I have been watching the Encore Western channel lately and have watched a bunch of the shows that I used to watch as a kid. Ironically, Paladin who was a "hired gun" has an awfully slow draw (short 4 3/4 " bbl), and Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke (7 1/2" bbl) who was the town Marshall was actually pretty quick. Steve McQueen was also pretty fast, while Brett Maverick was pretty slow. I guess some actors got into their roles a bit more than others. If you really want to see a fast draw, try and watch some of Sammy Davis Jr's. work. Not only was he super fast, he did some remarkable twirling demonstrations.

chief38

Paladin uses a 7/12" also. He mentions from time to time in the intro that it is custom made with a 1 .oz trigger pull. BS of course. Have Gun was one of my very favorite shows with Gunsmoke the very favorite. I too have been watching the re-runs on the encore western ch. Never liked Maverick much as a kid cause he always tried to weasel out of trouble instead of draw. Guess he was ahead of his time.

BR

Farmboy,
You are quite correct! (my bad). Paladin did use a 7 1/2" but he was very slow and deliberate; almost a "two stage" draw. Michael Landon from Bonanza was actually quite fast as well.

YouTube - Alamo Fast Draw and Sammy Davis Jr.

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I always take precautions

Sammy Davis Jr. shot in fast draw competitions and was very good at it. A friend of mine had met him at several shoots and said he was a very nice and personable man.

There were celebrity shootouts too, I believe they were hosted by Hugh O'Brien, that were held for charity and other fund raising benefits. Quite a few stars of that period attended, but not all of the "cowboy" actors participated.

Some of the actors that don't seem to be fast, weren't even as fast as they seemed, thanks to some camera tricks. I read an article in a magazine that quoted a cowboy extra that had been a bad guy in a lot of movies. He said he had been "outdrawn and shot" very often by stars that he couldn't draw slow enough to let them beat him, so it was taken care of with some different angles, extra footage, and wizardry in the editing room.

As I recall, the Paladin gun is over at the museum at Cody--a 7 1/2". I think it is a .38-40 but I could be wrong on that. The gun is a bit of a beater; the front sight was removed, and the grips have an awful coat of worn black paint.

I liked the show, though. Some good lines now and then.

Landon as "Little Joe" was reputed to be actually one of the fastest in real life.

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- Change it back -

Yes all these TV Cowboys had there issues, some fast, some slow, different guns, etc...

But nobody out guned Lucas McCain as the Rifleman!!!

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Rick
American Blacksmith

On "Rawhide", anybody else notice that after Eastwood came back from doing "Fist Full of Dollars", Rowdy Yates all of a sudden wore an Andy Anderson rig?

The scene where Shane practices shooting in front of Joey required 116 takes.

And that is a great holster that he wore later in most his westerns. But his buscadero rig in Rawhide was also an Anderson rig. In a book "The fastest Guns Alive" by Arganbright there tons of pics of actors involved in fast draw. In one Clint is at a fast draw competition and is shown outdrawing Robert Fuller and John Smith of Laramie ( using the holster you mentioned). He also beat Peter Brown who is a great gun twirler. I have on tape a scene of James Garner in Maverick doing a gun twirling routine, while doing dialogue, that is top notch. He could throw the gun over his back and catch it then toss it in the air and make it land in the holster.Go on Hula TV and there's Rifleman episodes there. Look for Star in the Dirt or something like that and see Sammy Davis Jr. do a great gun routine for the kid in the show.
My favorite has to be Steve McQueen in the Magnificent Seven. His speed in that film using a 7 1/2" Colt in an Anderson rig was FAST!

Well I watched Tomestone lastnight and the actor who played Johnny Ringo is the best I think I've seen and Sammy a close second

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Michael Biehn.



Well, Doc was faster, wasn't he? "You're no daisy at all!"

Ringo's body, shot in the head, was found under a tree outside Tombstone. The verdict was suicide AISOTN. (as it says on the net).

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I wonder how many stars Arvo Ojala actually made holsters for. I got to speak to him once before his death, a true gentleman who always love to talk to his customers.

