In the frontier west era everyone carried a handgun.
Cowboys normally earned $30.00 a month, store clerks $7.00 a week, etc.
In this era what was the going price of popular firearms?
1. Colt SAA
2. S&W B/T
3. Merwin-Hubert
4. Iver Johnson
5. Winchesters

Not everyone purchased a Colt SAA. What other firearms were popular?

Thanks,
Jimmy

back in those days you could buy a colt single action for a 20 dollar gold piece and you still can.

JimmyJ, forgot Remingtons?

Even though the term "Frontier West" covers a fairly imprecise time period of around 30 years, It's probably safe to assume good-quality utilitarian handguns, rifles, and shotguns sold in the $15-$25 range in the latter third of the 19th century. And as noted, gold was $20/oz.

You kind of answered your own question jimmyj. Someone added Remingtons. But (1) I would distinguish between handguns and rifles (you started with handguns but switched to "firearms" so Winchesters can stay but I'd separate them) and (2) I disagree with your statement that everyone carried a handgun. I'm not so sure that cowboys on the range carried handguns; they were probably more likely to carry rifles in scabbards if they carried firearms at all. Store clerks probably didn't carry handguns, either, never mind doctors, preachers, teachers, bartenders, "soiled doves", the average woman, lawyers, miners, railroad workers, etc.

That's not to say that the trail riding cowboys didn't strap on handguns when they hit town but that's a whole nuthuh smoke as we say.....

Here are 4 that were actually used by men of the time. A nice short story with each.

Schofield, Colt SAA and Colt 41 double action.

Anyone who likes horses or seeing dressage of the era has to see John Wesley Hardin's photo. He appears to be the working cowboy of the day in full dress. But alas, he was really the working serial killer of the day. Still great period shot.

4 Revolvers Used by Famous Lawmen and Outlaws of the Old West - OutdoorHub

This link takes one to the most popular 25 guns. Colt, Sharps and Winchester dominate. Of course it was one authors view point. Smith # 3 is mentioned and if you want to see what a real western posse looked like and used see the pic of the posse with the outlaw Ned Christie propped up on a board. It had to be great free advertising for Winchester.

Shotguns, not seeing many they were there, I'm thinking Greener hammer double 10 gauge. Maybe lots of front stuffers. I'll go do some scouting.

Don't find much on shotguns, one guy that studies the history an guns of the Texas Rangers could not find any info on Shotguns, he did find orders by the Rangers for buckshot so the guns were there.

Brief notes include shotgun use in the Civil war as they were deadly in close encounters.

Some folks felt sodbusters could only afford one gun and it was mlost likely a shotgun.

I do know my paternal grandfather migrated to the west, Northwestern Iowa, and took a Springfield 1884 45-70 Trapdoor that I have, a Single shot shotgun that my Sister had and is giving to my son and 2 pistols. The pistols were gone by the time I was old enough to want to see them up close. Don't know what they were. Us grandsons could only see the edge of the butts as they lay on a tall dresser when we looked across our grandparents bedroom.

This site shows some other guns of famous western folks. S&W, Merwin and Hulbert, Spanish double 44 revolvers and some that you never hear about. A thieves DA Colt with bobbed hammer and Youngers bobbed bbl handguns.

The Schwend Gun Collection - Photo Page Two

I'm not so sure that everyone carried handguns and I would suggest that most of the people who lived in towns probably didn't. And I would bet that most of the guns that were carried were of the "inexpensive" variety. The early Colts retailed at about $16, S&W's were close to that. I know my great grandfather carried an Iver Johnson top break in 38 S&W that cost around $3, brand-new in 1900. In the part of the country where I grew up (northern Wyoming) the frontier closed late and cattlemen were still killing sheepmen in 1909-1910. In at least one case that was actually prosecuted, the cowboys involved all had rifles, mostly 1894 Winchesters and at least one early self-loader, but only one carried a handgun. The romantic image of the Old West has everyone with a Colt or Remington or some-such, but I don't think they were nearly as common in actual use as most folks believe.

The most common weapon of the early western "Settlers" was some sort of shotgun. Much more useful than most anything else, and a lot cheaper. Plus they could use round balls, shot, or about anything else that would fit into the barrel. Civil War surplus weapons were very popular because they were cheap. And I know of some more primitive Appalachian areas where muzzle loading weapons of all types remained in widespread use until the 1930s-1940s - and not just by hobbyists.

