Tom Selleck's Army 1860 'Cable'

[Mako]

I saw the movie, Steve. So how does a remote TX gunsmith configure up a 1st Model Richards ring SIX years before C.B. Richards at Colt? Probably the same screenwriter who had them "smuggling" guns into the Confederacy via TX when Texas WAS Confederate for the entire war.  Poorly researched movie IMO.

Kid,
You opine about the "poor research," but then in the previous sentence make an error in basic geography and the facts of the movie, book and screenplay yourself...the guns were being smuggled through Arizona, not Texas. 
"When the fox gnaws, smile..."

[Fox Creek Kid]

Why or how would you smuggle in guns from England and/or Europe to Arizona when it has no coastline or port?  The Union blockade at Galveston was very porous and there was lucrative smuggling throughout the war via Matamoros/Brownsville. So explain to me, why would you freight crates of Enfield rifles to Arizona, approx. 2000  EXTRA miles farther west (considering to & fro) than Brownsville, through Apache & Comanche infested territory (little frontier defense during the war) when you could haul them without Union interference through Matamoros?    I opine, ignorant script with poor historical research.

[Wymore Wrangler]

Fox Creek Kid, have you ever heard of the Sea of Cortez, not far from the Arizona Border via that water route, and who said the weapons had to come from England itself, The British Empire had military forts throught the world that those rifles could have come from, heck Last Stand is still one of my favorite movies, it was made for enterainment not as a historical documentary....

[Trinity]

I think a wholly realistic historical dramatization would bore the socks off of the viewers.  Hollywood (no, I don't use cutsie nick-names for it) is doing a better job at representing costumes and weaponry, but in the end all I want is to be entertained and Tom Selleck et al. do it every time.

[Mako]

Why or how would you smuggle in guns from England and/or Europe to Arizona when it has no coastline or port?  The Union blockade at Galveston was very porous and there was lucrative smuggling throughout the war via Matamoros/Brownsville. So explain to me, why would you freight crates of Enfield rifles to Arizona, approx. 2000  EXTRA miles farther west (considering to & fro) than Brownsville, through Apache & Comanche infested territory (little frontier defense during the war) when you could haul them without Union interference through Matamoros?    I opine, ignorant script with poor historical research.

You are still gnawing... and I am still smiling.  It's a movie Kid, a work of fiction translated to the screen with the intent of entertaining.  In Elmore Leonard's novel Cable carried a Walker and a Spencer, do you also take exception to the act of creative license by Selleck , Lowry and Cohen when they chose to deviate from the original and substitute a conversion revolver and a Henry?   Selleck is a patron of the arts concerning fine pistols and rifles of the 19th century and then went to great lengths to work in the angle of having his father in law create a conversion pistol for Selleck to showcase.  Most of us "oooooh and aahhhh" at the pictures displayed on this thread and the one on the 1860 Henry group's thread, I'm curious as to the lack of appreciation on your part.

As far as the lack of "authenticity" on the part of Elmore Leonard, as it his choice of local and the smuggling route in his novel, I am a bit amused.  I don't think Mr. Leonard would be too concerned with your critique, his many western novels, other fiction, screenplays and movies speak to his reputation as a popular and well respected author.  That is unless of course you are a published Civil War historian, or an acknowledged expert on mid 19th century Texas history.  If that is the case he might bow to your expertise in lieu of his creative fiction. Your knowledge of Texas and Mexican  towns, cities and costal features seems to mark you as a Texan.  Based on that assumption we might all wonder why the visceral response to a picture of a gorgeous pistol from someone with such a heritage.

All I can say that that the heirs of Allan Dwan and the writers of "The Sands of Iwo Jima' are probably quaking even as I write this considering the prospect they will be hounded (or is it foxed?) because of the news this Monday that the Japanese government has returned the name of the island to its correct identity of "Iwo To."  No doubt all of us who are John Wayne fans will have to renounce having ever seen this movie due to its gross lack of authenticity in the title (I even understand they went as far as to dupe us on the fact they filmed the entire movie in California, over 5,000 miles from Iwo To).

Still gnawing?

[Fox Creek Kid]

No, I don't live in TX and I have a formal history education. If it's "just a movie", then why were you so intent upon defending it, Mr. less than 30 posts? 

[Mako]

No, I don't live in TX and I have a formal history education. If it's "just a movie", then why were you so intent upon defending it, Mr. less than 30 posts? 

Ohhhh, I'm cut to the quick.  It appears my less than 30 posts relegates me to the peanut gallery.  I feel chagrin.
Still smiling...

