Category: All About Guns
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22 Caliber CRAM
The Cimarron 1876 Centennial “Tom Horn” Rifle chambered in .45-60 is the ultimate addition to any western gun collection. Cimarron, and their affiliate company Texas Jack (TexasJacks.com), also offer other western-style guns and accessories like this Remington 1890 replica revolver which is the same type that was carried by Tom Horn ($624.48), Tom Horn hat ($514.00), and replica ammunition box ($6.30). (Photo by Mike Anschuetz)
Spoiler alert — You know the deal. You’ve been warned. Tom Horn was Steve McQueen’s penultimate film. Based upon a true story, the movie’s eponymous central character is a brooding loner with a dark past whose sense of frontier morality puts him in conflict with the progressive social ideals of the day.
In many ways Tom Horn is actually Steve McQueen and vice versa. The two men experienced tremendous hardship and tragedy but ultimately faced the end at peace.
The film Tom Horn is as much about a rifle as a man. While not necessarily historically accurate, the film narrative orbits around Tom’s unique Winchester. A massive Model 1876 chambered in .45-60, the unusual particulars of this weapon ultimately condemn Horn to death.
Most historians state that the real Tom Horn’s rifle of choice was a .30-30 Winchester, likely a Model 1892.
However, many historians claim that Horn did own a Winchester Model 1876 rifle and a recent discovery of a Winchester 1876 rifle, chambered in .45-60, which was acquired from a museum many decades ago, is now believed to have been owned by Tom Horn.
Some of the evidence includes a sling with “JC Coble, Bolser, Wyoming” carved on it — John Coble was the employer of Tom Horn.
Colbel also paid for Horn’s funereal costs and had a book published about Horn’s life. A cleaning rod found with the rifle was wrapped with an envelope which had the lyrics of Life’s Railway to Heaven written on it, a song sung at Tom Horn’s funeral.
The song was written by Glendolene M. Kimmell, a schoolteacher that Horn was romantically connected with. Did Horn stash the rifle with his girlfriend? Was it used in the murder Horn was convicted of? Did someone else use his rifle? There are still questions unanswered.
Adding more confusion to the riddle is the fact that Horn had three rounds of ammunition on him when he was arrested: a .38-40, a .30-40 Government, and a .45-60 (this was in addition to his .30-30 rifle and ammunition).
In any case, the Winchester 1876 used in the film has a great deal more character than a Model 1892. Cimarron offers a beautiful spot-on replica of this very rifle chambered in the quirky but powerful .45-60 cartridge.
The Gun
The Model 1876 Winchester was called the Centennial Model as it was released coincident with the American Centennial Exposition. Where the previous Models 1866 and 1873 were chambered for pistol cartridges, the beefed-up Model 1876 was designed to handle the big game rounds of the day.
The Cimarron Model 1876 Winchester in .45-60 is shown along-side a vintage original 19th century Model 1873 chambered for the .44-40 pistol round. The differences between the two actions are obvious.
Winchester produced four versions of the 1876 in at least three different chamberings. The Carbine sported a 22-inch barrel, the Express Rifle had a 26-inch tube, and the Sporting Rifle reached out 28 inches. The Musket had a massive 32-inch barrel, before the Model 1886 supplanted it the production run totaled 63,871 copies.
Oliver Winchester was a master marketer. His standard rifles had a blued finish, while the deluxe variants were casehardened. Winchester also offered his famous One of One Hundred and One of One Thousand grades, seven of the former and fifty-four of the latter. The Model 1876 chambered for .50-95 Express was the only lever action rifle to see widespread service among buffalo hunters.
The Canadian North-West Mounted Police bought 750 Model 1876 guns in .45-75 in 1883. The Texas Rangers used the same rifle. President Theodore Roosevelt used a Model 1876 on some of his hunting forays out West and raved about it. Teddy’s copy sported a pistol-gripped stock, a half-length magazine, and extensive engraving. When the famed Apache chief Geronimo was captured in 1886 he was carrying a Model 1876 Winchester.
