Tag: American West

…[The first Texas Rangers only] had three shots: they had a Kentucky long rifle…and two single-shot pistols.

Lo and behold, this inventor named Samuel Colt had come up with a prototype…it was a five-shot pistol. They had five shots here, one interchangable cylinder: now ten. Ten shots in each pistol….

— How the Texas Rangers Changed the Course of Modern Warfare – YouTube

The speaker describes an interchangeable revolving cylinder. With that first revolver, changing cylinders requires partially disassembling the pistol. So the reloading time is a couple of minutes.

The Remington Company manufactured revolvers with truly removable cylinders in the 1850s. The 1985 film Pale Rider shows this reloading process done leisurely for dramatic effect in the final scene. (Warning: spoiler video.)

Turkey Creek Jack Johnson:

Doc, you oughtta be in bed. What the hell you doin’ this for, anyway?

Doc Holliday:

Wyatt Earp is my friend.

Turkey Creek Jack Johnson:

Hell, I got lots of friends.

Doc Holliday:

I don’t.

— “Tombstone” (1993)

Judge Fenton:

[gestures to the large map hanging on the wall]

Here you are: the Oklahoma and Indian Territory, the Year of Our Lord 1889. Nineteen marshals. I was authorized sixty when I came here; told the President even that was not half enough.

Nineteen marshals—and one court—to cover nearly 70,000 square miles! A happy hunting ground filled with bushwackers, horse thieves, whiskey peddlers, counterfeiters, hide peelers, marauders that’ll kill ya for a hatband!

— “Hang ‘Em High” (1968)

Wyatt Earp:

The Cowboys are finished, you understand me?! I see a red sash, I kill the man wearin’ it!
So run, you cur! Run! Tell all the other curs the law’s comin’! You tell ’em I’m coming! And Hell’s coming with me, you hear?! Hell’s coming with me!

— “Tombstone” (1993)