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The following is a thread about some of the interesting modifications done to firearms in Western films in order to make one model look like another & the various reasons why filmmakers chose to go that route. If you're not into Western minutiae you might want to turn back now
As I noted yesterday, the Old West gun reproduction market was virtually non-existent during the heyday of the Western. This meant that the guns used in films had to be models that were recently in production. Using antique firearms was too costly and potentially dangerous
Because of this, 2 guns became ubiquitous to the Western genre: the Colt Single Action Army & the Winchester 92. The Colt SAA stayed in production from 1873-1941 when the company decided to focus on WWII. This meant that there was an almost endless supply of SAAs floating around
After WWII, Colt had no plans to resume production of the SAA since they considered it to be obsolete. However, the Western craze of the 50s made them change their minds & production resumed in 1956, which has continued to this day with only a slight gap between 1974 & 1976
The other advantage is that the Colt SAA is great with blanks, specifically the 5-in-1 round which can be used in 5 different Western gun chambers: .38-40 & .44-40 in either Winchester or Colt & of course the .45 Colt. Ease with blanks is the most important factor for movie guns
For example, it was difficult to get .45 ACP blanks to cycle in the Colt 1911 so in older films whenever someone is firing one it's actually the Star Model B, a 9mm pistol that accepted blanks easily. Pictured: 1. Colt 1911, 2. & 3. Star Model B, 4. Star Model B in The Wild Bunch
Like the Colt SAA, the Winchester 92 had stayed in production from the year it came out (1892) until WWII. Despite the fact that most Westerns are set before 1892, Hollywood bought it in bulk due to its availability, ease with 5-in-1 blanks & resemblance to older Winchesters
So what happened when a film was set in an era before the Colt SAA or so far back that the Winchester 92 no longer looked close enough to the rifles of the day? For the Colts you can read my thread from yesterday: https://twitter.com/DavidLambertArt/status/1362239590204018691?s=20
The earliest lever-action rifle that resembles the Winchesters we're familiar with is the Volcanic Repeating Rifle. Its prototype dates to 1848 but it wasn't sold until the 1850s & only a few thousand were made. Manco has one in For a Few Dollars More but never fires it
B. Tyler Henry took the Volcanic design & experimented with rimfire ammo, resulting in the Henry rifle in 1860. It held 16 rounds (17 with 1 in the chamber) so when a Civil War era Western wanted a lot of gunfire without all the annoying reloading, the Henry was the go-to rifle
Of course, the Henry wasn't as widely available in the 20th century as the Winchester 92 so filmmakers started modifying the 92 by removing the handguard. This guy in Winchester 73 has a 92. "No one will know! It's not like the whole movie centers around new rifle technology!"
These modified 92s pop up everywhere if you're looking. A few examples are Peckinpah's Civil War era Major Dundee, Little Big Man & a quick cameo in Shane (but you have to look close) even though it's based on events in the 1890s. But these are just a drop in the bucket...
The practice continued well into the 80s and you can spot a couple Winchester 92s masquerading as Henry rifles in The Long Riders & Heaven's Gate (even though the Johnson County War was happening around the time the Winchester 92 was released)
By the 1960s, reproductions were becoming more common, specifically in Italy with manufacturers like Uberti making a variety of Old West replicas. Uberti founded his company on the eve of the Civil War's 100th anniversary, his first replica being the 1851 Colt Navy
This coincided with the Italian Western boom, giving Spaghettis access to period guns that had eluded US Westerns. Films as wacky as the Sartana series had more authentic guns than their serious US counterparts. Like this Winchester 66, a rarity in US Westerns until then.
Although I never quite understood why the Italians put these brass trigger guards on their Colt Single Action Army revolvers. Cap-n-ball Colts like the Navy & the Walker had brass trigger guards but the 1873 Colt Single Action Army was never manufactured that way. But I digress
Sergio Leone approached Uberti about providing guns for his Dollars Trilogy, with Uberti's variety of Civil War era pistols giving The Good, the Bad & the Ugly a visual authenticity that most films set in that era had lacked up until then. Still, there were some shortcomings...
Because cap-n-ball revolvers are a pain to load, they switch to cartridge conversions whenever they're fired. You can tell because the cylinder nipples disappear & are replaced with loading gates. Cartridge pistols were a post-War innovation but the change is understandable...
Though I don't know how Angel Eyes got that cartridge belt or how he's going to load those cartridges into that cap-n-ball cylinder. Anyway, I'm getting off track from gun modifications...