In an odd sort of way, many Western movies actually prove the point that most citizens did not go "heeled". How many times have we seen gunsels in the movies take over a town because the citizenry was both too scared and incapable of defending itself? While the frightened townsfolk might be a bit of an over generalization, if you actually read the history of the Old West it's far more prevalent than you might imagine. Legally armed citizens are probably more common today!

Seems I read somewhere, the military was paying $13.50 for Colt SAA's. Again, I believe I have read retail was under $20.00.

Elmer Keith dispelled the idea of thugs taking over a town back in the old West & Midwest in one of his books... most men had served in the army (one side or the other) during the late unpleasantness of the Civil War/War of Union Aggression (made both sides of my family happy),

Everyone had worked too derned hard to let any no account thief or band of thieves steal their money... Read an account about the James boys attempt to tree a little town up in Minnesota... or another gang that tried the same in Kansas... both times the well known outlaw gangs were shot to ribbons.. by townsfolk armed with a variety of long arms & side arms too...

I suspect that most homes back then had a .22 rifle, a single barrel or double barrel shotgun (for meat for the house) and possibly a Rem. rolling block, a surplus civil war musket or a trapdoor... if the family was a lil better off.. a Winchester or Marlin lever action... maybe a Henry or Spencer... with a pistol in some homes.. if the breadwinner carried cash as part of his job... or felt the need for one... ranging from cheap to well made...

__________________
be safe,enjoylife,journey well

Vast numbers of inexpensive pocket revolvers were sold. Some were dubbed suicide specials good for only one shot, but others were of fair to good quality. Huge numbers survive to this day. No one knows how many were made.

No one know how many store brand shotguns there were either.

Plus there were plenty of Civil War surplus percussion guns, some converted to cartridge use, many that were not.

Mark Twain went west early, for the California gold rush, and indicated that almost everyone had some sort of handgun tucked away.

In the late 1860s the U.S. Army would not let any groups past this general area unless they had at least 25 men armed with rifles.

Hollywood made the Colt single action. Check out the number of Smith & Wessons sold vs. the number of Colts in the late 1800s.

So I just spent a little time surfing for this information and was unable to come up with anything meaningful. Can you or anybody provide reliable information on, say, the number of Colts vs. Smith and Wessons produced from close of Civil War to 1900? I honestly have no idea, just curious.

__________________
Some collect art; I shoot it!

While large numbers/percentage of all the S&W mod 3's made went to Russia... S&W still out sold the Colt in civilian sales is my understanding....

__________________
be safe,enjoylife,journey well

The movies focus on Colt SAAs and derringers, BUT S&W and other lower cost guns outsold Colt 10 to 1. The total number of Colt SAA first generation guns was less than 400,000 between 1873 and WW II. Many people living in the west had small 32s and 38s and did NOT open carry. As others in this thread have said, long guns were far more useful to farmers and ranchers. As a kid on the farm my Dad owned two guns; a 22 Winchester Model 62 and a 12 Gauge single shotgun.

__________________
Bob.
SWCA 1821

Most cowboys didn't wear sidearms while working, riding. If you have ever been on the Great Plains in a thunderstorm you know you don't want to be the tallest thing as far as you can see with a piece of steel attached to you waiting to be struck. Doc Holliday had a sawed of 10 ga. with an eye loop on the top rib at the balance point so all he had to do was open his frock coat and the muzzle would come up on it's own. John Slaughter was know to favor a shotgun for it's powers of persuasion. A SAA has always cost close to an ounce of gold.

After a few decades of studying firearms use on the western post-Civil War frontier, it appears the lowly shotgun was most common, followed by various rifles, followed by handguns.
For every full-size Colt, S & W, or Remington sold, there were probably at least 4 pocket guns of various brands and lesser quality carried.

I would even go so far as to say most people either never owned a handgun, or only kept one during a particularly dangerous time in their life, selling or trading it off later after the danger had passed for something they needed worse.

I believe a lot of that information has been in the back of each year's Dixie Gun Works catalog for at least the last 40 years.

I expect many of the pictures we see of people open carrying pistols in holsters were of people dressing up to have their picture taken. It probably was just as dangerous east of the Mississippi as it was on the west side and many families that I know of didn't even own a pistol. Larry

For handguns, the small frame, 5-shot British Bulldog for less than 5-bucks. Many could not afford the Colt SAA or S&W offerings, but the British Bulldog, many could and did buy it. The George Layman book on the British Bulldog Revolver has much data on the Bulldog Revolver's presence in the wild, wild west. Thanks for an interesting post.

David

"How many times have we seen gunsels in the movies take over a town because the citizenry was both too scared..."

