Rather Strange Article

[texaswoodworker]

In reading a fair number of journals and firsthand accounts of the buffalo hunters most were very specific about the firearms used. The term needle gun is used a fair amount. Some believe it’s the Trapdoor for the long firing pin other claim it was a highly accurate rifle that shot like threading the needle through a button.

In the old journals lots of different firearms were used. I think a lot of the lore of the Sharps, Hawken and face to face gunfights is a media creation far more than reality.

I always though a needle gun was a type of rifle that used a long firing pin to pierce the paper cartridge and hit the primer at the base of a bullet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needle_gun

They seem like odd guns for American Buffalo hunters to use though. Your explanation may be correct.

[Dan Cash]

The needle gun is a whole 'nother animal. Mauser worked with needle guns in his early years, but he realized there was a better way to do things and started working with cased cartridges which led through the years to some of the masterpieces we still play with today with primers at the rear of the case. Needle guns used a paper case to hold the cartridge together and the primer was at the base of the bullet in front of the powder so that the powder burned from the projectile rearward. There is some information in wikipedia about needle guns. I don't know how to copy the link, but here is a small excert from it.

Needle gun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Needlegun.
For other uses, see Needle gun (disambiguation).




Dreyse needle gun, model 1865.


A needle gun is a firearm that has a needle-like firing pin, which can pass through the paper cartridge case to strike a percussion cap at the bullet base. A needle gun with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves ("rifling") cut into the barrel walls is also called needle rifle.
Contents

• 1 Pauly needle gun
• 2 Dreyse needle gun
• 3 Doersch and von Baumgarten needle gun
• 4 Carl needle gun
• 5 Chassepot needle gun
• 6 Carcano needle gun
• 7 References
• 8 External links

The Allen conversion which evolved into the Trap door Springfield was commonly referred to as a needle gun, precisely because of its long, needle like firing pin. Not to be confused with the Eruopean Dryse type needle systems.

[texaswoodworker]

As regards gunfights, you bet your life they were. The minimum human reaction time, from visual stimulus to physical action, is over a tenth of a second. Tests with sensors in the starting blocks of Olympic sprinters (sober, better forewarned and without five aces in their hands or a foot on a cowpat) have been timed at 160 milliseconds.

The difference between a great combat pistol shot and one who is just passable is shorter than that. I don't believe anybody outdrew anybody when the visual stimulus was the other fellow going for his hardware. If it ever was, you couldn't go on doing it for long. The reputation of the great gunfighters was built on notches for amateurs, or going for their guns before the enemy thought they would.

If your read how people like Wyatt Earp, Dallas Stoudenmire, Doc Holiday, and Wild Bill Hickok won their gunfights, then you'll know just how much BS Hollywood spreads around. I believe the only stereotypical high noon showdown to ever happen involved Wild Bill Hickok.

[montana_charlie]

Please site an example of a credible historic account of a face to face quick draw Hollywood type gunfight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_B..._Tutt_shootout

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I don't want to cite any, and hope I wasn't misunderstood when I agreed the traditional movie gunfight, beating a man to the draw on seeing him begin to do so, rarely if ever happened. I'm quite sure some of the old western gunfighters were highly competent, both at shooting and in an instinct for the moment when deadly violence could only be beaten by forestalling it. But the latter was the one that kept people alive through numerous armed confrontations. Apart from the willingness to Pearl Harbor him before he even thought of violence, of course.

[Texantothecore]

More or less out of the "blue," I got a copy of the Blue Press for May in the mail earlier this week. In it, Brian Dervin Dillon, who I am led to believe is a Ph.D in History, described a .50-70 Remington Rolling Block that an ancestor had bought from a saloon-keeper in Sausalito in 1920. The illustration is of a civilian model Rolling Block, well-used, with the grip repaired with rawhide. "Who knows what stories this old rifle could tell, etc., etc."

He then reviews the history of the Remington and the Sharps companies, bringing forth the argument that most of the real buffalo hunters out West used one of the "thousands" of Rolling Blocks that Remington produced, or, alternately, bought milsurp Trapdoor Springfields that the government was selling as it switched from .50-70 to .45-70.

He argues that the majority of the rifles on the buffalo ranges were Remington Rolling Blocks and Trapdoor Springfields, with only a relatively small proportion of Sharps rifles, and fewer still in the Sharps calibers that made the brand famous. He says the majority of Sharps were used by rich, effete target shooters back East, because both the rifles and the factory ammunition were too "rare and expensive" for most of the hunters on the plains. The few that used them out West were wealthy sportsmen on hunting trips. The Sharps became the legendary "Buffalo Gun" by means of being used in Wild West Shows, where the audience picked up on the brand name and made it legendary in an alleged triumph of public relations over actual fact.

