The turbulent environment of the frontier milieu served as a dramatic stage for virtually all of the arms manufactured in America from 1800 to 1900. Successive developments in the firepower of domestic weaponry proved particularly dramatic, advancing from the ubiquitous single-shot arms of 1800, through the multibarreled and revolving-cylinder repeating firearms of the 1830s and 1840s, on to the repeating magazine guns of the 1860s and following.
The numerous historical images provide something of a human dimension to the narrative.
In varying degree, all of the evolutionary advances in firearms design, production and function impacted the concurrent advance of frontier exploration and ultimate settlement over the course of the 19th century.
The gradual improvements of the ignition systems, for example, certainly bolstered the resolve of many a frontiersman for whom a rifle’s reliability might prove crucial to survival.
The greater facility of loading at the breech instead of at the muzzle allowed an increased rate of fire at a ratio of four or five to one, while the ever-growing availability of repeating arms of revolving-cylinder and magazine design provided isolated frontier parties or individuals with a decided advantage in their occasional confrontations with dangerous game or hostile adversaries.
Steady progress in applying machinery to arms manufacture also guaranteed sufficient output to meet a steadily rising demand from Americans flooding into the West.
Equally important on the other side of the historical ledger, America’s advancing frontier provided numerous domestic firearms manufacturers with an ever-expanding marketplace and a sometimes-crucial testing arena for their more innovative creations. The latter condition proved true, for example, of the early Colt-Paterson revolving pistol, which demonstrated its potential for mounted combat on the unsettled plains of Texas in the 1840s.
As cultural historian William Hosley observed in profiling Col. Samuel Colt and his deadly arm during the antebellum era, “Guns, technology, and the campaign of western expansion were overlapping layers of the same progressive tendency. Each fed and enabled the other.”
The emeritus curator of history at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Richard C. Rattenbury is the author of A Legacy in Arms, published by University of Oklahoma Press. This edited excerpt is from those pages.
Photo Gallery
Very likely a Wild West show or vaudeville marksman, the theatrical gent in this circa 1895-1905 cabinet card evokes the latter-day frontier with his Western headgear and thigh-high boots à la Buffalo Bill Cody. He models with a .22-caliber Model 1891 Marlin lever-action repeating rifle having a special order, half-octagon barrel and special order checkered stocking with pistol grip.
– Courtesy Private Collection –
This repaired and altered Sharps Model 1874 rifle was invoiced in June 1874 to gun dealer F.C. Zimmerman at Dodge City, Kansas. Bought by professional buffalo hunter and later-famed peace officer William “Bill” Tilghman, the weapon killed several thousand buffalo between 1874 and 1878. Broken in a horse-fall out on the range, the buttstock was repaired by Tilghman using a strip of raw buffalo hide. Sometime after leaving the range, Tilghman had the octagonal barrel cut down from 32 inches to 24 inches to serve as a convenient saddle gun.
– Courtesy Tench Tilghman, L.85.6 –
Standing at the ready and accompanied by his rather mournful hound, this huntsman poses with a standard-grade Winchester Model 1873 lever-action, repeating sporting rifle having a case-hardened frame and an adjustable buckhorn rear sight. Two indistinguishable pocket-sized cartridge revolvers are thrust into the fellow’s belt in this circa 1880-85 tintype.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2003.034 –
In this circa 1900-1905 cabinet card, this plainly dressed sportsman models with his hunting dog and a cartridge belt full of ammunition for his standard-grade Winchester Model 1895 lever-action, repeating magazine rifle. A John Browning design, this model utilized a box magazine in lieu of the familiar tubular magazine beneath the barrel.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2004.230.02 –
An 1875 cutaway drawing illustrating the internal workings of the Colt Single Action Army revolver.
– Drawing from Farley, Rules for the Inspection of Army Revolvers and Gatling Guns, 1875 –
Cutaway drawing from Winchester Repeating Arms Company’s 1899 sales catalog illustrates the internal workings of Winchester Model 1895 repeating rifle and its John M. Browning-designed, lever-actuated box magazine system (top shows the breech closed, and bottom shows the breech opened).
– Drawing from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company’s 1899 Sales Catalog –
Accompanied by his attentive dogs in this circa 1865-70 tintype, this fellow is armed with a double rifle—or combination rifle-shotgun—with superposed barrels and percussion locks, a Bowie knife and what appears to be a small-cartridge deringer.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2002.113 –
In this circa 1880-90 cabinet card, this frontier type poses with the two marque firearms that later were claimed to have “won the West.” The gent holds a Winchester Model 1873 lever-action carbine, while a Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army revolver resides in his open-topped belt holster. (The long-cased cartridges in his belt would fit neither weapon.)
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, RC2006.038 –
Posed with his faithful canine in this circa 1865-70 tintype, this rustic, pipe-smoking hunter conspicuously exhibits his half-stocked percussion sporting rifle—finished with rather unusual checkering at wrist and extended, handhold trigger guard strap.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2003.268 –
Striking a jaunty pose in this circa 1865-70 carte de visite, these lads wear leather game bags and hold half-stocked percussion sporting rifles. Rifle at left—fitted with double set triggers—appears to be a comparatively fancy specimen for a youth.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2003.196 –
Defeated and temporarily deported from his native land, this undaunted and stern-visaged Nez Perce man poses in tribal costume and prominently holds a Colt Model 1860 Army, Richards-conversion revolver, in this circa 1880 carte de visite by H Beck of Winfield, Kansas.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2004.015.3 –
Garbed in a fringed buckskin costume this “western” poser grasps what appears to be a percussion Sharps New Model 1863 straight-breech carbine without a patchbox. The ignition system, outmoded at the time the photograph was taken circa 1885-95, suggests that the gun most likely served as a studio prop.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2003.111 –
This successful, buckskin-clad sport hunter proudly poses with his ursine trophy. Balanced over the subject’s arm is the weapon that no doubt brought the bear to bag—a Sharps Model 1874 sporting rifle made in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Long-cased metallic cartridges for the rifle are arrayed in a belt below the subject’s elbow in this circa 1880-85 photo.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1994.10.1744 –
With her standard-grade Winchester Model 1892 lever-action, repeating magazine rifle in hand, this latter-day huntress in wide-brimmed hat, middy blouse and skirt strikes a rather risqué pose for the time.
– Courtesy Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 2004.045 –
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The turbulent environment of the frontier milieu served as a dramatic stage for virtually all of the arms manufactured in America from 1800 to 1900. Successive developments in the firepower of domestic weaponry proved particularly dramatic, advancing from the ubiquitous single-shot arms of 1800, through the multibarreled and revolving-cylinder repeating firearms of the 1830s and 1840s, on to the repeating magazine guns of the 1860s and following.