An opportunity to explain what a gunsel is. It is not a gunman, at least not originally. It is a Yiddish term for a young homosexual. The word became popularized for its use in the famous 1941 film "The Maltese Falcon" when Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade) used it in reference to a young gangster played by Elisha Cook Jr. Film censors at that time would never have allowed the word to be used in the final cut had they known what it meant, and evidently they didn't. So it entered the American vocabulary as a slang synonym for gunman.

A lot of those guns and knives seen in studio portraits were props.

JimmyJ started an interesting thread. A subject near and dear to my heart. I have studied this subject for years as I was raised and still live in remote areas of the west. First, there were very few cowboys, probably more today that then. Cowboys on the cattle drives had to leave their guns in the chuck wagon so as to not frighten the wild cattle being driven to slaughter. I have never seen a picture of a working cowboy heeled with either a handgun or belt knife. Not everybody out west was a frontiersman. Very few were anything but settlers and towns folk. The population of the US in 1850 was 23, 190,000. In the west there was only 400,00 of this number. One tenth of 1% of the US population. By 1890 when the government claimed the wild west closed the US population was 63,000,000 and the western place has a population of 1,200,000 again about 1 tenth of 1% of the total population. Add into these figures that over half of these were adolescence and then the figures of gun production vs population can better worked. Winchester produced a total of all models of large caliber rifle of 775,000. Colt produced at total of all models a total of 537,000 handguns.

30-30 What an excellent, informative post on the demographics of the west. You could compile enough authenticity for and article to be published. People such as yourself are in critical demand.

Thank you for your kind words Auburn4. I could talk on this subject for hours but it would bore people. The population in the west in 1850 was less than 400,000 with Texas alone claiming 225,000 of that number. Exempting Texas I doubt that few children were in the mix. By the 1890 census came about, I would guess that the west had far more adolescents than adults in the 1,200,000 figure. I have a educated belief that the most profound item to civilize the west was so un-thought of, yet so profound that it should be held honored. Who can guess what it is?

My wife's grandfather went west after divorcing his first wife, around 1917-1918. He returned to Ohio in 1927 to raise his teenage son. When he returned he had sold his small Nevada ranch and all the household items, all he brought back were clothes, tools and guns. He did bring his saddle, chaps, scabbard and holsters. We know that to keep the ranch going, he would hunt men, weather as a bounty hunter, lawman or both we have no knowledge. The three weapons he brought to Ohio were a Marlin 25-20 lever action that we still have, and two Colt SAA in 45 Colt that he carried in a double rig drop down holster, like you see in the western movies. You might think, he was a "wanna be" gunslinger; there was no "wanna be" to it! The Colts were still in family possession and were used as props in a friends bar along with the holster rig at the end of prohibition. When WWII started they went to retrieve the guns but they were missing but the holsters remained.

The 25-20 was his food gun, he never told his second wife or their son about his "large" rifle only that he had one, and it was very effective.

One other note: in the family photos the is a picture of his hewn log house in Nevada, you can see a single large tree in the side "yard", There are stories of people driving for several hours after church on Sunday, to show their children what a tree looked like!

Bart died December 26, 1951 and is buried in Blendon Township, Franklin County, Ohio. When he was laid to rest, the minister commented that they didn't make men like Bart anymore! His two sons, several grandson and myself have tried to copy all the good things and avoid the bad things he did.

Ivan

I have a educated belief that the most profound item to civilize the west was so un-thought of, yet so profound that it should be held honored. Who can guess what it is?

Women/Wives.

__________________
Eccentric old coot

And how would one "check that out"?

I was always taught it was the presence of wives/families & public schools that either made a town permanent or by their absence made it only a boom town...railroads, telegraphs & then telephones helped but it was married men & their families that counted...

__________________
be safe,enjoylife,journey well

Close and a contender, however the magic bullet, so to speak, was metal, of all kinds. The native Americans were still in the stone age when colonization happened. Plowing land without a metal plow is labor intensive and unproductive. Forests cant be felled with stone axes. To boil anything before the metal pot, Indians dug shallow holes in the ground, lined it with an animal hide, filled it with water and used hot stones from a fire to eventually get it warm. No guns or bullets without metal. Mining is non existent without metal shovels and picks. There are still tribes of natives that refuse to join the rest of the world in South America, yet they venture into town to acquire 2 things. A machete and a cooking pot. The railroad spelled the end of the wild west, though it took a few decades, and that was not possible without iron rails and engines. Early communication was at a snails pace till metal lines were used for telegraph and telephone lines. Horse had to be shod with metal shoes. And the list goes on and on. An interesting note I will depart on, an Indian gun can often be identified by its lack of steel butt plate. Deemed useless, they were removed to make garden implements, knives, spearheads ect. Now that I have completely derailed the thread, we can return to gun talk.

