Okay, let’s look at flintlocks, muskets, and black powder cowboy guns.
Back in the day, firearms were ridiculously difficult to load, aim and fire. You usually kept the thing unloaded until needed. You had to pour the right amount of powder into the barrel, drop the ball into it, stick a piece of wadding into it, take a rod and drive it down, pull the hammer back, give the flash pan a brief wipe of your thumb, aim the musket or flintlock, and pull the trigger.
The barrels weren’t rifled – meaning it was smooth bore. The shot would come out, not spinning. This reduced range and accuracy.
If you didn’t do the above right, the pistol or musket wouldn’t fire. The flash pan was a piece of metal struck by the hammer that created a spark. That ignited the black powder behind the shot, and would propel the shot.
There was a rival school of thought on flintlocks – the percussive cap. This added an extra step, but in bad weather conditions, your weapon stood a better chance of firing. You added a cap to the pan, and the hammer struck the cap, which fired the powder. They weren’t interchangeable methods. You had to buy one or the other.
Some of the older flintlocks were marvels in their design. Still a tooth-achingly difficult piece of equipment, but the designers would make them VERY ornate, and prized by collectors.
Humidity and moisture made for bad shooting conditions. And it took so long to load and fire, that it’s no wonder the three musketeers were often depicted as master swordsmen – you engaged the enemy by firing your musket as they closed, then dropping it to draw your sword and charge.
To fire a musket, flintlock or other style of ancient black powder weapon required carrying a bag of powder, a kit to make your shot with, extra lead pellets to melt to make your shot, the rid, wadding, and caps if you fired a percussive cap.
I don’t know very much about this other than seeing it – I don’t shoot black powder weapons. Some do, and love them. I haven’t bothered.
Leaving pirates and musketeers aside, we now come to the days of cowboys.
By the time of the gunslingers, the average pistol fired paper cartridges, pre-loaded. The shot and powder were already enclosed. But it was paper. And you still used caps.
The only way to safely unload the pistol was to discharge it.
The day came when self contained cartridges arrived, and many manufacturers (such as Colt, the leader in fire arms in those days) offered conversion kits for their Colt Navy and Colt Army pistols. For a few dollars (keep in mind the cost of a few dollars back then…) one could buy the parts needed to transform your Colt to firing cartridges.
If you valued your life, you did it. Now your gun could be safely unloaded. You didn’t worry about rain or humid days, or even getting your gun wet. The river scene in the Good the Bad and the Ugly would have been a lot more tense if they’d used paper cartridge revolvers (the eagle eyed among you will be raising your hands urgently – they’re carrying paper cartridge revolvers in that scene! It’s one of the attention to detail issues that Clint Eastwood complained about).
And now, you could load and fire your pistol much faster.
Trivia – why don’t you ever see Clint Eastwood unload his pistol in the spaghetti westerns? The pistols they carried had a special pin they used to unload the pistol – it would have ruined the authenticity factor of the movie to show a tool NEVER used in the west. But again, not that this mattered much to Leone, as Eastwood complained. I just think it was a time factor for Leone to not show the unloading.
I know about the pin, because now you can buy replicas of those same pistols made for the movies, by Uberte, and distributed by Cimarron. Shoot, you can buy the entire “Man with No Name” outfit, holster, leather sleeve, hat and boots if you want!
Dear Santa….
By the way, the marketing tactic of “The Man With No Name” ignored the fact that he did have not only one name, but two… Joe Banco, and the nickname of “Blondie”, sometimes shortened to “Blonde” by Tuco Ramirez when he started running out of breath.
If you’re a spaghetti western fan, here’s the chronology of the Man with no name saga – The Good the Bad the Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars, for a Few Dollars more.
Why? Because Joe Banco (or Blondie) made a lot of money in the first movie, and got rid of his “duster” jacket by giving it to a dying soldier. The soldier had left his poncho lying there, so Blondie takes it. He wears it the rest of the movies. In the next movie, he’s obsessed about earning wealth, but we see why later – he’s doing it to give enough money to Marisol, Jesus and Marisol’s husband, so they can get away while Blondie takes out Ramon. Blondie’s not worried about money, because he’d split the $200,000 with Tuco Ramirez – and a hundred thousand dollars back then was a lot of money.
In the final money, he’s engaged in a profession of bounty hunter – not so much for the money, but more to get rid of all the outlaws that are preying on the weak. He’s only interested in the money from the academic point of view.
So there you go. Joe “Blondie” Banco’s weapon in the first movie is not the same as the next two – it’s a .45 Cattle Rancher in the first movie, and the next two, he’s firing a .44 Colt Navy cartridge modification (both have the silver rattlesnake engraved into the handle). Col Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef) in the picture way above is firing a Colt Army cartridge modification, but in some scenes he adds a rifle stock to it. There’s one outstanding scene where Mortimer grips his right wrist with his left hand to stead his aim. While the marksmanship in those movies strain incredulity, the added touch by Van Cleef in that scene helped make the movie.
If you’re interested in the rifles used in those movies, almost all of them are Yellowboys, but Ramon is one of the few to carry the Winchester rifle.
Clint Eastwood looked into this enough to go get an Andy Anderson “walk and draw” holster, and he bought the poncho, duster, Levi’s, boots and hat himself before flying to film the movies.
Next, we look at knives and swords!
