Hi, all.
I know next to nothing about guns associated with the mid-to-late 19th century and never really watched or read westerns growing up. (Well, OK, Maverick and occasionally Bonanza. That was a long time ago.)
But a story idea involving a shape-shifter who's been around since 1730 seems to have blundered somehow into the Wild West in the classic period, and my protagonist is about to shoot and kill three people and arrange it so it looks like a murder-suicide by one of the victims. One of the three is the sheriff, with (I assume) the usual Colt .45. One's an unarmed woman (who's to blame for all this). The third is her husband, with the family rifle.
Assuming that makes sense so far, the main question is whether the killer needs to make sure the bullets match. We're in a relatively small town and I wouldn't expect a sophisticated investigation, especially since the sheriff was in bed with another man's wife at the time. If the scenario had been true, all three shots would have been from the rifle, but actually our killer used the sheriff's gun. Assuming no worries about empty chambers (there's time for her to fix that, and nobody's checking fingerprints in that era), is the difference in weapon type going to be noticeable? How about anomalies in launch angle? The husband's supposed to be shooting across a relatively small bedroom, but the killer, not much of a shooter, is doing this almost point blank.
Hope someone can help, though given my record with chapter stories (0-for-whatever) and my failure so far to come up with an ending beyond finding someone with whom to ride off into the 2025 sunset, nobody should expect this story anytime soon.
Eric
I'll just throw this out.
Unless you have a fixation on a .45, I think there was a pistol and a rifle made that used the same ammunition, and if not then since it is fiction, you can just say there was. I don't think there was any sophisticated ammunition identification until the 50's.
I am not a gun expert and do not wish to engage in any sort of gun talk ...
Gwen
Yes, there were many revolvers and rifles chambered
for the same ammunition and still are. The Winchester 1894 lever action repeater was a very popular gun in the West after 1894 and was produced in many cartridges that were also used in pistols.
I believe that one of the early ways to determine if a cartridge was fired from a particular weapon was if the bullet diameter and/or rifling marks could be matched to the gun. Also there might have been some marks left on a cartridge or primer fired from a particular weapon that could be identified due to a manufacturing tool mark, or wear (offset firing pin markings were fairly common).
PS Note that around 1895 black powder used in these type cartridges were switched to smokeless powder. It probably would have made a big difference in "powder burns" at close range on the target old vs new powder in the same caliber.
Matching a bullet by rifled markings
Was never used until the early 20th century. Although prior to that as many people had their own bullet molds, there have been times where a bullet was matched to the mold it was created in.
Oh and anyone and anything in front of the gun would have powder burns, including curtains in the room as the muzzle flash from black powder extend quite a ways outward as the unburnt black powder ignites as it leaves the muzzle behind the bullet. Oh and 3 black powder shots fired inside a closed room say of ten feet square would engulf the entire room in thick smoke.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
I used to play
with the civil war reenactments when I was younger. The smoke can get so bad after everyone fires a few rounds that we would all have to stop and let the field clear or else the spectators couldn't see anything.
Most do not realize how much smoke one shot of black powder produces.
We would all leave to go home smelling of burnt sulfur and coated with patch grease...LOL
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Rifling
I know that microscopic analysis of bullet profiles wasn't being done.
I supposed there was some understanding during this time that different gun manufacturers or differences between rifle barrels or pistol barrels utilizing a certain caliber might have a different number of lands. Counting lands and grooves of the projectile might indicate which suspect barrel it was fired from if there was indeed a difference in the barrels. Thus far after a quick check, I only found barrels using 6 lands on firearms chambered for 44-40 Winchester. YMMV.
44/40
While I know this was a common round used in the very late 1800's it was not a round that a petite woman could fire accurately (if the guns recoil didn't rip it out of her hand in the first place) We are talking about single action revolvers. They required a little bit of strength to cock, were notoriously heavy with most all the weight out in front of the hand holding it which requires considerable strength in the wrist and practice to hold on target.
I remember the first big bore revolver I ever fired. I had fired shotguns and rifles and even my dad's 45 acp pistol before this so I knew how to shoot. I was 13 years old, stood 6 ft tall, weighted 170 lbs and had no problem picking up a 70 lb bale of hay and tossing it up from the ground into the hay loft. My Uncle handed me the revolver, I took a two hand stance with it, aimed at the target, fired and damn near knocked myself unconscious when the recoil brought the revolver back causing me to hit myself in the forehead with it. That was a .357 magnum, a round that is only slightly more powerful than the 44/40.