I think it was actually Ojala who stood in for Matt Dillon in the opening scenes of Gunsmoke episodes.

I saw a TV Guide feature on James Arness and the gun that he kept at home was a S&W K-38, then pretty much THE Los Angeles cop gun. Don't know if he even owned a single-action, or had much interest in guns.

Hugh O'Brien has been an outspoken advocate of gun control.

Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, and Robert Stack were probably the most pro-gun stars who actually used a lot of guns for hunting and the like. Stack was a champion skeet shooter. Oh: Charlton Heston in later life joined that number, of course.

I forgot Tom Selleck, but he's about to star on a New York cop show. I hope the writers don't make him demean gun ownership! I hate shows set in New York!


T-Star

Actually, Arvo Ojala is the guy in the opening scene that Matt Dillon goes up against........sort of a cameo role for him. One of the reasons he is so far away from Dillon (opening shoot out scene) is that he was very short and Arness was so tall; they needed to make the obvious difference hard to see. He was also the one who trained Arness and many other Hollywood actors.

I tracked down Ojala's phone number in Roseda, Ca. in 1985 after watching Silverado. I wanted a classic Hollywood holsters of his. I ordered one that cost $195 and took a year to get. I asked him a bunch of questions about movie stars. I asked him if Maryln Monroe smelled good as he's cheek to cheek with her in one photo looking down the barrel of his Colt. My holster of his was actually made up in Tacoma, Wa. by his son and daughter in law if I remember correctly. I sent him a copy of The Oregon Trail because it was the only film he said he had dialogue in and didn't have it. He sent me back
$5 and some stuff I put in a frame including a Palidin card.

I know this is an old topic. I am not fast nor consistent but I do have fun.
29June2013 - YouTube

And in character with the actor. I am not an admirer of James Garner, who is, I believe, an anti-gunner. He seems to despise heroes and appears to like portraying anti-heroes.

Paladin did indeed use a 7.5-inch barrel. So did Chris Colt on "Colt .45."

I like your gun. Looks like Prof. Challenger's Colt on "The Lost World" TV series. But he used a flap holster.

I watched your video. You're not exceptionally fast, but if you can hit what you shoot at, you'd win most real life gunfights.

Sammy couldn't help twirling everything.

But yes, he was very fast on the draw.

It was claimed by studio publicity people that Hugh O'Brian was deadly fast, but I've heard that disputed pretty vigorously.

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Oh well, what the hell.

If I did half as well, I would be happy.

Hate to respond to a 2 year old thread but...
Seems I've read that the twirling scene(close up) in tombstone was not
the actor and the Colt saa was not a steel gun.

TS... Ojala, was actually the original " Man in Black " that
" Matt Dillon" faced down in the street, in the opening..

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SWCA #2306
DAV in honor of POP

I've been wanting to ask this question for a long long time. As I watched the clip of Sammy Davis Jr. Twirling and fast drawing his cowboy 6-shooter it remined me of all the time's I've seen this done in movies and by the fast draw experts that perform publicly.

Now I have a Ruger 4 3/4" SS Blackhawk .357 and it is one heavy beast of a revolver. It is pictured below along with it's tie-down fast draw holster. I have tried to draw while cocking the hammer and so forth but that thing weighs a ton.

Now some of the guys in the movies are pretty big guys but Sammy was a little fella and he made that gun look like a plastic toy. I don't believe that I could ever handle it like that no matter how much I practice.

So the question for me becomes do they use special prop guns for these scenes or are these guy juggling those heavy colts etc for real. I don't see how it could be done.

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I can't speak for Sammy Jr. but I believe that most of those twirling guns were cast aluminum replicas or maybe rubber. Who wants to break the hammer or grips on a genuine Colt or even a Ruger for that matter. If I was going to practice gun twirling, I'd do it over the bed.

Charlie

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I heard that they were messing around and intentionally did an out-take where Ojala shot Arness and Arness fell down "dead".

