Fanning The Hammer Is A Great Way To Lose

The Wild West didn’t run on courage alone. It ran on nerve, repetition, and a cold understanding that “the law” often arrived as a Colt revolver, not a badge. We take you into the real world behind the legends of Old West gunfighters, using sharp stories and historical color drawn from Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal by Stuart M. Lake, plus hard-edged accounts connected to Bat Masterson and Wild Bill Hickok.

We start with the famous Hickok vs Tutt gunfight in Springfield, Missouri, then pull apart the movie version of Western duels. Most fights weren’t staged showdowns with one heroic shot. They were sudden, messy, close, and dangerous to everyone nearby, with black powder smoke hanging in the air and outcomes unclear until the shooting stopped. From there, we zero in on what serious gunmen actually practiced: how they wore their six-shooters, how they tuned their triggers, and why “fast” only matters when it stays accurate.

Wyatt Earp’s most surprising lesson drives the heart of the conversation: the winner usually took his time. Not slow time, but a calm mind in a split fraction of a second. We also explain why fanning the hammer and shooting from the hip earned contempt from proficient gunfighters, how two-gun carry was more about a reserve than a stunt, why notched guns are largely a myth that spread through storytelling, and how safety habits like keeping an empty chamber under the hammer saved lives.

If you love Western history, Dodge City legends, and the true tactics behind frontier gunfights, subscribe, share the show with a fellow history fan, and leave a review with your biggest “Hollywood got it wrong” moment.

Transcript

Guns As The Law Of The West

SPEAKER_00 0:18

God did not make all men equal, Westerners were fond of saying. Colonel Colt did. When it came to the use of shooting irons, however, some men were more equal than others. A fact gunfighters knew well. So to improve the odds of landing on the right side of this equation, they exercised meticulous care in selecting their firearms from among the weapons available. Wild West Podcast proudly presents Gunfighters and Guns in the Old West, including excerpts from Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal, by Stuart M. Lake. The law of the West comes in the form of a pistol, more often than a badge. As a result, those who know well how to handle it typically ruled the day. The gunslinger was one of the most feared individuals in the Wild West. Whether lightning fast with a six-shooter or possessing deadly accuracy with a rifle, the gunslinger knew his craft and was a deadly adversary. July 21st, according to American history books, is the anniversary of the first Western gunfight. On this date, in 1865, James B. Hiccock faced Davis Tutt in Springfield, Missouri. Following an argument over loaned money and a pocket watch, the two men faced each other across the city square. Both men reached for their weapons. Hicok's shot hit Tutt in the chest. The man had enough life left to exclaim, Boys, I'm killed, and staggered to the courthouse steps before collapsing. Telling fantastic yarns was a staple of entertainment on the frontier. Life at the edges of Western society was so rough and unpredictable, it made it hard for newcomers to distinguish between pernicious lies, recreational lies, and sometimes astonishing truth. There are several misnomers about these romanticized gunfights, the first of which is that very rarely did the gunfighters actually plan a gunfight to occur, calling out their enemy for dueling action in the street. Instead, most of these fights took place in the heat of the moment, when tempers flared with a bit of bottled courage. They also didn't occur at a distance of 75 feet, with each gunfighter taking one shot, one falling dead to the ground, and the other standing as a hero before a dozen gathered onlookers. Instead, these gunfights were usually close up and personal, with several shots blasted from pistols, often resulting in innocent bystanders hit by a bullet gone wild. It would be difficult to tell who had even won the gunfight for several minutes, as the black powder smoke from the pistols cleared the air. A wannabe gunfighter's career left as little as possible to chance, and spent long hours refining their skills with weapons. In later life, Bat Masterson described the rigorous training necessary to enable him to throw lead quick and straight, as though by instinct. Bat maintained his reputation and expertise through constant practice as his public and potential opponents looked on. Bat would spend hour after hour shooting in empty cans and sweetening his guns. We used to file the notch