I like shoot’em ups, Westerns.
Nothing new.
I was a fan of Tonto (Jay Silverheels nee' Harold Jay Smith, right) and his partners (two) as a youngster. I’ll still watch the program — only for the snippet of the William Tell Overture, of course. 😀
BUT, BEING A CURMUDGEON and being a former honest newspaper reporter, I pay attention to (selected) details.
For the record, I’m still honest, but I traded my press card for other work.
Learning from the Lone Ranger
The opening scene to most of the Lone Ranger (tv) movies showed the Lone Ranger firing his six shooter, raising his hand, then lowering it and firing again.
As a child I gave it little thought.
As an adult owning SA/DA revolvers, I understood WHY the guy did what he did.
Revolvers in the era the Lone Ranger represented were single-action (SA).
Translation: the shooter had to first pull the hammer back and then pull the trigger.
Many revolvers today are double-action (DA); pulling the trigger raises the hammer and then allows it to fall on the cartridge.
Most of my target practice is single-action; thumb back the hammer, acquire target, pull trigger.
Double-action can pull the barrel off the bulls eye.
That doesn’t mean I NEVER fire DA, but not often.
Six shooters were not
Smart cowboys knew that their six shooters should have one empty cartridge chamber.
Revolvers of the day lacked safety features of today’s pistols.
The hammer — and firing pin — was over the empty chamber.
If the gun fell, there was minimal chance it would discharge.
On the other hand, as soon as the hammer was pulled back, the cylinder advanced and a live round was now ready to be fired.
Some gun manufacturers today still recommend an empty chamber for revolvers, even with modern safety features.
Bottom line: Cowboy’s six-shooters actually were five shooters.
Hollywood can’t count
Both Hollywood cowboys and other gun-totters — good guys and bad ones, too — seem never to reload their weapons.
They never seem to run out of cartridges already in the weapon.
It makes no difference it the gun is a revolver with five, six, or seven rounds in the cylinder, or a semi-automatic with “n” rounds in the magazine.
Hollywood guns almost never run out of ammunition.
I often watched Paladin (Richard Boone) fire an over-under Derringer and never reload the two-shooter.
Likewise, I recall seeing Matt Dillon (James Arness) load a revolver once — after Chester (Dennis Weaver) cleaned the marshal’s revolver and forgot to load it.
Lever (repeating) rifles also seemed never to be reloaded.
The 1860 Henry did hold an amazing sixteen (16) .44 caliber cartridges. (https://tinyurl.com/y522dp9g) The Winchester 1876, by comparison, held 10 rounds. (https://tinyurl.com/y3ty7tr8)
Bullets vs. Cartridges
Bullets sit on top (or in front, depending on perspective) of a cartridge.
The cartridge contains a cap to ignite the propellant that sends the bullet on its way.
There are many bullet types, as there are many cartridge sizes. A .22 caliber cartridge and a 75mm Howitzer shell basically are the same design. (Size, of course, does make a difference.)
A magazine holds cartridges in a rifle or semi-automatic pistol. (A “pistol” may be a revolver, a semi-automatic, or by most accounts, a Derringer.) Clips hold cartridges that will be inserted into a magazine. The exception to that are “clips” designed to hold cartridges to be inserted into a revolver’s cylinder.
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