Hi, all.

As you are all well aware, ammo is scarce and prices are very high. This has resulted in many us cutting back significantly on how often we practice and how many rounds we shoot every time we go to the range. It’s either that or we pay a lot more money to maintain our shooting volume.

We all shoot for different reasons: enjoyment, competition, building defensive skills, etc. This makes me wonder just how much did the gunfighters throughout American history, from the 1800s until now, actually shoot and practice to get good. There are examples of great gunfighters in various lines of work in every period of US history.

Since about 2000, US shooters have been shooting millions upon millions of rounds of ammunition. “Oh, you don’t shoot 20,000 rounds per year? Well, you must not be serious about self-defense or competing at a high level!” We’ve all seen it. But the real gun fighters who did shooting for a living obviously didn’t shoot nearly that many rounds per year throughout US history. So how did they do it? How many rounds per year did they actually shoot? How did they practice and get good?

Just some things I've been wondering about. Has there been any serious investigation into this topic? Informed (and uninformed) opinions welcome!

I don't think they shot all that much compared to the people who shoot 20,000 rounds a year.

I think that they shot enough to get fairly good, then it was other things that made them win gunfights, kind of like what Books (John Wayne) said to Gillom in "The Shootist".

Gillom said that he shot as well as Books and wondered how he could have won so many gunfights. Books replied that others would hesitate and he wouldn't. I think a lot of it came down to that.

My Dad was a bootlegger for a while and then became a cop for a while and was in a few gunfights and I was trained by him. I got pretty good at shooting as a kid and have retained that ability to now. The more important things were things he told me about how gunfights go down and when to shoot and when not to, and most importantly, the mental part of the whole thing.

I think that's where the largest part of winning comes from.

It’s been reported that Wild Bill Hickock shot his 51 navies every morning and reloaded then but that was probly due to the nature of black powder and moisture but working on your accuracy for a dozen shots every morning can’t hurt. It has also been reported to be able to keep shooting a can and keep it rolling. He was known to have been successful in several shootings until his last one.

It's my understanding that Bill Hickock shot his cap and ball pistols each morning, in order for him to be carrying them with fresh charges. He managed to shoot Davis Tutt through the heart at a distance of 75 yards, under fire.

**edit**

Oh, I see ElToro has already pointed this out.

I think that the old gunslingers would practice a lot just getting the revolver out of the holster fast. Just from reading, movies and songs the one who cleared leather the fastest won the gun fight ... of course, hitting the target matters too.

I also read once that Wild Bill Hickok, would discharge and reload his Navy Colts every day before he went on the street. No idea if that is true, but Hickok was widely known as a skilled pistol shot so it may be real. John Wesley Hardin was known to shoot playing cards and then sign them for cash and free drinks. It been attributed to Bat Masterson, who survived the gunfighter era and went on be a sportswriter, that he said the secret to gunfighting was to "hurry, but take your time". I would guess for most of the men who achieved notoriety during that time it was experience under fire and a cool head that equaled success, as opposed to lot of practise.

Y'know, I heard somewhere that Wild Bill used to shoot his revolvers every morning.

You can get really good with dry fire. Quality of practice also matters way more than quantity. Most gun owners “plink” more than train or practice.

An example: set up 2 magazines with about 10 rounds each and an empty case or a dummy round or 2 in each. 1st mag draw and fire 1 round while stepping to the side. If you get a malfunction clear it while moving and re-engage. When you go dry reload while moving or at least a side step. 2nd mag same thing but 2 rounds or a failure drill.

In 20 RDS you’ll get 1 emergency reload, ~15 draws, 2-4 surprise malfunction clearances with lots of movement.

Dry fire 10 times between each live fire string and you’ll get even more out of the session.

I'd guess too that they found a way to understand and address the adrenalin rush that always happened during a gun fight. Just speculation on my part. I believe that this is what "hurry, but take your time" means.

Jim

I believe a lot of those gunfights were more ambush style shootings than fights. That was from a book I read about Tombstone.

But then again, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman said it’s a hard heart that kills

From what I’ve read about the participants in Tombstone, Doc Holliday was not the legendary gun fighter his reputation seems to be. Guys like Johnny Ringo were bad men who were very skilled with a gun and there’s a lot of fiction mixed in with Wyatt Earp’s stories.