off the hammer, he later recalled, till the trigger would pull sweet, which is another way of saying that the blamed gun would pretty near go off if you looked at it. Stuart Lake's November 1st, 1930, Saturday Evening Post article of Guns and Gunfighters provided an illustration by Wyatt Earp of the importance of practice. According to ERP, a shootist needed to accustom his hands to the pistols of those days. The man who coveted a reputation as a gunslinger started his practice early. They practiced with their guns just like a card sharp practices with his cards. In a shell game, a man drills his fingers to manipulate the elusive P. Or a juggler must practice acquiring proficiency. So did the gunslinger practice with his guns. When he could draw, caulk, and fire all in one smooth, lightning quick movement, he could then detach his mind from that movement and concentrate on accuracy. Wyatt states he was a fair hand with a pistol, rifle, or shotgun, but he learned more about gunfighting from Tom Spears' cronies during the summer of seventy one than I had dreamed was in the book. Those old timers took their gunplay seriously, which was natural under the conditions in which they lived. Shooting to them was considerably more than aiming at a mark and pulling a trigger. Models of weapons, methods of wearing them, means of getting them into action and operating them, all to the one end of combining high speed with absolute accuracy, contributed to the frontiersman's shooting skill. The sought-after degree of proficiency was that which could turn to the most compelling account of the split second between life and death. Hours upon hours of practice and broad experience in actualities supported their arguments over style. Wyatt Earp emphasized the importance of being a proficient gunfighter over a grandstand play by stating The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live long in the frontier, I would shun flashy trick shooting, grandstand play as I would poison. When I say that I learned to take my time in a gunfight, I do not wish to be misunderstood, for the time to be taken was only that split fraction of a second that means the difference between deadly accuracy with a six gun and a miss. It's hard to make this clear to a man who has never been in a gunfight. Perhaps I can best describe such time taking as going into action with the greatest speed of which a man's muscles are capable, but mentally unflustered by an urge to hurry, or the need for complicated, nervous, and muscular actions, which trick shooting involves. Mentally deliberate, but muscularly faster than thought is what I mean. One example we find in history about being mentally deliberate in a gunfight is when Bat Masterson tested this skill in Sweetwater, Texas. In 1876, Bat Masterson became confronted by a man enraged with jealousy over a saloon girl. The details of that fight were never fully unraveled, but Bat took his time to lay out his shot. What is certain is that Bat took a Sweetwater girl named Molly Brennan from under the nose of her former lover, a retired U.S. Army sergeant named Melvin King. And when King found them together one night in a saloon, he opened fire on Bat. As the story goes, Molly threw herself in front of Bat to protect him. King's bullet passed through her body, killing her instantly and lodged in Bat's pelvis. But as Masterson fell, with the sergeant cocking his pistol for another shot, Bat took steady aim and fired back. King died at an army camp the following day. Bat suffered a slight permanent limp from his wound and took to carrying a cane, at first out of necessity, later for adornment alone. Wyatt Herp continues his story about the Western gunfighter giving his personal experiences on how the six gun is used in a gunfight, while comparing the fanning method to direct aim and shoot. Wyatt begins by stating, In all my life as a frontier police officer, I did not know a proficient gunfighter who had anything but contempt for the gun fanner, or the man who literally shot from the hip. However, in later years I read a great deal about this type of gunplay, supposedly employed by men noted for their skill with a 45. I can only support the opinion advanced by the men who gave me my most valuable instruction in fast and accurate shooting, which was to avoid the method of gunfanner and hip shooter. But old Jack Gallagher once told me, this type of shoot stood a slight chance to live against a man, who, as old Jack Gallagher always put it, took his time and pulled the trigger once. Cocking and firing mechanisms on new revolvers were almost invariably altered by their purchasers in the entrance of smoother, effortless handling, usually by filing the dog, which controlled