[Wild Ben Raymond]

I saw the movie, Steve. So how does a remote TX gunsmith configure up a 1st Model Richards ring SIX years before C.B. Richards at Colt? Probably the same screenwriter who had them "smuggling" guns into the Confederacy via TX when Texas WAS Confederate for the entire war.  Poorly researched movie IMO.

Brent, I may agree that the movie may not have been properly researched and the revolver looks like a 1st model Richards. If you look in Bruce McDowell's book on Colt Conversions you can see on page's 399-400 a Mystery Conversion done by an unknown master gunsmith/blacksmith, granted it doesn't have 4 screws, but there is a hole chapter devoted to private & experamental conversions. Who knows if & when some of these conversions were made, before or after Colt started making their conversions is anybodys guess, as there are no records. So the film took some liberty with the possability that a master gunsmith was able to create a revolver very much like the Colt version of the 1st model Richards conversion. It's just a movie lighten up. WBR   

[Marshal Deadwood]

Well boys,,and I am SMILING,,so don't bash me with an 'angry club',,,heheh,,but this is more entertaining that the movie !

thank ya'll !

Marshal Deadwood   *who is seriously picking up some good information from each side of the debate...this is what good debates do,,,if they don't get to 'meet me here and bring ya shootin' irons ! '

My best to both sides of the fence

Marshal Deadwood

[RRio]

Everybody take a deep breath now.

[litl rooster]

Everybody take a deep breath now.

LOL

[Deadeye Don]

Well boys,,and I am SMILING,,so don't bash me with an 'angry club',,,heheh,,but this is more entertaining that the movie !

thank ya'll !

Marshal Deadwood   *who is seriously picking up some good information from each side of the debate...this is what good debates do,,,if they don't get to 'meet me here and bring ya shootin' irons ! '

My best to both sides of the fence

Marshal Deadwood

Tom,    If you happen to read this thread,  simply ignore the nay sayers.  Last Stand at Saber River was a great movie.  Please make some more for us.  We are craving more good western movies with cool firearms in them.  Your pal.   Deadeye.

[Dusty Morningwood]

All other personal issues aside, I think a gunsmith would have made something more akin to the long cylinder conversions, instead of something identical to the Richards. 

[Delmonico]

Tom,    If you happen to read this thread,  simply ignore the nay sayers.  Last Stand at Saber River was a great movie.  Please make some more for us.  We are craving more good western movies with cool firearms in them.  Your pal.   Deadeye.

ThankYou Don, only watched the movie once when I was laid up from a surgery and couldn't do much else, but I liked it and like your idea for Tom to make some more movies Learned long ago ain't nuthin' on TV or the movies ever seem to get it all right, but I have the choice to watch stuff or not, most times choose not.  But this has been quite entertaining.

Oh by the way least anyone forget the words of Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, "Education don't make you smarter."  Course he said it in Russian, perhaps with a regional dialect, but I don't know.  

[bobwill]

I think that the whole Richard's style conversion in 1865 is kind of stupid; however, I guess it would be technically possible for a very skilled master gunsmith to come up with a working conversion method, so that Tom's character could use the .44 henry cartridges in his revolver.

[Halfway Creek Charlie]

My theory on the  gunsmith conversions is that they did the simplest conversions possible. Some are very beautifuol but very simple, others are engineering masterpieces(a recent Colt On Antiqueguns .com comes to mind, it had a 3 plate,6 firing pin arrangement and the center plate was spring steel).

Like the Remy Armory Conversion(now referred to as Non-Remington Factory Conversions possible with a thin recoil Plate and drilled thru cylinders(non recessed) machined down to the pawl area and a donut added. This was the quickest and the easiest way to convert a Cap and ball pistol, and to convert to the 44 Henry flat the Remington 44 RF (or amybe even the 46 R.F. cause they were plentiful) would have been a great and practical choice.

[Deadeye Dick]

Hey, I'm interested in what both of you have to say. Don't clam up on us now. You both make good points and I enjoy hearing both sides of the story. I've not seen the movie, but will have to get down to the local movie rental and see what's happening. Come on guys, some of us don't write in often, but are interested in your input. 

[Dusty Morningwood]

Deadeye:

Good luck finding a copy at the video store.  I have looked in everyone in town here.  None have it.

[Major 2]

I bought my copy along with " Crossfire Trail " from Amazon.com... $12 each

I also have one Kenny Howell's Type 1's  it's the companion for my USPFA Type 1 

[W.T.]

I bought my copy along with " Crossfire Trail " from Amazon.com... $12 each

Netflix-ed it.

I also have one Kenny Howell's Type 1's  it's the companion for my USPFA Type 1 

Both of which will turn up missin' if I ever get to Florida ~