My Favorite Westerns

Tag: Smith & Wesson Schofield

  • The Guns of Laredo … Part 3 … the Rifles

    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.

    Streets of Laredo Rifles

    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 and Rifles

    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‘
    Streets of Laredo Ned Beatty with Winchester 73'

    Between drinking and hanging people the Judge shoots things.

    Streets of Laredo Ned Beatty with Winchester 73' 2

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

    Streets of Laredo George Carlin with Yellowboy 2

    Hang on to your ears.

    Streets of Laredo George Carlin with Yellowboy 2

    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.

    Streets of Laredo Holland & Holland Paradox

    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. 

    Streets of Laredo Alexis Cruz and rifle

    Alexis Cruz with Model 1889 Schmidt-Rubin rifle

    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.

  • The Guns of Laredo … Part 2 … the Handguns

    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.

    streets of laredo GUNS

    streets of laredo Alexis Cruz with Colt

    Alexis Cruz

    streets of laredo Sonja Baca with Colt

    Sonja Baca

    streets of laredo Ned Beatty with Colt

    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’.

    streets of laredo colt in a case

     Uncommon Gun Number One

    Smith and Wesson top loading handgun

    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:

    Smith & Wesson Schofield 

    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 with Smith and Wesson

    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.

    Randy Quaid with Smith and Wesson 2

    Next:

    The Guns of Laredo … Part 3 … the Rifles

2 responses to “The Guns of Laredo … Part 3 … the Rifles”

  1. Craig Avatar
    Craig

    I’m an 8 gauge aficionado having several myself . That H&H Paradox really intrests me . I’d love a fully rifled or paradox 8 bore double .

    1. jcalberta Avatar
      jcalberta

      Hi Craig! It does look like an amazing weapon. Could likely put a hole right through you.
      Not sure how easy it would be to locate one of those?
      But I’m no gun expert. Don’t pretend to be. I shot a ton when I was a kid and when
      I was in the Calgary Highlanders infantry. Strangely, though I’m not a gun owner now
      but play a lot of Shooters on the computer like The Division 2 and Breakpoint. This
      definitely introduces me to a lot modern weapons. I guess I still have some of that
      in me.

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