Was going to say the iron plow......... d----- sod busters!!!!!!!!!...... and their barb-wire fences !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe that, in addition to having what was basically a stone age civilization, most, if not all, of the native American tribes were unaware of the wheel, or at least did not use it.

I have a percussion cap, muzzle load sxs shotgun I inherited from my Grandmother. On the side of the lock work is "Parker". Thinking I had something I did some research. Quickly found out the famous Parker brothers never made a muzzle loader. Anyway, found out this shotgun was made in Belgium. The factory there cranked out single and doubles for import to America and sold them under many Anglo sounding names. The book I found this information in stated the demand for simple, affordable shotguns in 19th century North America was so great factories all over Europe popped up to meet the demand. Makes sense as to this day a shotgun is a very versatile weapon.
Thought I'd through this into the conversation.

Settling of the west was metal driven at first, gold. Then the big ranchers. I feel many miners packed a pistol for their safety, from other miners. This started in 49.

Some modern gunmen, Bill Jordan and Col Askins of the Border patrol both have often referred to the shotgun and buckshot.

But like many above said the revolver probably was movie driven. After the civil war the Colt's Navy and Army pistols were probably still very popular until 1873. With many of the new SAA's going to the Army it may have been a while before many were in civilians hands. So if the wild west was over by 1890 the SAA was only around 16-17 years.

That Missouri boy who's family moved west, Elmer Keith, mentions in his book that when affronted by a Game Warden Elmer's Dad bought him a bunch of lead and Elmer practiced the fast draw and shot all the lead practicing. The warden backed down when called out. Good thing the warden did, Elmer would not have been so famous after spending years in prison.

A side arm was probably the handy gun for LE of the time to carry on the job, an identifier like the badge. Neer do wells and scoundrels could probably be seen with revolvers too. But in all the posse photos they have long arms. Probably because the bad guys had Winchester's too.

My Paternal grandfather guarded wagon trains in the 1890's, he carried a Springfield trapdoor and 2 revolvers, one was a pocket type.

When I was young I asked my maternal grandfather if he rode horses and carried a Colt. He said, no, didn't need them. I knew a fellow stole a bunch of hogs from grandpa when he was younger. I asked how he got them back, did he pack a gun, he said nope my double bit axe. The guy run off, grandpa drove the hogs home on foot thru what became our farm 60 years later. The guy had fenced off the mouth of a huge cave that was on the edge of the farm Dad bought. That was about 6 miles across country on foot. Him and 15 or so hogs. I had trouble with one hog so did not ask him about the hog drive.

In her book "No Life for a Lady", Agnes Morley Cleaveland, born 1874, wrote that the coming of the Model T was the thing that made most cowboys give up their pistols. There was no danger of being thrown and dragged by a Model T. She carried a 32, type unknown. She lived near Datil, wich is west of Socorro, New Mexico and managed the family ranch along with her brother. Anyone who is interested in the American West should read this book: she was there and she had seen the elephant and heard the owl.

Instead of getting philosophical, I'll try something new and actually try to answer the OP's question .

Unfortunately, my oldest catalog is from 1895, but I think it still gives a good idea of the relative prices. For 10 or 20 years earlier, deduct a certain percentage. This comes from Montgomery Ward:

Colt SAA (all calibers, barrel lengths, nickel or blued). $12.00
(although they claim that's their special price, and it's regular $16.00)
S&W (6-shot SA). $15.50
S&W Safety Hammerless. $11.50 to 12.50
Small frame revolvers .32 and .38 by Hopkins & Allen, Forehand & Wadsworth, H & R etc. all betw. $2 and $4.50
(M.W is not offering Merwin Hulbert or Iver Johnson, but those were in the same category.)

Winchester 1873 $10.94 to $13.00
Winchester 1886 $19.50 to $21.00

They tried to rob two banks simultaneously to confuse people, but anything that could go wrong, did. The townies all got rifles and shotguns from the hardware store (with the promise to give them back) They killed four of the gang and severely wounded the other. One townie was a wiz with a rifle and took some out with single direct shots, one to the throat. No spray and pray there.

__________________
"He was kinda funny lookin'"

The storekeeper in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly reels off some of the 'better' makes after Tuco rejects the smelly ones.


I know there was a Beroot (spelling) but a Jocelyn I've never heard of.