the hammer, some going so far as to remove triggers entirely, or lash them against the guard. In those cases, the guns were fired by thumbing the hammer. This method is not to be confused with fanning, in which the triggerless gun is held in one hand while the other is brushed rapidly across the hammer to cock the gun and firing it by the weight of the hammer itself. A skillful gunfanner could fire five shots from a 45 so rapidly that the individual reports were indistinguishable. But what could happen to him in a gunfight was pretty close to murder. Bat Masterson, sheriff of Ford County, wrote about the gun fanning method when he described an incident between Levi Richardson and cock-eyed Frank Loving. Now cock-eyed Frank was so called because one of his optics bore a northeast direction to the other. He was about 19 years old when he reached Dodge City, and a noted cowhand turned professional gambler. The Ford County Globe said professional gamblers like Frank Loving are desperate men. They consider it necessary in their business that they keep up their fighting reputation and never take a bluff. Levi Richardson was from Wisconsin. He was a friend of mine. Levi came to southwest Kansas to make his fortune buffalo hunting, and I knew him from the buffalo hunting grounds. To some he was an unpleasant man. Richardson was thoroughly familiar with the use of firearms, and an excellent shot with either pistol or rifle. Moreover, he was a high-strung fellow who was not afraid of any man. On this occasion, as Richardson baited loving, Richardson appeared supremely confident. He stood by the hazard table like a great cat about to pounce, his right hand poised close to his gun butt. Damn you, he growled at loving, why don't you fight? The young gambler eased his weight from the table, facing the other man squarely. Why don't you try me? Levi said flatly. Richardson's forty-five cleared leather with one swift, fluid motion of his right hand. His left hand flashed across the gun hammer with the speed of a rattlesnake's darting tongue. Richardson fanned off five shots, filling the long branch with gunsmoke and one continuous roar. But as his hammer fell in an empty chamber, there stood Loving before him, unharmed except for a minor scratch on his hand. Loving raised his pistol and pumped three bullets into Richardson, who slid to the floor and was dead within a few minutes. Richardson's death resulted from his lack of deliberation, which Bat always stressed as essential in the makeup of a successful and long-lived gunfighter. Richardson didn't take sufficient time to see what he was doing, and his life paid the penalty. No one, however, who knew both men could truthfully say that Loving possessed a greater degree of courage than Richardson, or that he was a better marksman with a gun under ordinary conditions. Loving simply had the best nerve, which is a quality quite different from courage. Courage, generally speaking, is daring. Nerve is steadiness. White Earth continues his story about the Western gunfighter by giving personal experiences from numerous six gun battles he learned about or witnessed. No man in the Kansas City group was Wilde Bill's equal with a six gun. Bill's correct name, by the way, was James B. Hiccock. Legend and the imaginations of certain people have exaggerated the number of men he killed in gunfights and have misrepresented how he did his killing. At that they could not very well outdo his skill with pistols. One of the rare instances is the Bill Hiccock David Tutt shootout in Springfield, Missouri. It wasn't a planned event, but rather it occurred when Wild Bill ran into Tut in the street and was insulted. Bill Hiccock, a tall and broad-shouldered man with penetrating eyes, seemed to search out the innermost being of others. His long hair, flowing like a mane, and accented by his preference for ruffled and fancy clothing and broad brimmed hats, made him an imposing figure. Nevertheless, he was a gentleman with a deep fondness for the ladies, treating them with personal attention and flawless courtesy until he met up with a gambler in Springfield, Missouri. The incident between Bill Hiccock and David Tut occurred in July of eighteen sixty five, when Bill Hiccock met up with a twenty-six-year-old gambler to whom Hiccock lost at the gaming tables. Dave Tutt took Hickock's gold pocket watch for security when Bill couldn't pay up. Hiccock growled that he would kill him if Tut so much as used the timepiece. However, on July 21, 1865, the two met in the public square and Tut was proudly wearing the watch for all to see. This insult, of course, soon led to a gunfight. And at a distance of about 75 yards the two faced off. Tut's shot missed, but Hickock