Another thing I remember hearing some old-time gunfighter say was to have your gun out and ready to go before the shooting started.

Ammunition was more or less handmade back then, wasn’t it?

I can’t imagine it was cheap and I doubt they fired a whole lot of it.

Interesting! Great info on those old gunfighters. I assume similar things could be said about more recent gunfighters like Jim Cirillo on the NYPD Stakeout Squad.

I'd imagine some of it came from shooting for necessity rather than sport as well. My dad's family was pretty poor when he grew up. His dad died while he was young, and if he or his brother didn't shoot it they didn't have meat on their table. When missing a shot is the difference between eating or not eating you have a lot of incentive to make your shots count. My dad barely ever picks up a gun these days, but when he does he can shoot circles around me or my brother.

Going further back into our history I'd imagine that necessity was the norm rather than the exception for a lot of people.

Alvin C. York was considered an excellent marksman, I've seen his skills attributed to his poor Appalachian upbringing.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Ammunition was more or less handmade back then, wasn’t it?

Depends on the time period, and type of ammo.

With earlier cap-and-ball revolvers, the bullets were most often handmade.

With later cartridge revolvers, commercially available loaded ammo started to become more common. (Especially true for things like rimfire or pinfire revolvers, whose ammo wasn't reloadable.)

My Dad would tell about the gunfight he witnessed as a boy on the streets of Olathe, CO. He called it one of the last gunfights in the old West. His observation was that the participants made heavy use of cover at fairly long ranges, and did not seem to be in particular danger of being hit by their opponent. Anecdotal, for sure, but the only eye-witness account I've ever heard. "It wasn't like the movies," he was fond of saying. My Dad was born in 1902, and the family left Olathe in 1911, so this was in the first decade of the 20th Century.

I have to wonder how much Hollywood's fanciful depiction of the old West has colored our beliefs. I'm sure the shooting skills exhibited by the legendary gunfighters were significant, but I sincerely doubt they were particularly common among the general populace. Just as Jerry Miculek can outshoot most of us today, Bat Masterson and Wild Bill Hickok were in the top 1% of shooters back then. They were legendary because they were a rare breed, and lived to tell their tales. I doubt there were ever more than a handful of true gunfighters active at any given time. Not to mention that much of their income, and future prospects depended on their maintaining their legendary stature. I would not be at all surprised to learn that many of the reports of their prowess were embellished, either by the teller, and/or by multiple re-tellers long after their occurrence.

Some guys are just lucky when it comes to killing folks.
It also helps to have an edge.
And chewing tobacco.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
I have to wonder how much Hollywood's fanciful depiction of the old West has colored our beliefs.

I agree completely and it wasn’t just Hollywood. The books that were written during the era for general entertainment were full of fanciful exaggerations about the men (and occasionally women) who were their heroes, and that was more than once admitted by the principals themselves. For example, what evidence is there to support the ’50s teevee tales of the “gunfighter” with a reputation who had to keep moving to avoid being challenged by one young upstart after another who wanted to assume the veteran’s reputation for himself?

And what did it even mean to be a “gunfighter”? There were a few legendary figures such as Kit Carson who had more than their fair share of experiences fighting Indians (as I recall), but how did anyone make a living being involved in barroom gunfights?

I also suspect that the few reputations that have come down to us were based at least in part on the individuals’ not being exceptionally good as we would describe their skill levels by today’s competition and professional standards, but in comparison to the average man who owned a gun then. Although I’ve never tried to research the matter, I doubt that the TV’s once-common depiction of every man being armed with a revolver at all times is anything other than pure fantasy. In fact, I read one account of life in the Midwest when it really was considered to be the west that mentioned the number of knife fights that occurred among certain elements of the population. Guns were expensive.

Consider that many of the “victims” in the Wild West would likely survive today if shot by “insert your favorite gunslinger”. Primitive medicine, or lack there of, killed as many as marksmanship did.

Pre-penicillin infections were a major concern with GSW's that today would be routinely survivable. If I'm not mistaken, President Garfield died of infection resulting from his wound.