Robert Stack was an Olympic quality shot gunner. My wife saw a late-night interview where he was talking about his "Uncle Clark" who taught him to shoot. Turns out he didn't know his (Dutch) uncle was a movie star until he was in his early teens.

Tom Selleck was a frequent contributor to the Bub Taylor Annual Celebrity Shoot in Corona, CA that benefited Quail Unlimited. So were many stars==Leslie Easterbrook, Steve Kenally, Lou Ferrigno, etc. Slim Pickens donated lots of time to hunter safety programs as did Ben Johnson.

Seems to me that two guys in Nevada Smith handled their guns pretty well............(Brian Keith and Steve McQueen )

Being older I remember Tex, Gene, Dale Robinson being a little slow on the draw but Roy and Bob Steele seemed faster than normal.......... Loved the outfits the Cisco Kid wore.

Makes you wonder how some of the animals ran at full gallop
in those scenes with out tossing a lung up with all that gold and silver, they were carrying!!
Sort of missed it when they took the old trusty "Fourteen" shooter away from them, also..................
Those were the days.

During the "Western phase" of the Hollywood TV programs there were quite a few fast draws:

The guy on Sugarfoot was good, Clint Walker wasn't too shabby; Glenn Ford was FAST.......he could draw and fire in .4 seconds.

Hey, back then every TV show was a Western!! A lot of the stars had quick draw contests for charity events..........

Ive been watching loads of 50s Westerns lately and have seen that Richard Boone (Paladin) Clint Walker (Cheyenne Bodie) Chuck Connors (Lucas McCain) were all genuinely good. Chuck Connors was proficient with his Rifle-which one of his sons still owns. Clint Eastwood was good-and I saw something on him somewhere--as is like Charles Bronson-0that when they were making (Euro)Westerns--they practiced for hours on end. John Wayne was also known for practicing hours on end till perfecting his draw in the 30s and 40s-but had help from the likes of aul Fix as well as Yakima Canutt.

The gunsmoke intro you never saw as mentioned above by someone here...
Gunsmoke - not the way your mother remembers it - YouTube

Forgot to mention that Gene Barry (Bat Masterson) was also reportedly very good with handguns. He was another who practiced his draws and other fancy stuff with his props.

there may be faster now as this is going back a ways but google Bob Munden fastdraw. he was an exhibition shooter and did a spiel about Hollywood quickdraws during his act. as I recall he ranked Sammy as #1 and Jerry Lewis as # 2. Glen Ford was pretty fast also. Munden was so fast he wore what looked like a catchers mitt on his left hand and the gun barely cleared leather. I can't remember the actual times but they were unbelievably low. measured in hundredth's or thouasandth's of a second.

NO FAIR..................this posting is about Hollywood TV westerns.

Bob Munden was a professional gunhand...............so fast I couldn't see all his movements even in slow motion!!! He was also extremely accurate.................

As a young carpenter working at the Sahara Hotel, I was in the right place at the right time to watch Jerry Lewis practice his six gun draw and twirling act which was a big part of his individual nightclub act at the time. I was very impressed and he was using an authentic Colt SAA Army in 45 Colt and 4 1/2" barrel. I know that because he let me examine it. He had me hit my hammer against a board for his signal to draw. He didn't have a timer, but it was quick! I was impressed with him too as he proved to be a very nice guy. ......... Big Cholla

I heard he was a phenomenal gun spinner but have found only one thing on you tube of him from a distance.

I recall reading somewhere that Glenn Ford did a 3 shot draw. He thumbed back the hammer while drawing and fired the first shot as he cleared leather, caught the hammer spur on the 2 shells looped on his belt in front of the holster for the second and then fanned the hammer for the third.
I also recall that Tim Holt was considered to be the fastest of the "B" movie stars.

I saw Sammy Davis Jr on one of the ld B&W late night talk shows where he did an exhibition of fast-draw and fancy gun-handling.. when he sat down the host said, "Well when you are black AND Jewish, you better be good with a gun!"

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Old paratrooper in NC

My Idol, Arvo Ojala...the best that ever was














NOTE Peter Brown's pants leg!!

