I was watching a Have Gun, Will Travel show tonight for the umpteenth time entitled The Naked Gun featuring a Bridgeport Rig. I became curious so I did a Google search and sure enough there is a person making replicas of the Bridgeport Rig. The rig was invented and patented by a sheriff in Texas in 1882 for fast draw by law officers although it wasn't long until outlaws used it as well. A marshal out of Texas used one as well for fast draw.
We always hear that fast draw in Westerns is a Hollywood phenomena only as they never did it in the real Wild West. Yet if one studies the holster history of the Wild West there are a number of examples of fast draw rigs, a few of those rigs are shoulder holsters. This has lead me to think there may have been more fast draw shoot outs than we are lead to believe for why invent fast draw rigs in the first place.
Just some random thoughts.
- I'll share some perspectives on the subject of fast shooting - with a few words from esteemed lawman and all-around good-guy ... Wyatt Earp:
"The most important lesson I learned from proficient gunfighters of the era, was the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time."
"The second lesson was that if I hoped to live long in the frontier, I would shun flashy trick shooting - grandstand play -
as I would poison!"
"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."
- I imagine there were as many wannabes back then - as there are now.
There were far less stand up gun fights than one would think. But when one happened word got out. The "fast draw" came from the days of Wild Bill Hickock who wasn't really a fast draw artist, but fairly quick out of the holster, calm under fire, and an accurate shooter. In what I've read, he always held the gun up at eye level in a gunfight.
But people talked about fast draws, and I'm sure people just worked out ways to be faster whether they needed it or not. Kind like a guy buying a motorcycle that can do 200mph but lives in a large city.
There are some who became quite proficient at fast draw and shooting from the hip. Some amazingly so. But I think for the most part the fast draw artists of the 19th century were more wannabes than anything else.
There's a book buried in my library I think is called Triggerology that was written in the early 1900's on the old gunfighters some of them still alive at the time. I would get the title but it's so buried up I don't know where to look without tearing everything apart. I tried a search for it on the Internet but all I get is romance novels for the most part. I'm sure the book is either out of print or is not in general circulation.
If you come across it it is a very interesting especially the part in the appendix that deals with the gun exercises the gun fighters used.
Gun fighting hasn't changed any in my opinion. There are a few constants:
When you need, you need it now.
Fast is smooth. Smooth is fast.
Equipment can't save you, but buying the best doesn't hurt a fuggin' thing.
Travis
I am old enough that as a kid, there were still people around in my time that had lived through the indian wars, prestatehood.
My father always thought gunsmoke was funny, standing someone down in the street. His comment was ambush was much better, so was a shotgun.
Later, when I became a popo, my firearms instructor was old school.
He always said the majority of the battle was mental, realizing if blood was to be shed, you were most likely to get hurt. But the winner would be the one that could place shots accurately under pressure, and maintain mental control. Still believe that to this day.
It's interesting to talk about this stuff, but the poolice on here that have had to drawn down on somebody and look in their eyes and consider blowing them to eternity in about a half seconds time know what I mean.
Gunfighting is more mental than being fast