Smith & Wesson Schofield

The Guns of Laredo … Part 3 … the Rifles

In Streets of Laredo we see mainly 3 standard rifles – plus a couple of oddities. There are others long guns, but their appearance is too brief to mention.

Firstly we have the Winchester 73′ rifle – ‘the rifle that won the West’? Combined with the Colt 45 pistol, these are backbone of many a Western Film and probably a good chunk of Old West history as well.

James Garner (Captain F. Woodrow Call) carries two rifles (not sure why .. but Why Not?): a Winchester 73′ and a 1860 Henry Rifle Brass Frame .45 LC.

Streets of Laredo Garner with Yellowboy — **Woodrow / Garner with his Henry**

Streets of Laredo Garner with Yellowboy 2 — **Garner using the Henry – folding sight.**

Ned Beatty (Judge Roy Bean) and his Winchester 73‘

Between drinking and hanging people the Judge shoots things.

George Carlin gets ready to demonstrate the ‘Yellow Boy‘.

Hang on to your ears.

The 2 Unusual Weapons

Streets of Laredo Smith and Cannon — **Smith and Cannon**

Charles Martin Smith and Cannon? Sounds like a Law Firm. And he’s got the guns to back it up.

The first of the 2 unusual weapons that I spoke of, is the The Holland & Holland Paradox shotgun (well named).

From the Internet Movie Firearms Database (http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Holland_%26_Holland_Paradox)

“The Holland & Holland Paradox was an interesting design. It was a smoothbore until the end of the bores where there was rifling … The 8 and 10 gauge shotguns were considered to be the most effective against Elephant, Cape Buffalo ect, but lacked the accuracy and range of a rifle. The Paradox design was a compromise which offered improved performance from the smoothbore design … “

In other words, Charles Martin Smith is carrying an elephant gun. Sheesh.

This weapon eventually contributes to the demise of our main antagonist.

Thanks to my brother Richard for finding this information.

Don’t ask me what the pistols are though … he never pulled ’em.

Charles Martin Smith seems to have a fondness for shotguns:

Streets of Laredo Smith and Shotgun — **Charles Martin Smith with shotgun in *The Untouchables* – 1987**

That other weapon is claimed to be a Model 1889 Schmidt-Rubin rifle with Scope.

Streets of laredo Model 1889 Schmidt-Rubin rifle — **Model 1889 Schmidt-Rubin rifle – without scope**

Apology: I lost my sources for this reference. I do recall the the individual who recognized this rifle said that this weapon did not exist in the era of Streets of Laredo. I would not be surprised as we find this quite often in Westerns (and other movies) where technology from the future is imported to the past. Most often nobody cares or notices, but some Gun and Western history fans/experts do take note.

The only thing I can say for sure it that if Joey Garza (Alexis Cruz) takes a liking to your gun, you better just give it to him. And run away. Fast.

But it might not do any good.

The Guns of Laredo … an interesting mix.

Bob Dylan

Streets of Laredo contains most your standard Western gunfare: Yer Colt 45, Yer Winchester ’73, and Yer double barrel shotgun ….

But it also has 2 unique weapons – plus another that’s fairly uncommon.

I was not able to locate any resources that specifically itemized the Guns in Streets of Laredo. It took considerable detective work to discover the identity of at least 2 of the firearms. A Thank You goes to my brother Richard who identified the mysterious and unusual shotgun carried by Charles Martin Smith.

The Handguns:

Most of the main characters use handguns at some point Streets of Laredo – including Sissy Spacek and Sonja Baca.
The handgun of choice appears to be the famous Colt 45 – either long or short barrel.

Alexis Cruz

Sonja Baca

Ned Beatty

A Colt Refused

Near the beginning Episode 1 (of 3) of Streets of Laredo, James Garner (Captain Woodrow Call) is offered a pearl handled Colt by his employer – which he refuses – upon advice there may ‘strings attached’.

Uncommon Gun Number One

Randy Quaid, who plays the very surly John Wesley Hardin in Streets of Laredo, brandishes a nickel plated handgun that looks almost too grand to be a ‘shootin’ iron’ of the Old West.
But there it is. This gun was not easy to for me to identify and I’m still not certain I have it right, but I’m going with a:

Subsequent editions of a successful weapon design often remain or appear almost identical to the original – even over years of production – with only minor refinements. Or can be copied by other Manufacturers.
In other words, they aren’t easy to identify. So this is just a guess on my part.

Randy Quaid

Top Breaking handguns.

When you consider that the ‘top breaking’ feature (similar to double barrel shotgun) of this handgun appears to be make loading and unloading quicker and easier, you’d think they would have been more popular, but it seems the side loading style of the Colts was more common. I do not know who originally invented this design, but it was clearly used by other manufacturers as well – including Colt.

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Tag: Smith & Wesson Schofield

The Guns of Laredo … Part 3 … the Rifles

The Guns of Laredo … Part 3 … the Rifles

The 2 Unusual Weapons

Like this:

The Guns of Laredo … Part 2 … the Handguns

The Handguns:

A Colt Refused

Uncommon Gun Number One