Photos of Arvo credit to Inga Ojala collection :-)

Fast draw? Bat Masterson. Nuff said?

Stu

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NRA Benefactor/Cert Instructor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX5-DFFdWwU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGBobAVnhzI

Please don't laugh at this one. I was practicing for quite a while when I noticed all the smoke from the black powder loads. Just imagine being at the Battle of The Big Horn with all that smoke they must have created!!!
This is the Arvo Ojala fast draw technique. I am slow, always have been always will be.....it's just a lot of fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V16I...ature=youtu.be

Ojala had cool stationary with his picture on it. Here's the stuff he sent me in 1985 that I put in a frame. I found that lefty Ojala holster on Gunbroker for $16, cleaned it up, then made a belt using my other Ojala rig as a model. That's my 1911 Colt .45 pictured, too.

Among real life gunfighters, I suspect that few, if any, equaled Delf Bryce, called "Jelly" because a man he killed said that he hated being shot by a "jellybean", meaning a neat, businesslike dresser.

Re the post about Peter Brown's pants leg in one photo, I can't see the issue. Is he referring to the way the jeans caught at the top of one boot?

I saw Bill Jordan draw and shoot and he was very good, indeed. I saw Elmer Keith shoot, but only at a 200 yard target from a bench. He took awhile to see the target and fire, but hit it. He was then in his 70's and said that his eyesight wasn't what it had been. I met Bob Munden in a Ruger hospitality suite at the SHOT show and was impressed but never saw him shoot in person. In videos, he was simply amazing, as is Jerry Michulek. (sp?) I met Jeff Cooper briefly, and would have liked to see him shoot. He told me in a letter that he'd killed three men with handguns, so he had been there and seen the elephant. Not everyone who can draw fantastically fast can shoot well and not all of them have the killer instinct to draw and fire effectively when the chips are really down. Say what you will about Askins, but he was the real thing: very quick and accurate and with little or no hesitation about killing men. My limited exposure to him was such that I saw we'd never be friends, but he'd be a good man to have on your side in a shootout.

Back to fiction, Donald Hamilton once had Matt Helm note that he didn't have the fastest draw in the West, but if he pulled his gun, he'd shoot it. Matt carried S&W snub .38's but preferred to use a knife or a rifle. But he was certainly competent with handguns, as a US agent sent after enemy agents who were especially dangerous. He often cleaned up situations that the CIA was too timid or too PC to tackle.

I loved Peter O'Donnell's character Modesty Blaise in both the excellent novels and the UK comic strip, read in 57 countries. Modesty was extremely fast and deadly with handguns, but the author seems not to have been really familiar with the capacity of a good handgunner. In one scene, he had Modesty deck a bad guy with a S&W .41 Magnum at the amazing distance of...20 yards! I hope that was a misprint for 200 yards. Most of his other info was really pretty good, especially for a British fiction author. Modesty later tagged a really hot gunman by engaging him beyond his preferred close range quarters, so that 20 yards may have been a misprint, indeed, or readers let him hear about it.

An awful lot of what you see in movies or on TV just isn't realistic. That makes me respect the better examples. Even Hickok brought his gun up to eye level and aimed at any distance. Col. Rex Applegate, who trained some really deadly gunfighters for OSS and CIA, said that he followed Hickok's written advice for longer ranges. His CQB instruction came from Fairbairn and Sykes and was probably a lot like what Jelly Bryce brought to the FBI. This was my basic instruction, overlaid by what I read from Jeff Cooper in his early days.

One of the fastest and best handgun shots I've known was Jo Anne Hall, Ladies World IPSC Champion and a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. She favored Colt .45 autos; a Colt .380 for concealed use. My son told me that what he learned from her and from me stood him in good stead on a number of occasions in Iraq when matters became close and quick.

I think I'll steal Sammy's quote in the video...

"Folks, I wouldn't put it on unless I was good at it..." words of wisdom I'd say

Texas Star, Peter Brown's pants have black powder on them right under the holster from shooting a blank IN the holster. Guess he was a little too anxious.

Thanks. I thought he just had dirty jeans.