Posted on 12/24/2018 5:02:06 AM PST by w1n1
Here is an interview that Wyatt Earp shares on “gunfighting“. This was sometime in the 1910s he offered to give an interview about his thoughts on using a gun.
The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live long on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick-shooting—grandstand play—as I would poison.
“I was a fair hand with pistol, rifle, or shotgun, but I learned more about gunfighting from Tom Speer’s cronies during the summer of ’71 than I had dreamed was in the book. Those old-timers took their gunplay seriously, which was natural under the conditions in which they lived. Shooting, to them, was considerably more than aiming at a mark and pulling a trigger. Models of weapons, methods of wearing them, means of getting them into action and operating them, all to the one end of combining high speed with absolute accuracy, contributed to the frontiersman’s shooting skill.
The sought-after degree of proficiency was that which could turn to most effective account the split-second between life and death. Hours upon hours of practice, and wide experience in actualities supported their arguments over style. Read the rest of Wyatt Earp gun.
Good stuff. Thanks.
Hickok never carried an empty chamber. The habit did not arise until after the advent of metallic cartridges. Before that there was no need because the better percussion revolvers had a 'safety peg' between each pair of cylinders that the hammer could be left resting on. It's the same principle that NAA uses on their Mini-Mag revolvers today, except NAA uses a notch rather than a peg. Which makes the empty cylinder a liability rather than an advantage.
Hickok continued to carry 1851 Colt Navies until his death, and there would have been cartridge conversions available for them by then but there is no evidence he ever switched from cap and ball. Some of his surviving revolvers have been converted but there is no surviving documentation as to when those conversions occurred.
Hickok also claimed that because black powder loads could be fussy about dampness, he started every morning by firing all his loads from the day before, then reloading. Which also gave him opportunity to start the day with a fresh assessment of his shooting skills.
Wyatt Earp was more than a lawman in the Old West. In the late 1880’s there was a small gold rush on Eagle Creek in Idaho northeast of modern day Couer d’Alene. Wyatt and his brother Morgan showed up, erected a tent, and started a saloon and gambling joint. This gold rush only lasted a few years before it was played out. They moved east a few miles to Murray, Idaho and then heard about the Nome gold rush in Alaska and moved up there for a few years.
I would venture to guess that after the Shootout at the OK Corral Tombstone was not a very friendly place for the Earps. Idaho and Alaska would have been much safer places to be.
1910? Public domain. Besides, you lifted it from somewhere and pasted it into your blog like usual.
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Published by asjstaff in History
Wyatt Earp Gun
Lessons on Gunfighting from Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American Old West gambler, a deputy sheriff in Pima County, and deputy town marshal in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, who took part in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw cowboys.
Here is an interview that Wyatt Earp shares on “gunfighting“. This was sometime in the 1910s he offered to give an interview about his thoughts on using a gun. In his own words, Wyatt is going to explain how he became one of the most feared and accurate gunslingers… even if he was about the slowest.
The interview was originally posted on primaryandsecondary.com forum.
The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live long on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick-shooting—grandstand play—as I would poison.
“I was a fair hand with pistol, rifle, or shotgun, but I learned more about gunfighting from Tom Speer’s cronies during the summer of ’71 than I had dreamed was in the book. Those old-timers took their gunplay seriously, which was natural under the conditions in which they lived. Shooting, to them, was considerably more than aiming at a mark and pulling a trigger. Models of weapons, methods of wearing them, means of getting them into action and operating them, all to the one end of combining high speed with absolute accuracy, contributed to the frontiersman’s shooting skill.
The sought-after degree of proficiency was that which could turn to most effective account the split-second between life and death. Hours upon hours of practice, and wide experience in actualities supported their arguments over style.
When I say that I learned to take my time in a gunfight, I do not wish to be misunderstood, for the time to be taken was only that split fraction of a second that means the difference between deadly accuracy with a sixgun and a miss. It is hard to make this clear to a man who has never been in a gunfight.
Perhaps I can best describe such time taking as going into action with the greatest speed of which a man’s muscles are capable, but mentally unflustered by an urge to hurry or the need for complicated nervous and muscular actions which trick-shooting involves. Mentally deliberate, but muscularly faster than thought, is what I mean. (What Wyatt meant is that he made the decision to shoot a long time before the trigger was pulled.)
In all my life as a frontier police officer, I did not know a really proficient gunfighter who had anything but contempt for the gun-fanner, or the man who literally shot from the hip. In later years I read a great deal about this type of gunplay, supposedly employed by men noted for skill with a forty-five.