I must confess that this article controverts about everything I ever read, heard or saw on the subject. There might have been more surplus Army rifles out there than Sharps rifles, but if I have my reading straight, they were in the hands of settlers or subsistence hunters rather than professional buff-runners. Maybe they would shoot a buffalo once in a while in the course of events, but they were not market hunters. Most of the "thousands" of Remington Rolling Blocks were made in metric calibers for foreign governments, and I would imagine their ammunition was as "rare and expensive" out on the plains as any of the Sharps calibers. I remember one contemporary reference to a hunter shooting something with his "Egyptian Remington," but that was it, although, admittedly, the description of guns the correspondents used is typically sparse or lacking in their hunting stories. Those military Rolling Blocks only showed up in huge numbers after WWII, when most of the nations of the world dumped theirs in the US to raise badly needed hard cash. I recall Sporting Model Remingtons in catalogs, and Target Models, but only Sharps offered a Business Model.

It always seemed to me, when I went to Gun Shows, that there were always more Sharps rifles on tables than civilian models of Remington Rolling Blocks, and very few I ever saw of either civilian or military were in .50-70. Marcot's book on Remington Rolling Blocks confirms this; the Company was so involved in military contracts that they could make relatively few civilian rifles and still thrive. The "rare and expensive factory ammunition" of whatever caliber, whether .50-90, .44-77 or whatever, was reloaded by most hunters to amortize the cost. Although it is true that some people were glad to get free .50-70 ammo from nearby forts, I remember at least one said he used to break the stuff down for powder and lead to load his own calibers. The only guy I can recall who, notoriously, had a .50-70 Remington Rolling Block was George A. Custer. It always seemed to me that the writings of the hide hunters themselves indicated that the rifles used were about evenly divided between Sharps and Remington, with a sprinkling of other makes, like the Ballard, in the distinct minority.

And, of course, Buffalo Bill's legendary buffalo rifle was "Lucretia Borgia," a .50-70 Trapdoor Springfield. He's the only buffalo hunter I can recall who had one, and he was a showman for most of his career.

Anybody else read this essay? I think the first revisionist history article I read was on the Sesquicentennial of the fall of the Alamo, where somebody argued that Davy Crockett had snuck out the back door, survived the battle and later settled in Mexico. My tolerance for this kind of Gonzo "historical" writing has not improved since then, quite the opposite.

Remington Rolling Blocks were the largest selling rifle in history until the ak came along.
70 million rbs produced.

Sharps had to make do with 6500.
Apparently the Sharps could be purchased for 276.00 in 1876.

That number was very serious money in those days.

So yes, the rolling blocks were the rifle of choice for most buffalo hunters.

[Texantothecore]

I will add that the profit margins on buffalo hunting were quite low and most hunting teams broke even or lost money. It was not a way to get rich. Logistics were a real problem and competition kept prices low.

[sharpsguy]

I don't know where you get the figure of 276 dollars for a Sharps rifle in 1876. I have a copy of the Sharps factory catalog for that year, and according to that catalog, the price of a Sharps sporting rifle with a 28 inch barrel was 36 dollars. If you wanted a 30 inch barrel, it cost you 38 dollars. The Sharps hunter's rifles with a single trigger rather than the double set were 31 and 33 dollars, depending on the barrel length.

[Bent Ramrod]

I could see how a Sharps rifle purchased in Kansas or Texas in the midst of the buffalo harvest would go for much more than it would if it was picked up in Hartford or Bridgeport and carried out there. Look at what happened to the S&W 29 after Dirty Harry or the Shiloh Sharps after Quigley Down Under.

But those millions of Remington Rolling Blocks overwhelmingly went overseas, not to be seen in this country until the 1950's. According to Marcot's book, the highest serial number for #1 and #1-1/2 Sporting and Target rifles was 12,000 or so, and given Remington's unwillingness to publicize their records, it is pretty much a guess how many were shipped or used out West. Excluding those Creedmoor, Scheutzen and other Target rifles and those chambered in rim fire and other small calibers, I would think the frequency of Sharps and Remington rifles among the professional buffalo hunters would be closer to even. In 1873, an advertisement by Remington offered the Sporting Rifle at between $32 and $40, depending in sights and barrel length, so the FOB price difference between Remington and Sharps was not that extreme.