hit Tut in the chest. The wounded man then stumbled for about twenty feet before falling to the ground dead. Two days later, Hiccock was arrested and tried for manslaughter. His trial began on August 3rd, in which Hicok claimed self-defense. Three days later, he was acquitted of all charges. But in reality, the opponents were more often scampering for cover. The gunfights were not usually clean either, as the fighters were drinking and missing usually easy shots, continued to shoot until they had emptied their pistol. Of those gunfighters that genuinely had a reputation as skilled shootists, they were not usually anxious to match their skills with another gunman with a similar reputation. Instead, they tried to avoid confrontation and undue risks whenever possible. Hickok knew all the fancy tricks, and was as good as the best at that sort of gunplay, but when he had serious business at hand, a man to get, the acid test of marksmanship, I doubt if he employed them. At least he told me that he did not. I have seen him in action, and I never saw him fan a gun, shoot from the hip, or try to fire two pistols simultaneously. Never have I ever heard a reliable old timer tell of any trick shooting employed by Hickok, when fast, straight shooting meant life or death. Hiccock's ivory handled revolvers were made expressly for him, and were furnished in a manner unequalled by any ever before manufactured in this or any other country. It is disclosed that a bullet from them never missed its mark. Remarkable stories are conveyed of the dead shooter's skills with these guns. He could keep two fruit cans rolling, one in front and one behind him with bullets fired from these firearms. This is only a sample story of the hundreds related to his incredible dexterity with these revolvers. While Bill generally carried his pistols, actually revolvers or six shooters, but often referred to as pistols, butt forward and a belt holster or scabbard. The butt forward gun position permitted either a cross draw, reverse, or underhand draw common to the planes. Although it has been recorded in history, Wild Bill did shoot from the hip when demonstrating his skills in public with a variety of trick shots. On a particular day, Hickok was on Tom Spears' bench, showing a pair of ivory-handled six guns, which Senator Wilson had given him in appreciation of his services as a guide on tour of the West. As Tom Spears tells it, Bill's two favorite exhibitions of marksmanship, driving a cork through the neck of a bottle with a bullet, the other splitting a bullet against the edge of a dime, both at about twenty paces. So when Tom asked Bill what he could do with the new guns, he added that he did not mean at close range, but at a distance that would be a real test. Bill then pointed out a capital letter O mounted on a sign about a hundred yards away from where Tom and Bill were sitting. The sign with the O ran off at an angle from Hickock's line of sight, yet before anyone guessed what his target was, while Bill had fired five shots from the gun in his right hand, shifted weapons, and fired five more shots. Then he told Tom to send someone over to look at the O. The report of Bill's skills of the shooting came back with all ten of Bill's slugs found inside the letter's ring. Light herp explains why two guns were used by a gunfighter. That two gun business is another matter that can stand some truth before the last of the old time gunfighters has gone on. They wore two guns, most of the six gun toters did, and when the time came for action went after them with both hands. But they didn't shoot them that way. Primarily, two guns made the threat of something in reserve, that they were useful as a display of force when a lone man stacked up against a crowd. Some men could shoot equally well with either hand, and might alternate their fire and gunplay. Other men exhausted the loads from the gun on the right, or the left as the case might be, then shifted the reserve weapon to the natural shooting hand if that was necessary and possible. Such a move as the border shift could be made faster than the eye could follow a top-notch gun thrower. But if the man were as good as that, the shift would seldom be required. Whenever you see a picture of some two-gun man in action with both weapons held closely against his hips, with both guns spitting spoke together, you can put it down that you're looking at a fool or a fake picture. I remember quite a few of those so-called two-gun men who tried to operate everything at once, but like the Fanners, they didn't last long in proficient company. Here, Wyatt Earp explains why in a gunfight there was never a bluff. In the days of which I am talking among men to whom I have