From personal experience and numerous six-gun battles which I witnessed, I can only support the opinion advanced by the men who gave me my most valuable instruction in fast and accurate shooting, which was that the gun-fanner and hip-shooter stood small chance to live against a man who, as old Jack Gallagher always put it, took his time and pulled the trigger once.
Cocking and firing mechanisms on new revolvers were almost invariably altered by their purchasers in the interests of smoother, effortless handling, usually by filing the dog which controlled the hammer, some going so far as to remove triggers entirely or lash them against the guard, in which cases the guns were fired by thumbing the hammer.
This is not to be confused with fanning, in which the triggerless gun is held in one hand while the other was brushed rapidly across the hammer to cock the gun, and firing it by the weight of the hammer itself. A skillful gun-fanner could fire five shots from a forty-five so rapidly that the individual reports were indistinguishable, but what could happen to him in a gunfight was pretty close to murder.
I saw Jack Gallagher’s theory borne out so many times in deadly operation that I was never tempted to forsake the principles of gunfighting as I had them from him and his associates.
There was no man in the Kansas City group who was Wild Bill’s equal with a six-gun. Bill’s correct name, by the way, was James B. Hickok. Legend and the imaginations of certain people have exaggerated the number of men he killed in gunfights and have misrepresented the manner in which he did his killing. At that, they could not very well overdo his skill with pistols.
Hickok knew all the fancy tricks and was as good as the best at that sort of gunplay, but when he had serious business at hand, a man to get, the acid test of marksmanship, I doubt if he employed them. At least, he told me that he did not. I have seen him in action and I never saw him fan a gun, shoot from the hip, or try to fire two pistols simultaneously. Neither have I ever heard a reliable old-timer tell of any trick-shooting employed by Hickok when fast straight-shooting meant life or death.
That two-gun business is another matter that can stand some truth before the last of the old-time gunfighters has gone on. They wore two guns, most of six-gun toters did, and when the time came for action went after them with both hands. But they didn’t shoot them that way.
Primarily, two guns made the threat of something in reserve; they were useful as a display of force when a lone man stacked up against a crowd. Some men could shoot equally well with either hand, and in a gunplay might alternate their fire; others exhausted the loads from the gun on the right, or the left, as the case might be, then shifted the reserve weapon to the natural shooting hand if that was necessary and possible. Such a move—the border shift—could be made faster than the eye could follow a top-notch gun-thrower, but if the man was as good as that, the shift would seldom be required.
Whenever you see a picture of some two-gun man in action with both weapons held closely against his hips and both spitting smoke together, you can put it down that you are looking at the picture of a fool, or a fake. I remember quite a few of these so-called two-gun men who tried to operate everything at once, but like the fanners, they didn’t last long in proficient company.
In the days of which I am talking, among men whom I have in mind, when a man went after his guns, he did so with a single, serious purpose. There was no such thing as a bluff; when a gunfighter reached for his fortyfive, every faculty he owned was keyed to shooting as speedily and as accurately as possible, to making his first shot the last of the fight. He just had to think of his gun solely as something with which to kill another before he himself could be killed. The possibility of intimidating an antagonist was remote, although the ‘drop’ was thoroughly respected, and few men in the West would draw against it.
I have seen men so fast and so sure of themselves that they did go after their guns while men who intended to kill them had them covered, and what is more win out in the play. They were rare. It is safe to say, for all general purposes, that anything in gunfighting that smacked of show-off or bluff was left to braggarts who were ignorant or careless of their lives.
I might add that I never knew a man who amounted to anything to notch his gun with ‘credits,’ as they were called, for men he had killed. Outlaws, gunmen of the wild crew who killed for the sake of brag, followed this custom. I have worked with most of the noted peace officers — Hickok, Billy Tilghman, Pat Sughre, Bat Masterson, Charlie Basset, and others of like caliber — have handled their weapons many times, but never knew one of them to carry a notched gun.
There are two other points about the old-time method of using six-guns most effectively that do not seem to be generally known. One is that the gun was not cocked with the ball of the thumb. As his gun was jerked into action, the old-timer closed the whole joint of his thumb over the hammer and the gun was cocked in that fashion. The soft flesh of the thumb ball might slip if a man’s hands were moist, and a slip was not to be chanced if humanly avoidable. This thumb-joint method was employed whether or not a man used the trigger for firing.