Again, it appears that Dillon is deliberately blurring the distinction between a professional buffalo hunter and somebody who found himself on the range for some other reason (and happened to shoot a buffalo) in order to make a "controversial" point about what kind of rifle they would be using. Carrying this idea to its logical conclusion, one could say that since the shotgun was the most frequently used firearm on the Western ranges, and rifles had a comparatively small usage and importance.

[M-Tecs]

The other thing to keep in mind is the relatively small number of professional buffalo hunters.

By most accounts the total kill for all years of buffalo hunting is about 6 million. If you have a thousand rifles that killed a thousand buffalo each you have killed a million buffalo. It didn't take that many people or rifles to kill 6 million buffalo over a 10 to 15 year period.

I believe most would be surprised by how few professional buffalo hunters their actually were. Most that made a living "hunting" buffalo were skinners and general labor.

[Texantothecore]

I don't know where you get the figure of 276 dollars for a Sharps rifle in 1876. I have a copy of the Sharps factory catalog for that year, and according to that catalog, the price of a Sharps sporting rifle with a 28 inch barrel was 36 dollars. If you wanted a 30 inch barrel, it cost you 38 dollars. The Sharps hunter's rifles with a single trigger rather than the double set were 31 and 33 dollars, depending on the barrel length.

I got it from an interview published decades ago. The guy being interviewed was supposedly a former buffalo hunter. Thank you for the correction.

I love this forum. Lots of learning.

[kootne]

For the last 30 years I've bought nearly every book that was a memoir, journal etc. regarding the 1840-1890 era that happened anywhere near Montana, Idaho, Wy. that I happened to run across. I will reference a statement in one of those books, "Hunting in the Great West" by G.O. Shields. He notes that of a 100 or so frontiersmen he met (eastern Montana area, 1880) all but 3 or 4 used a Sharps rifle. He says he questioned many about their choice and they were happy with them and felt them well suited to the life they lived. I would venture a guess that ratio is just about what is referenced in the big stack of books I've accumulated when buffalo hunting is referenced. Not much said about rolling blocks. These are nearly all 1rst person accounts.
For the record, I'm not a Sharps "groupie", I do own one, a Business rifle shipped in early '77 and two Remington sporters in 40/70 BN. Hopefully that shows my objectivity.
Over the years I've seen several dug up, plowed up, or dump found Sharps from around Montana and Wyoming along with a number of other dug up period rifles but not one Remington.
Another thing, is the dates and chamberings. Commercial buffalo hunting was ~1871- 1884 I believe. Factory Sharps cartridge rifles were ~1869-1881. #1 Remingtons were ~1869-at least 1888 (those made after 1884 missed the game). All Sharps chamberings except the 2 40/50's were buffalo sufficient. Remington made a large number of their rifle in rimfire or light 38 calibers. So for me, somebody is trying to re-write history with this Remington story.

[M-Tecs]

Gabriel Dumont was a leader of the Métis people and a leader of their buffalo hunts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel...A9tis_leader)#
I don't know what he used when he hunted buffalo but the pictures show him holding a RRB.

J. H. May was also a buffalo hunter and he states "My favorite guns were the Maynard 40-70, 320 grain and the Sharps .40-90 360 grain. He later started using a Sharps 45-100 for buffalo.

And of course Buffalo Bill Cody's favorite was Springfield .50 caliber trapdoor needle gun, he christened it “Lucretia Borgia.” http://centerofthewest.org/2014/08/1...hunts-buffalo/

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I don't believe many people realize just how few people were living the outdoor life on the great plains in the mass buffalo hunting era. The numbers of rolling block and Sharps rifles which were somewhere else (possibly Egypt etc.) needn't bear any relation to how many were there.

While the Sharps rifles (other than war surplus conversions) were expensive, the price of ammunition relative to rifles in those days was high. I would suspect that among professional riflemen reloading was common, and the availability of Everlasting cases for the Sharps rifles was probably a factor.

[Got-R-Did]

deleted-bad link.

Got-R-Did.

[M-Tecs]

http://www.levergun.com/articles/bdixon.htm

Got-R-Did.

Levergun.com

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[Got-R-Did]

http://www.levergun.com/articles/rep...g-shot-part-i/

Got-R-Did.

[Sharpsman]

Liver-Eatin Johnson said Buffalo Bill was the worst shot in the West!!

[M-Tecs]

For the Liver-Eatin Johnson fans http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/pdfpl...4962606X136874

[alamogunr]

Black Powder Cartridge News had a series a few years ago on the buffalo trade. Complete w/pictures(hides/bones). I'll leave it up to someone else to dig it out, read and report. I don't want to hold the author up for criticism.