was offset from the heart, or the shot would have killed Andrew Jackson right then and there.

I consider Wild Bill’s 50 yard shot with a pistol extraordinary. Contemporaries thought it extraordinary and I doubt there are few people who could do it today, under the stress of combat.

Television and movies have to have the big hero and big bad villain or the story would not be interesting. I don’t believe Sir Gawain had the strength of seven men till the sun went down, nor do I believe in magic swords which cut stone without hurting the edge. I do believe that there were guys who had good shooting abilities, which is why you waited till you could shoot them in the back, such as John Wes Hardin, who was bent over a craps table, or Wild Bill who was shot in the back of the head during a card game, or Pat Garret who was shot, probably in the back, while he was taking a leak.
 
Yes it is entirely possible. I've done it with a Smith and Wesson Model 10 and Ruger Vaquero. The most fun is a Ruger Single Six. Ammo is affordable enough to get real good. Just last weekend I set up some small chunks of firewood on my woodpile and did a heap of practice with the Single Six. I was shooting at 10-15 yards and firing as fast as I could thumb the hammer.

After a brick or two you'd be surpised how your hand-eye coordination improves. I don't hold the pistol at hip level but rather hold it in front of me. I do not use the sights at all but the gun is part of my sight picture. Kind of like traditional archery. You just look at the target.

So yes, Matt Dillon probably really did shoot that guy in the opening to Gunsmoke :D
 
So-called hip shooting was considered an acceptable technique fifty years ago. In fact, it was the expected way to fire a handgun, juding from photos of the period. In an article in a 1960 gun magazine about a police handgun competition, all of the photos, including the cover photo, show them all shooting from the hip. The sole exception was when they were shooting from a prone position. The article detailed the ranges and number of shots to be fired and how it was to be fired (single or double action). The shots from the prone position were at 60 yards, single action, 35 seconds, it said. All stages were timed and a total of 50 shots individual and another 50 in team competition. So even then, they were shooting some at longer ranges for a handgun.

Hip shooting it wasn't exactly, however. The competitors were all shooting from a crouched position, one handed, arm extended and slightly bent. Presumably they were taught that way but today it would be considered archaic, including the use of revolvers. That probably changed when Jeff Cooper got involved. He used smaller targets.

There is such a thing as true hip shooting, presumably more suited when the target is at arms length. But all of the above not withstanding, Old West illustrations, accurate or not, typically show the gunman taking aim at shoulder level.

Not all armed men of the Old West (or the New West) were "gunfighters." They were cowboys, ranchers, farmers, miners and prospectors, and the like, most of whom probably kept a gun around just in case. But they would not have been quick draw artists and trick shooters. Just like today.
 
Shooting from the hip was something that developed from Hollywood pushing all that fast draw stuff in their movies. If you look at many paintings from the period the shooters held their gun at shoulder level with the elbow bent. From what little info we have, it seems that just like now a lot of shots were fired for every hit made. Even in the famous shoot out between Tutt and Hickok, Wild Bill laid his gun across his wrist to shoot. Tutt fired first and missed, a fast miss is still a miss. A gunfight is not the time to try to look cool or dazzle your opponent, you use all your skills to hit the other guy.
 
In reading most of the gun fights involving lawmen vs. outlaw, the shooting occurred when the lawman tried to arrest the outlaw. Often the badman was drunk or nearly so. The lawman announces the miscreant is under arrest, and he tries to pull a gun. They may even struggle before a shot is fired, resulting in the badman being mortally wounded. Sometimes it was the lawman who got the short end of the bargain.

Bob Wright
 
Actually shooting from the hip is a somewhat unnatural way to shoot a pistol.
What most Old West shooters did and many modern shooters do was POINT the gun holding it more in front of them with the gun below eye level.
They tended to look at the target not the sights.
This is instinctive type shooting, but as proved by Jeff Cooper and Sheriff Jack Weaver at Cooper's 1950's combat matches in California, it's much less effective then using the sights.

The famous Dave Tutt/Wild Bill Hickok gunfight took place in the town square of Springfield Missouri in 1865.

Witnesses disagree about the distance, some saying 100 yards some as little as 60 yards, but all agree that Tutt drew and fired one or two shots, pointing the gun, while Wild Bill laid his .44 Third Model Colt Dragoon over his forearm, aimed carefully and put a bullet through Tutt's heart.

Hickok was so deadly a gunman for at least three reasons.
First, he almost always used the sights.
Second, he practiced a lot. People used to come out to watch as Bill practiced his skills most every day outside of town when he was marshal of Dodge City.
Last, he had the almost unique ability to stay dead calm and take aim while his opponent was wildly firing bullets at him.
 
I've been shooting Cowboy Action since 1997. I shoot Gunfighter, a gun in each hand firing them alternatively. At close range, the range a handgun really comes into its own, I look over the gun just picking up the front sight. This month I was 2nd in speed and 4th overall. Find a local CAS match and go try it, you'll learn a lot about Old West gun handling and it's a buncha fun.
BTW, I have tried shooting from the hip. I never practiced and only hit about 2 of of 10. I'll pass.
 
Of course, as time goes by legends change. Men get taller, tougher and body counts increase from the old west.

Do remember that in those days, these men and women ate, worked and slept with their guns and marksmanship was a life saving skill. I read a lot about the old west and I agree, most gunfights occurred in drunken brawls, across a barroom table or in the back by ambush. However a man who lives with his gun and shoots every day as if his life depended on it could be pretty motivated!

How good were they? Look at the history of Ad Toepperwein, his wife, Annie Oakley and a host of others of the day. These people could really shoot!

Here's a link for starters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhibition_shooting

Flash
 
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