On the second point, I have often been asked why five shots without reloading were all a top-notch gunfighter fired, when his guns were chambered for six cartridges. The answer is, merely, safety. To ensure against accidental discharge of the gun while in the holster, due to hair-trigger adjustment, the hammer rested upon an empty chamber. As widely as this was known and practiced, the number of cartridges a man carried in his six-gun may be taken as an indication of a man’s rank with the gunfighters of the old school. Practiced gun-wielders had too much respect for their weapons to take unnecessary chances with them; it was only with tyros and would-bes that you heard of accidental discharges or didn’t-know-it-was-loaded injuries in the country where carrying a Colt was a man’s prerogative.”
NOTE: My great grandfather Captain Fred Newton Scofield was a friend to Wyatt and a judge in Tombstone in 1880. Later they went in business together in Bakersfield California. My Uncle was bounced on the knee of Wyatt Earp as he was a frequent visitor to the home of Great Grandpa Scofield.
John Wesley Hardin
Yes. I knew because I am a lifelong John Wayne fan.
Just bought the EP by Runaway June, a trio that includes Jennifer Wayne, his granddaughter. From a side/front angle, I can see she looks like a female version of him from that young, lean age, Tom Mix era and before.
Wild West invokes her granddad in the refrain.
“...John Wesley Hardin. His favorite lawmen included Dallas Stoudemyer, Jeff Davis Milton and Frank Hamer.” [yarddog, post 5]
If by “Frank Hamer” you mean “Francis Augustus Hamer,” the Texas Ranger who tracked down and killed Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, it isn’t likely that John Wesley Hardin exchanged gunfighting advice with him. Hardin died in 1895, when Frank Hamer was 11 years old. Hamer did not begin law enforcement work until 1905, joining the Rangers for the first time in 1906. He died in 1955.
Thanks but I was thinking of Skelton’s picks. Going on memory back 50 years or so. I read later that Skeeter was a pretty fair one himself.
“Self Defense shootings rarely require a quick-draw...” [marktwain, post 4]
“...Listen up Glock fellows...with one in the chamber it’s like the Wyatt Earps/Doc Holidays of yore carrying eared back Peacemakers in their holsters.” [bonemaker, post 9]
“Care to translate?” [nonsporting, post 10]
bonemaker is being jargony. Might not be the best idea, in today’s liability climate. To say nothing about the blowback that might occur on social media.
Until the introduction of rebounding hammers (by Colt’s in the 1880s, and Webley around the same time), no revolver could be safely carried with a live round under the hammer. Colt’s famed Single Action Army - star of so many early western films & TV - was especially prone to inadvertent discharges. Fumbling the gun or dropping it on its hammer would either break parts, or simply make them spring sufficiently to drive the firing pin into the primer of that live round.
Colt’s Single Action and all revolvers of similar design should be loaded with five rounds only, positioning the empty chamber under the hammer to be safe. It’s no less true today, when there are many copies for sale. Doesn’t apply to Ruger’s “New Model” single actions, which are equipped with a transfer bar.
“Eared back” refers to the hammer of a revolver being cocked: all revolvers since Sam Colt introduced his first in 1836 automatically advance the cylinder on cocking, to bring a fresh round into alignment with the barrel. Only the most foolhardy user would carry any sidearm holstered, with the hammer back, if it did not have a manual safety, grip safety, passive firing pin block, or some other safety system.
The warning concerning Glock handguns is well worth heeding.
The firing system on a Glock partially compresses the striker spring when the slide is cycled to chamber a round. After that, a relatively light pull on the trigger will disengage the safety tab in the center of the trigger, cam the firing pin block out of the way, compress the striker spring fully, and release the striker, firing the chambered round. The required pulling force is much lighter than the double-action-pull weight of most revolvers and DA/SA autoloaders; aftermarket connector kits can lighten the pull yet more. Great for accuracy and speed of engagement, dangerous for inattentive and clumsy users.
For these reasons, firearms instructors and safety trainers strongly advise all Glock users to employ holsters that completely cover the trigger guard aperture, and never carry a Glock in a pocket, or loose inside a container, if a holster is not used and a round is chambered. Applies to all handguns of similar design, like Steyr’s M, and numerous recent Smith & Wesson models.
I always tell Glock carriers to use a holster that covers the trigger guard.
I wonder if "ears back" refers to the trait of dogs and bears, and other predators to flatten their ears back alongside their heads when they are in attack mode.
“Eared back” would refer to the way the hammer looks on a revolver, or a long gun for that matter, when it is cocked.
