Category: All About Guns

February 1959 was a relatively quiet month on the U.S. and world stage except for an event which is still remembered today — “The Day The Music Died.” On February 3, 1959, musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson died in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. It was a significant event for popular music but would have likely faded into history without Don McLean’s eponymous song in 1971.

Meanwhile, in the world of firearms, the biggest story was the mania for all things cowboy-related. TV Westerns were at the height of their popularity, and some of the most enduring classics of the television era went out over the airwaves.

These “horse operas” excited viewers with portrayals of the Colt Single Action Army (often getting a twirl or three before going back in the shuck) and the buscadero holster rig — a picturesque, ubiquitous but not historically valid “gunslinger” rig. The Winchester Model 1892 lever-action rifle was also widely used, though it was completely out of place for stories set in the 1870–1890 era.

Viewers didn’t care about historical accuracy. They simply couldn’t get enough of Gunsmoke, Have Gun — WillTravel, TheRifleman, WagonTrain, Cheyenne, Bonanza, Rawhide, Johnny Ringo and countless others.

Shooting magazines of the era — including GUNS — catered to this newfound lust for Western guns, historically accurate or not. It was apparent the romanticism of “wide open spaces” highlighted on TV was certainly still alive and well in the minds of readers, if not necessarily on the barbed-wire-encrusted ranges of actual cattle territory.

The cover of the Feb 1959 issue. No shooting magazine of this time frame could avoid having a cowboy on the cover, in this case wielding one of the issue’s featured guns, the Savage model 99. Note the tagline of “Hunting – Shooting – Adventure.”

Did you ever want to own one of the least reliable light machine guns ever made? In 1959, Service Armament Company of New Jersey could hook you up with an authentic French Army Chauchat for only $19.95, or one in “choice” condition for $29.95.

They would also sell you Civil War cannonballs, though we’d suggest you decline the “Civil War shell fuse ignition fastened to the top of parrot gun projectile” for an additional 25 cents. The United States Postal Service was undoubtedly thrilled …

In keeping with the demand for all things Western, the magazine has several advertisements for cowboy holster rigs, such as this “Authentic Old West holster and cartridge belt for quick-draw shooting.” Such low-slung rigs — known as the buscadero — are not historically accurate but designed for style and theatricality, not practicality. Regardless, shooters wanted to wear the same design as their heroes Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and John Wayne did.

Hunting is big in the late ’50s. This issue covered moose and fox hunting with features, though we’re a little nonplussed at the suggestion of the .351 Winchester Self-Loading as an “old favorite” for stopping moose.

As the .351 is considered barely adequate for whitetail deer, trudging into a swamp after a hormone-crazed draft horse wearing 60 lbs. of antlers seems a little suicidal.