Here are some images of LS Models 1/1 scale Colt Buntline Special.
From Wikipedia"
The Colt Buntline Special is a long-barreled variant of the Colt Single Action Army revolver that author Stuart N. Lake described in his best-selling but largely fictionalized 1931 biography, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal. According to Lake, dime novelist Ned Buntline had five Buntline Specials commissioned. Lake described them as extra-long, 12 inches (300 mm)-long barrel Colt Single Action Army
 revolvers. Lake wrote that Buntline presented them to five lawmen in 
thanks for their help with contributing “local color” to his western 
yarns. But modern researchers have not found any evidence to confirm 
that Buntline ordered the guns or that Colt manufactured them in that 
time period.
Lake attributed the gun to Earp, but modern researchers have not 
found any supporting evidence from secondary sources or in available 
primary documentation of the gun's existence prior to the publication of
 Lake's book. After the publication of Lake's book, various Colt 
revolvers with long (10″ or 16″) barrels were referred to as "Colt 
Buntlines" or "Buntline Specials". Colt manufactured the pistol among 
its second generation revolvers produced after 1956. A number of other 
manufacturers, such as Uberti, Navy Arms, and Cimarron Arms, have made 
their own version of this long-barreled revolver.
  
The revolver was first described by Stuart Lake in his highly fictionalized 1931 biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal. The extremely popular book turned Wyatt Earp into a "Western superman". Lake's creative biography and later Hollywood portrayals exaggerated Wyatt's profile as a western lawman.
Ned Buntline, the pseudonym for dime-novelist Edward Zane Carroll Judson.
 
 
Lake wrote that dime novelist Edward Zane Carroll Judson, Sr., writing under the pseudonym
 of Ned Buntline, commissioned the guns in repayment for "material for 
hundreds of frontier yarns." Yet Buntline, in fact, only wrote four 
western yarns, all about Buffalo Bill and none that mentioned Earp. According to descendants of Wyatt Earp's cousins, he owned a Colt .45-caliber and a Winchester lever-action shotgun.
There is no conclusive evidence as to the kind of pistol that Earp usually carried, though it is known that on the day of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, October 26, 1881, he carried an 8 inch (200mm) barreled Smith & Wesson Model 3. Earp had received the revolver as a gift from Tombstone mayor and Tombstone Epitaph newspaper editor John Clum.
 Lake later admitted that he had 'put words into Wyatt's mouth because 
of the inarticulateness and monosyllabic way he had of talking'.
The book later inspired a number of stories, movies, and television 
programs about outlaws and lawmen in Dodge City and Tombstone, including
 the 1955 television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.
Lake conceived the idea of a revolver that would be more precise and 
could be easily modified to work similarly to a rifle. According to 
Lake, the Colt Buntline was a single-action revolver chambered for .45 Long Colt cartridge. However, it had a 12″ (305mm) long barrel, in comparison to the Colt Peacemaker's 7.5″ (190mm) barrel. A 16″ (406mm) barrel was available, as well.
 According to Lake, it had a removable stock that could be easily 
affixed through a combination of screws and lead-ins. This accessory 
gave the revolver better precision and range, Lake claimed, and allowed 
the user to fire it like a rifle. The Colt Buntline was further popularized by The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp television series.
Lake wrote that Ned Buntline commissioned the revolvers in 1876 and 
that he presented them to Wyatt Earp and four other well-known western 
lawmen: Bat Masterson, Bill Tilghman, Charlie Bassett, and Neal Brown. However, neither Tilghman nor Brown were lawmen at that time.
 According to Lake, Earp kept his pistol at the original 12″ length, but
 the four other recipients of the Specials cut their barrels down to the
 standard 7½″ or shorter.
Lake spent much effort trying to track down the Buntline Special 
through the Colt company, Masterson, and contacts in Alaska. Lake 
described it as a Colt Single Action Army
 model with a long, 12 inches (30 cm) barrel, standard sights, and 
wooden grips into which the name “Ned” was ornately carved. Researchers 
have never found any record of an order received by the Colt company, 
and Ned Buntline's alleged connections to Earp have been largely 
discredited.
The revolver could have been specially ordered from the Colt factory 
in Hartford, Connecticut, as extra-long barrels were available from Colt
 at a dollar an inch over 7.5 inches (190 mm). Several such revolvers 
with 16-inch barrels and detachable stocks were displayed at the 1876 
Centennial Exposition, but these were marketed as "Buggy rifles".
 There are no company records for the Buntline Special, nor a record of 
any orders from or sent to Ned Buntline. This does not absolutely 
preclude the historicity of the revolvers, however. Massad Ayoob writing for Guns Magazine
 cited notes by Josie Earp in which she mentioned an extra-long revolver
 as a favorite of Wyatt Earp. He cited an order by Tombstone, Arizona, 
bartender Buckskin Frank Leslie for a revolver of near-identical description. This order predated the O.K. Corral fight by several months.
 
Now that's a gun.....A loved the movie and always wondered how you would carry a gun with a barrel like that....
ReplyDeleteI don't think one would be able to quick draw with it. The barrel length would get in the way.
ReplyDelete