He is saying he believes that a loaded Glock with a round in the chamber is every bit as dangerous as a loaded and cocked hammer gun.
I think.
Same subject from the Saturday Evening Post different article however:
http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/1930_11_01-guns_and_gunfighters.pdf
I have never tried to follow the literature (shoot, even the movies wear me out, if seen in succession) but if good books haven't been written, maybe we ought to undertake one.
Not that kind of undertake lol.
Think about it a little more.
Do you really think a loaded Glock is as dangerous as a Colt Single Action Army, loaded with the hammer back?
White eyes has iron...speaks truth.
“...Hickok never carried an empty chamber. The habit did not arise until after the advent of metallic cartridges. Before that there was no need because the better percussion revolvers had a ‘safety peg’ between each pair of cylinders that the hammer could be left resting on...” [Paal Gulli, post 22]
ASJ seems to be derelict quite often, though their writers & editors don’t seem to be aware of it.
Can’t recall when Colt’s introduced the “safety peg” - a short pin positioned on the rear face of their cylinder in their percussion revolvers, on the great big partition between chambers. A small cutout on the impact face of the hammer fit over the pin, preventing the cylinder from turning, thus reducing the risk of the hammer hitting a live cap on a still-loaded chamber. Haven’t seen it on the Paterson guns.
The pin did not appear on many copies either. To be sure, it introduced additional problems: the bolt was thus pressing on the external cylinder wall, compressing one leg of the bolt/trigger spring, and altering forces on the bolt - the most failure-prone part of a Colt’s lockwork. Any side force or torque applied to the cylinder - the heaviest part of the revolver, save the barrel - could shear the pin. In daily use, pins tended to get battered, degrading their effectiveness.
Other safety devices were installed on percussion revolvers. Remington machined slots into the partitions between chambers: the lip atop the hammer fit into the cut, immobilizing the cylinder much more positively than Colt’s pins. Other gunmakers - including Manhattan and Starr - machined additional bolt stop recesses into the cylinder’s outer wall, between the primary ones. Cylinders thus fashioned had twelve bolt stop recesses in a six-shot cylinder.
The era of cap-and-ball (percussion) revolvers ended abruptly in 1873, when the major US gunmakers stopped production. Faced with overstock of obsolescent models, many devised cartridge conversions (Colt’s alone tried out about half a dozen). With conversions installed, many safety contrivances were negated - machining the original cylinder or installing a new one was almost always required.
Mechanical, manually engaged safeties on firearms were not common until after 1900. No long gun of US military issue had one until the first repeating rifle (Krag-Jorgensen) was adopted in 1892. No Winchester lever action rifle had one until the Model 88 came out in the 1950s. Colt’s initial line of semi-auto pistols (made 1899-1928) did not have any. Not one double-action, solid-frame revolver built by Colt’s or Smith & Wesson from 1889 through the present day has ever sported a manual safety as part of its factory design (there are internal automatic-acting safeties, and aftermarket manual safeties).
The first segment (about 15 minutes) of "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" has some mighty fine shooting in it if I say so myself.
“Do you really think a loaded Glock is as dangerous as a Colt Single Action Army, loaded with the hammer back?”
Haven’t checked numbers of late, but statistically, both are unsafe.
As with any other mechanical device, a great deal depends on the training state and the mindset of the user. A revolver with the hammer cocked is typically easier to spot than a Glock, or similar design autoloader, with a round chambered. The Glock’s trigger in the ready position is only a little forward of its “fired” position. And the tendency of even the best-trained users to become sloppy, forgetful, or clumsy is larger than most of us suspect.
Even autoloaders with great big external hammers aren’t that much better. The US military was bedeviled by safety/negligence incidents during the entire service life of Colt’s M1911 pistol: it had a manual safety, a grip safety, and a very obvious external hammer that instantly told anyone gazing on it whether it was cocked. Most issuing organizations eventually fell back on manuals-of-arms and other procedures that required users to carry the pistols chamber-empty, except in the most urgent tactical situations.
Oh, I know about the accidental discharges and Glocks. I particularly remember that DEA idiot who shot himself in the thigh while lecturing a class room full of kids.
On the other hand, a Glock has several things which prevent the gun firing accidentally. They include a firing pin block, a trigger safety (admittedly only useful for drops) plus the distance the trigger moves and the weight are both much greater than the old Colt.
I guess it is possible to find a single action with a heavy trigger pull but they typically have a very light one.
Finally, dropping a loaded Glock will almost never result in a discharge. Dropping a cocked SA will very often.
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