THE SIXGUNNER

The greatest sixgunsmiths who ever lived are alive and practicing their art today.

Let’s think about the .38-40 and the .41 Long Colt. Two totally different cartridges. The first is a tapered or bottleneck cartridge beginning life in the...

As with all boys from time immemorial, the young lad was curious while at the same time somewhat bored with nothing to do. Going into his father’s office...

Well, the new .44 Magnum is now arriving regularly at local dealers both in the original S&W .44 Magnum and the Ruger Blackhawk.

There was a time when elephants roamed North America. Mastodons had tusks up to 15' in length and were found in Africa, Europe and both North and South...

What would the state of the sixgunning world be without dreamers? Those who looked at what was and saw what could be.

Life used to be so simple. When I started seriously shooting, sixguns had names like Outdoorsman, Combat Magnum, Heavy Duty, Triple-Lock and on and on.

When it came to semi-autos, like many teenagers from my era I had one of the 1911 Government Model .45’s and a source for military hardball.

There’s simply nothing better than a good .22. Recently I picked up two really great Classic .22’s, a Colt Match Target and a High Standard...

Someday. We all have a list of things we are going to do someday. Sometimes the list is short and sometimes the list is long.

The wide array of sixguns we have today comes from the vision of three men, namely Sam Colt, Daniel Wesson and Bill Ruger. Both Colt and Wesson were gone by...

Coolness is definitely in the eye of the beholder. There are many firearms that have been labeled cool, however it all depends on individual taste. I have...

Friend and fellow shootist Jason Cloessner of Lipsey’s, a major Ruger distributor, certainly understands the concept of the “Perfect Packin’ Pistol”...

From 1836 through the Mexican-American War, the War Between the States, the great migration West and even up to the World War I era, the single-action...

Sometimes things just don’t happen the way they should. The .38 Spl. arrived around the turn of the 20th century, and then 35 years later was lengthened...

The .44 Magnum arrived in late 1955 with most examples not arriving in gun shops until 1956. At the time Elmer Keith said recoil wasn’t bad and wouldn’t...

When S&W introduced the 1950 Models with the new short action and improved rear sight they not only made them in .44 Special but also chambered them for .45...

For more than a century, savvy sixgunners went by the “load one, skip one, cock and lower the hammer on an empty” rule.

In 1935 Smith & Wesson lengthened the .38 Spl. and introduced the original .357 Mag. revolver, which is now known as the Model 27. Built on the N-Frame, the...

In the early part of the 20th Century, Colt had the large frame New Service, the Medium frame Official Police and the small frame Police Positive. All the...

The Paterson, the Walker and the various Dragoons were all great improvements over the single-shot pistols in use before Sam Colt arrived on the scene,...

Regular readers know of my undying affection for the truly Classic Sixguns; those coming forth in the first two thirds of the last century and earlier....

Handgun grips can be crafted from a myriad of materials such as ivory, ram’s horn, stag, plain or fancy woods and a whole gamut of synthetics from micarta...

Ken Wegman, a Handgunner reader, asked about using black powder and substitutes in modern pistols, comparing their characteristics in velocity, energy,...

The first Walkers had been built in someone else’s factory on someone else’s machinery and with someone else in charge. Now Colt had his own factory,...

Buffalo Bore has long been known for producing heavy hunting rounds for leverguns and big bore sixguns. Over the past few years, the line has been expanded...

In 1814 we took a little trip along with Col. Jackson down the mighty Mississipp”; so sang Johnny Horton in his hit recording of “The Battle of New...

Elmer Keith was instrumental along with Phil Sharpe in laying the groundwork for the .357 Magnum by using heavy loads in the .38/44 Heavy Duty, an N-Framed...

Somehow perfection never seems to last. In the case of Ruger’s first Flat-Top Blackhawk the time span was well under 10 years. In 1962 the original .357...

Nestling down in the Creedmore position, I placed the left side of the revolver solidly against my right leg. Lining up the sights with each other and also...

As I was growing up my parents never owned a new car, never bought a house — always rented. We had all the necessities but rarely had any kind of extras....

There were so many Westerns on TV when I was a kid, with every hero carrying virtually the same sixgun, producers, writers and directors started looking for...

All Ruger Single-Sixes (.22’s) since 1964, with a few exceptions, have been offered only with adjustable sights. Unfortunately the little Bearcat had...

Ned Buntline was an author of dime novels in the last quarter of the 19th century, creating long-standing myths about Western heroes. He claims to have...

Several things happened to make the .44 Magnum more acceptable. Many reloaders learned to start low and work up to full-house magnum loads. Gripmakers...

Instead of being offered in between the .357 and .44 Magnums as one would expect, S&W waited eight years after the .44 Magnum before introducing its...

Recently, an 87-year-old man worked his wheelchair into the local gun shop to show my friend Cactus behind the counter his new self-defense purchase.

Carrying concealed is not a recent idea. All the “B” Western movies would have us believe everyone went around carrying openly; this was especially not...

Just as the vast majority of those sixgunners from my era, I started most of my reloading chores in the mid-1950’s with the .38 Special.

There’s always been a certain segment of the shooting population who have considered the .38 Special to be a poor man stopper. This may have been true...

In the closing days of 1908 Smith & Wesson brought forth a new sixgun which was destined to have great impact for most of the 20th century.

The 1920s were a time of unprecedented economic growth in the United States, which came to a screeching halt with the advance of the Great Depression in 1929.

In 1877, Colt introduced their first double-action revolvers with the Lightning chambered in .38 Long Colt and the .41 Long Colt in the Thunderer. Not true...

During my high school years as I started reading the likes of Elmer Keith and then a little later Bob Hagel and John Lachuk I also acquired a deep interest...

Choosing favorites is not always easy. Sometimes I can pick one favorite while other times it will be several. With that in mind we herein look at...

My dictionary has one definition of the word “compromise” as the settlement of a dispute by mutual concession. There are always compromises and...

A personal quest for personalizing sixguns by changing hammers and handles.

When it comes to firearms these are the best of times. No, scratch that, these are the best! of times. Yes, I definitely miss the old classics and we...

Eddie Janis of Peacemaker Specialist, has long been known for producing exquisitely tuned Colt Single Actions as well as beautiful restorations. Eddie...

How does one improve on perfection? The original Colt Single Action Army was a study in perfect pistol perfection when it arrived in 1873.

Colt had pronounced the single action dead in 1940. Enter Bill Ruger. His desire was to produce a single action which anyone could afford to own and shoot,...

Regular readers know I have said more than once, the 1950s were simply the greatest decade ever; and in spite of repeating myself, I’m saying it again. It...

For the price, the Heritage is a revolver that will give good service, and you won’t have to worry about scratching some expensive firearm. Take it to the...

It is a brutal recoiling cartridge, yet it is manageable to a point in the Model 500 Smith & Wesson revolver, weighing in excess of four pounds. I can’t...