Now if in the story we are going to try and pin this on a woman, we can't use that powerful of a round or no one would believe a woman could do it unless she was built like a stereotypical final opera singer that wears a steel helmet with horns :)
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Showmens rounds
apparently had around 50% less powder in them than normal rounds. Less Powder means less recoil. In the days when people made their own bullets this was normal as was putting too much powder in with disasterous consequences.
There was an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in London in the early 1970's about the Colt Revolver and Wild Bill's Show that came to London. There was a bit on Annie Oakley and and what they called 'Showmen's Rounds'. How true this is, I don't know but using guns insite a Circus Tent with full charges would more than likely produced way too much smoke.
Too woosie to shoot.
Imagine me at 5'7" and <150 lbs, sometimes a lot less. After I got out of the Military, the "men" took me out shooting. The women came with us, not expecting to shoot. This family was an Elk hunting family and some of them bragged about shooting 6 or 700 yards, with guns so big that I don't even remember. I shot a 30:06 and decided I was NOT going to shoot an Elk beyond about 200 yards.
One of them cajoled me into shooting their big Elk hunting, field cannon. The damned thing hurt me a lot, but I was not going to let those pricks know it. Then one of them drug his boat anchor pistol out. Just looking, I could easily tell the bore was more than .45, though I have no idea how big. Maybe .50? Do they make bigger?
I am not a gun person beyond the fact that if you attack me I will shoot you dead.
He handed me the pistol, a revolver and then he even reached in and cocked it for me. What an insult. When that thing went off the whole damn thing went up in the air, but I was not letting it hit me in the head ! I just fired the one shot and I think my father in law almost bawled when I didn't get hit. Those guys were pricks that though that the only real men were those who logged trees at least 3 feet in diameter.
These particular "men" drank whiskey at breakfast and most of them seemed to chew. To them, the only truck was a Ford F-250, redneck assholes. Come to think of it, I wonder if dealing with them contributed to my not wanting to be a man?
Yeah, so ....
Bullets in the 19th century
The most popular cartridge for pistols and rifles in that period was the 44/40 cartridge. It was one that was compatible with both a pistol and rifle. I'm not sure if I wrote it correctly.
There were a lot of popular
calibers in the old west. The 44/40 didn't come into being until the very late 1800's, over ten years after the .45 colt which was used extensively in the civil war and by lawmen afterwards was more widely used in revolvers due to the amount of revolvers produced during the civil war that filtered into civilian life after the war.
Then there was the calibers that were not as well known that faded out of existence, like the 1892 .32 rimfire (I have one of these in my collection)
Or the calibers that were well loved by their users such as the Colt Navy .36 (cap and ball revolver)
and so many that came and went out of popularity. 32/20, 45/70,45/90, 32/40, 50/110 the .28 cal, .31 cal, .41 cal
The Henry's used a .44 rimfire. Spencers use a .52 & a .56 cal. then around the time of the Colt peacemakers in the 44/40 cal the 30/30 came out. Near the same time the .38 special came out.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Check this out
https://truewestmagazine.com/22-guns-that-won-the-west/
Note a lot of men had their weapons from the civil war or they were government surplus once the war was over.
Commentator
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First thing to find out
Is the exact year (s) you're going to be writing into as it has a lot to do with what types of guns would be available. While Movies show plenty of rifles and revolvers using cartridges, quite a few did not have the money to switch over to the newer cartridge revolvers and used ball and cap revolvers. There were also a lot of "Repeating rifles" made using gimmicks such as a revolving chamber identical to ones used in cap and ball revolvers.
The first revolver to use cartridges instead of having to hand load each cylinder with black powder and then the projectile was invented in the mid 1850s so even up into the 1870 there were not a lot of these around outside of the military and they were expensive.
PM me and I can probably answer all your questions, the one's I can't I know who to ask :)
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Thanks, Everyone...
I knew the size and the recoil would be a problem for her, but not to that extent.
I'm obviously going to have to rethink that scene, or finesse around it. From a plot standpoint, it's an incidental part of the story, a way of showing that the protagonist's "job" -- living a long series of serial childhoods -- can be dangerous and that she's sufficiently strong and efficient to overcome any problems, even when presenting as a preteen. But I may have to find another way to do that.
Outside of the 1730's scene where she acquires her ability (and longevity) and the real story action, circa 2025, when she's discovered and confronted by the government, most of the vignettes or recollections I've been considering are pretty innocuous: one or two of them advance the plot; the rest are character-related or diversions.
Eric