After Pancho Villa and his bandits raided Columbus, New Mexico, and the troops stationed there on March 9, 1916, Brig. Gen. John “Black Jack”...
Chasing Villa
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Phil Spangenberger
An Axe of War
Got to go tomahawk Kaiser Bill!” These words from the WWI ditty about fighting against Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Germany, sung as an American Indian by...
Saddle Rifle Extraordinaire
For nearly two centuries, the horse and the gun have been among the most iconic images of the West—and for good reason. A strong horse and a...
The Gun that Won the Western
During the “Golden Age” of film, which spanned the 1920s through the early 1960s, moviemakers often relied on the classic lines and smooth action of...
The Other Lone Ranger’s Colt
“Who was that Masked Man?” That was the question that ended each episode of ABC’s The Lone Ranger, one of the best-liked television series of the...
Weapons of the Indian Wars
During the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877, Touch The Clouds took his band of Minneconjou Teton followers to the Spotted Tail Agency in northwestern...
True West’s Best Firearms for 2015
The use of brass or iron tacks to decorate gunstocks, whether for religious or strictly decorative purposes, was a practice of the American Indian...
The Marvels of Marlin’s Model ’89
World-renowned sharpshooters Annie Oakley, a star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, and Frank C. Miller, crack shot of the Irwin Bros. Cheyenne Frontier...
Six-Gun Safety
Although loading blackpowder six-guns, which represent the era of 1840s-70s, require...
A New-Old Straight Shooter
In the firearms world, the name “Shiloh” has come to mean the maker of the finest quality modern reproductions of the famed single-shot Sharps...
Fighting Blades of the Frontier
“They say my bowie knife is keen to sliver into halves The carcass of my enemy, as butchers slay their calves.” These two bloodthirsty lines...
Single Shot of Southern Comfort
In 1875, when U.S. Army wife Martha Summerhayes’s Army ambulance was being escorted through Arizona Territory, from Camp Apache to Camp Ehrenberg...