Remington, Colt, Colt...Navy, Smith and Wesson.

update: Joslyn Army revolver was made in the run of a few thousand and used in the Civil War. They cost $22.50, too much for that time and served on for the period where they were described as '...poorly made of cast iron that often would neither cock nor revolve."

__________________
"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Alexei Romanov had a gold plated Smith, I think.

Later when Russia was making their own pistols they came up with a revolver that the cylinder moved forward, sealing the gap, before firing each shot. Cool, but too complicated. Also I don't know what gaps were back then, but Bullets by the inch says that the gap only takes a few tens of fps from the velocity.

__________________
"He was kinda funny lookin'"

[QUOTE=Absalom;139048589

Colt SAA (all calibers, barrel lengths, nickel or blued). $12.00
(although they claim that's their special price, and it's regular $16.00)
S&W (6-shot SA). $15.50
S&W Safety Hammerless. $11.50 to 12.50
Small frame revolvers .32 and .38 by Hopkins & Allen, Forehand & Wadsworth, H & R etc. all betw. $2 and $4.50
(M.W is not offering Merwin Hulbert or Iver Johnson, but those were in the same category.)

Winchester 1873 $10.94 to $13.00
Winchester 1886 $19.50 to $21.00[/QUOTE]

People then were the same as people now. The majority bought cheap guns. There were many more $2. and $4. guns bought than $15. guns. Then and now for every expensive gun we see there are bunch of cheap guns. Larry

"People then were the same as people now. The majority bought cheap guns. There were many more $2. and $4. guns bought than $15. guns. Then and now for every expensive gun we see there are bunch of cheap guns. Larry"

...and cowboys were usually very young guys that bought guns for the same "cool" factor as today.

This is correct. Few people carried handguns.

In the "real old west" ...... pre-French and Indian War.

There's a story about the first settler in the Berlin Pa. area in 175something.... (Laurel Highlands of Pa/Somerset Co.)......... his whole family was wiped out cus he was clearing land and didn't have a gun. It took him several weeks to walk back to Carlisle.

IIRC I might not have even brought a gun over the mountains with him.

Back in my youth there was a local gun shop in my Southern Ohio home town owned by E. M. (Red) Farris, now long dead, but one of the founding fathers of the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association. I used to hang out in his shop whenever I could, at least until he got too tired of all my questions. I remember one story he told me about guns going west with the settlers. He said that many of them carried Civil War Springfield or Enfield rifled muskets which had been bored out to smoothbore for use as shotguns. He said that after the Civil War there were guys who traveled around with treadle-powered lathes in their wagons that did the job for 50 cents. I think I once had one of those shotguns - A 3-band Enfield with no trace of rifling and an oversized bore. A .58 Minie ball was a very sloppy fit. I used to shoot glass marbles in it.

"Later when Russia was making their own pistols they came up with a revolver that the cylinder moved forward, sealing the gap, before firing each shot. "

That was the Russian 1895 Nagant revolver. To make use of that feature, it required an odd cartridge design. The case mouth extended beyond the cylinder, and the chamber mouth was recessed slightly. The bullet was seated entirely inside the case The cylinder (which held 7 rounds) was cammed forward when the hammer fell, and the case mouth actually extended slightly inside the barrel for complete gas sealing. I think one of the European ammo manufacturers (Fiocchi or S&B) still loads the ammo.

The British Bulldog--in both .442 and .450 Webley--was hugely popular from 1872 onward. The compact, double action Bulldog was so popular, in fact, that Colt's need to compete with it led to their introduction of the Colt Model 1877 double action. Price was only one reason for the Bulldog's success. Just like today, most people during the last few decades of the 19th century lived in towns, and if they felt the need to go armed they wanted something small, discrete, and easily carried, and not a big, heavy item like the Colt SSA.

The British Bulldog was so widespread that some have called it the REAL "gun that won the west."

A small note of importance to practically nobody: The Yiddish term was "gansel," with an "A". Dashiell Hammett, the author of the novel The Maltese Falcoln, was making a pun, suggesting that the young pistol-carrying thug wasn't really much of a man, and his armament didn't make him one.

IIRC, the Colt SAA debuted for $13.

You left off the Springfield Trapdoor. Uncle Sam sold them surplus for the princely sum of $1.50. Dunno how many cowboys bought them.

During his famous cattle drive from Texas to Montana in 1866, Nelson Story is said to have purchased a wagon load of Rolling Blocks in 50-70 to arm his cow hands, who mostly had only percussion revolvers.

The 50-70 reputedly worked very well against the Sioux, penetrating the horse and rider on the far side.

I heard Gary James say that the system actually worked, but it was way too elaborate a solution to not that big of a problem.