in mind when a man went after his guns, he did so with a single, serious purpose. There was no such thing as a bluff. When a gunfighter reached for his forty five, every faculty he owned was keyed to shooting as speedily and accurately as possible to make his first shot the last of the fight. He just had to think of his gun solely as something with which to kill another before he himself could be killed. The possibility of intimidating an antagonist was remote, although the drop was thoroughly respected, and a few men in the West would draw against it. I've seen men so fast and so sure of themselves that they did go after their guns while men who intended to kill them had them covered. The result was more of a win out with the gun in play over the man who bluffed over the cover of his guns. They were rare. It's safe to say, for all general purposes, that anything in gunfighting that smacked of show-off or bluff was left to braggarts who were ignorant or careless of their lives. Wyatt Earp explains why notching a man's gun to keep count of the number of many killed was more myth than legend. I might add that I never knew a man who amounted to anything to notch his guns with credits, as they were called, for many had killed. Outlaws, gunmen of the wild crew who killed for the sake of Bragg followed this custom. I have worked with the most of the noted peace officers Hickok, Billy Tillman, Pat Chagrew, Bat Masterson, Charlie Bassett, and others of light caliber have handled their weapons many times, but never knew one of them to carry a notched gun. To expand the idea of notches on a gun, we go back to a story Bat Masterson, the humorist, once told about a rapacious souvenirs collector. The experience, as Bat Masterson tells the story, became the beginning of a wild tale about gunmen and how they notched their guns for every man they killed. Bat's sense of humor was responsible, and he regarded the joke so highly that he told about it. He didn't dream of the possible consequences. A collector of gunfighters' souvenirs pestered Bat half to death with his requests for one of the six guns that Bat had used on the frontier. This collector finally called on Bat in his New York office, and as Bat said afterward, was so insistent about the gun that Bat decided to give him one just to get rid of him. Bat did not want to part with the ones he had actually used, so he went to a pawn shop and bought an old 45, which he took to his office in anticipation of the collector's return. With the gun lying on the desk, Bat was struck with the idea that while he was providing a souvenir, he might as well offer one worthy of all the trouble it had caused. So he took out his penknife and then and there cut twenty two credits in the pawn shop gun. When the collector called for his souvenir, and Bat handed it to him, he managed to grasp an astonished question as to whether Bat had killed twenty two men with it. I didn't tell him yes, and I didn't tell him no, Bat said, and I didn't exactly lie to him. I simply said I hadn't counted either Mexicans or Indians. And he went away tickled to death. However, it wasn't long before Tales of the Old West, with tales about Bat Masterson's notched gun and the twenty-two men he had killed, began to creep into print. His case may offer a fair example of how all the others got started. According to Stewart and Lake, Wyatt Earth made a statement of caution when he was asked the question of why five shots without reloading were all a top-notch gunfighter need when his guns were chambered for six cartridges. The answer is merely safety. To ensure against accidental discharge of the gun while in the holster, the hammer rested upon an empty chamber. The empty chamber method was used due to hair trigger adjustment. As widely as this was known and practiced, the number of cartridges a man carried in his six gun may be taken as an indication of a man's rank with the gunfighters of the old school. Practiced gun wielders had too much respect for their weapons to take unnecessary chances. So it was only with Tyros and Woodbees that you heard of accidental discharges or didn't know it was loaded injuries in the country when carrying a colt was a man's prerogative. Remember to check out our Wild West Podcast shows on iTunes Podcast or at WildWestpodcast.buzzsprout.com. You can also catch us on Facebook at www.facebook.com slash wildwest podcast or on our YouTube channel at Whiskey and Westerns on Wednesday. Thank you for listening to our podcast. Join us next time as we take you back to the life and times of Batmasterson Part 2, The Red River War. You can learn more about the legends of Dodge City by visiting our website at World Famous Gunfighters.com slash books.