Making an 1860 reliable enough to shoot SASS

[Pettifogger]

Late, just got back from the range and working on our new saloon for Winter Range.  Mako, you forgot to calculate that Mattie is only three feet tall and weighs 27 pounds.  She was shooting a custom Sharps made from Titanium and Unobtainium fresh from Pandora.  It was chambered in .50-140 Sharps and powered by 3f Triple 7.  She is lucky to be alive.

[Mako]

Late, just got back from the range and working on our new saloon for Winter Range.  Mako, you forgot to calculate that Mattie is only three feet tall and weighs 27 pounds.  She was shooting a custom Sharps made from Titanium and Unobtainium fresh from Pandora.  It was chambered in .50-140 Sharps and powered by 3f Triple 7.  She is lucky to be alive.

Arrrrrrrrgh...

Okay, recalculating...

All-right, based on those parameters she still wouldn't have been knocked into the hole.  In fact she would accelerate to 6.96 mi/sec which according to the standard gravity potential equation of  1/2mv²_e+-GMm/r=O and G₁ with a gravity acceleration of 32ft/sec²  means she actually surpassed gravitational escape speed.

So depending upon the moon's relative position she either impacted the moon in 1880 and created the Tycho Crater or escaped the near earth gravity well and headed out to deep space.  If she missed the moon she passed Pluto's orbit in 1897 and is now over eight times the distance of the Earth to Pluto beyond Pluto's orbit.  She passed through the Kuiper Belt and is now in the Oort Cloud.  She is currently approximately 29 billion miles (28,772,342,850) from earth and still heading out.

Satisfied?  Boy, you are making this difficult, it's not rocket science you know...

[Pettifogger]

I bet she's cold out there.

[Fox Creek Kid]

I have a couple 50-70 Sharps carbines and they punch, but of course as Mako pointed out, nothing to the extreme of Hollyweird.

On another note: someone said that in the interview with Kevin Costner on the 'Open Range" DVD they asked him about "fanning" his revolvers whereas Costner supposedly replied that he knew it was not historically accurate but he felt it gave a greater effect, or something along those lines. I didn't buy the DVD as I really didn't like the movie all that well. Tombstone had the same BS of guys firing SAA's as fast as 1911's. Total BS for the time presented. I am afraid that if they made a totally accurate movie today the public would think it garbage and not correct. Josey Wales was cool, but reality it ain't.

[Noz]

I have a couple 50-70 Sharps carbines and they punch, but of course as Mako pointed out, nothing to the extreme of Hollyweird.

On another note: someone said that in the interview with Kevin Costner on the 'Open Range" DVD they asked him about "fanning" his revolvers whereas Costner supposedly replied that he knew it was not historically accurate but he felt it gave a greater effect, or something along those lines. I didn't buy the DVD as I really didn't like the movie all that well. Tombstone had the same BS of guys firing SAA's as fast as 1911's. Total BS for the time presented. I am afraid that if they made a totally accurate movie today the public would think it garbage and not correct. Josey Wales was cool, but reality it ain't.

Isn't that the movie where he is walking down the street toward his adversary when he rolls the cylinder out of his Remington and replaces it with a loaded cylinder?  Why didn't the bad guy blow him away while he had the gun in two pieces?

[Mako]

Noz,
That was Pale Rider, which was in many ways a remake of High Plains Drifter.

The Outlaw Josie Wales was the one where he had been a confederate guerrilla fighter with Quantrill and he carried a  pair of Walkers, an Army model and an 1849 in a shoulder holster.  He also had a '59 Sharps.

~Mako

[Noz]

yeah, right. I've been watching a bunch of the old ones and got the titles mixed.

[Fox Creek Kid]

And they used Colt 1st Model Richards in the Josey Wales flick....approx. six years before they were made. 

[Mako]

Kid,
It wasn't just Richards Type I pistols, there were anachronisms using cartridge guns throughout.  Whenever they needed to fire they used a cartridge conversion.  There was a mixture of different props  rifles, pistols and even Gatling Guns.

There were some that made no attempt to make them look like a percussion pistol, those being the Richards Type I conversions you noticed, they have an obvious ejector housing.  The ones I have found were used by the two Indians Lone Watie and Little Moon.

Lone Watie's Richards Type I:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/LoneWatieArmyType1.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/LoneWatieArmyTypeI2.jpg

Little Moon's Type I:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/LittleMoonArmyTypeI.jpg

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/LittleMoonArmyTypeI2.jpg

Josie Wales used pistols disguised to look like percussion revolvers from the very first pistol he dug out of the ashes of his cabin to his Walkers in the final shootout at the house against the Red Legs.

The first pistol looks like a Type II without an ejector housing:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/JosieModifiedArmyEarlyTypeII.jpg

In his horseback fight with the Comancheros he uses a "long cylinder" Army with a loading cut in the frame:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/JosieModifiedArmyLater.jpg

His Walkers used in the fight against the Red Legs had "long cylinders" to allow cartridges to be used:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/ModifiedWalker.jpg

Jamie shot the man trying to collect the bounty for them with a modified Army, you can even see the cartridges in the cylinder in this shot:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/JamiesModifiedArmy.jpg

They used '73 Springfield Trapdoors in firing scenes for rifles at the battle with the Red Legs.

Also, earlier one of the Comancheros has one slung on his back:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/ComancheroTrapDoor.jpg

Laura Lee firing a Trap Door:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/LaurLeeTrapDoor.jpg

Then there was the Anachronistic 1872 .45-70 Colt's Gatling Gun.  The only Gatling Guns used during the Civil War were the .58 caliber paper cartridge variety using preloaded steel chamber (tubes) which fed by gravity through a hopper, the tubes went down a chute to the left into a collection box or bag and were reused..  In 1865 the Army adopted the new .44 Rim Fire version, then the 1872 model in .45-70.  The 1872s are the Gatling Guns Custer left behind when he led his men to their deaths at the Little Big Horn.

1872 Colt's .45-70 Gatling Gun:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/1872ColtsGatlingGun.jpg

The 1862 Paper Cartridge/Steel Chambers Gatling Gun:

http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Josie%20Wales/Gatling_gun_1862_Type_II_2.jpg

I have a good friend from the service who is a movie firearms prop consultant/FX guy.  And they use cartridges whenever they actually shoot a pistol and most rifles.  There are exceptions like 18th Century firearms, Kentucky rifles, flintlocks, etc.  Whenever Wales is actually not shooting he is carrying standard Uberti C&B revolvers.

~Mako

[Drayton Calhoun]

Ah, perhaps that explains how no horses were hit when the Gatling was being fired...

[Mako]

Ah, perhaps that explains how no horses were hit when the Gatling was being fired...

Are you referring to the The Outlaw Josie Wales or Custer?
~Mako