Photo Gallery
The Cimarron Tom Horn Rifle
The Model 1876 from Cimarron is a splendid rendition of the gun used in the movie. Featuring a 28-inch octagonal barrel and a 49-inch overall length, this massive lever action tips the scales at just over ten pounds. The steel is blued, and the stocks are a deep stained walnut.
Tom Horn’s name is engraved across the receiver. In addition, a removable Marble tang rear sight affixes behind the action and perfectly replicates the setup in the movie.
While the actual hero gun used in the film was an original 1882 vintage Model 1876 firing .45-75 WCF — some sources state that this caliber was chosen by the movie production due to availability of .45-70 blanks which would work in the rifle. The Cimarron rifle runs .45-60 in keeping with the movie’s narrative.
The removable Marble tang sight is a spot-on replica of the one used in the film and gives the big gun plenty of character.
The Cimarron replica is absolutely gorgeous. The fit and finish are flawless, and the action runs like greased glass. At more than four feet long this gun projects authority. For anyone with an interest in period Western firearms the Tom Horn Centennial Model 1876 from Cimarron pegs the awesometer.
How Does She Run?
The Tom Horn Model 1876 Centennial is a monster of a firearm. Just hefting the thing will bounce a guy’s serum testosterone up a few notches. The rounds are as big as your index finger, and the elegant angles exude a near-sensual vibe.
Lifting the rifle to your shoulder settles it in place like an old friend. The graceful curved buttplate locks into the human form, while the gentle drop orients the sights right where they should be. The big action runs smoothly and comfortably. However, it did take a few rounds before the action loosened up, and it must be run authoritatively. Lube the firing pin a bit for optimal reliability.
The massive action is designed to accommodate large-bore cartridges like the .45-60.
The rear sight is an adjustable ramp, but that’s not the one you’ll use. The Marble tang sight incorporates an aperture for precision and a vernier adjustment for range. The mechanism folds out of the way when it isn’t needed and slides free for storage.
The sight adjusts to compensate for the drop of those big fat lead bullets, but there are no graduations. A man running a rifle this awesome knows his iron well enough not to need them.
.45-60 ammunition is available, but be prepared to pay $50 – $80 for a box of 20.
The rounds are big, but the gun is bigger. That means the shooting experience remains recreational. This portly rifle rocks back under recoil and cycles as fast as the operator’s rheumatism might allow. The long heavy barrel keeps those big slugs nicely under control.
The Cimarron Model 1876 Winchester Tom Horn rifle hits like a freight train downrange. This fifty-yard group could likely be tighter with some younger eyes behind the gun.
Ancillary Iron
Sundry other characters wield Model 1892 Winchester rifles that are period correct for a movie set in 1903. Actor Slim Pickens’ character carries a long-barreled side-by-side 12-bore with exposed hammers. McQueen uses a similar coach gun liberated from a cattle rustler to put paid to another ne’er-do-well.
A variety of rustlers pack the obligatory Colt Single Action Army in several different configurations. Colonel Colt’s Peacemaker is the archetypal Western revolver. Cimarron offers a wide array of these iconic wheelguns.
Horn loses his favorite horse to a brigand armed with a heavy .44-caliber Colt Walker revolver. The Colt Walker was designed in 1846 as a collaborative effort between Texas Ranger Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker and Sam Colt. There were only 1,100 original guns produced, 1,000 of which went to the military. Sam Walker died wielding a brace of his eponymous revolvers while fighting in the Mexican-American War in 1847.
The .44-caliber Walker Colt was the most powerful handgun in the world in its day. (Wikipedia)
One of Horn’s adversaries wields a Smith and Wesson Model 3 Schofield revolver. This single action top-break wheelgun debuted in 1870 and was the first cartridge-firing handgun adopted by the US Army. Bob Ford used a Schofield Model 3 to kill Jesse James in 1882.
Déjà vu
Tom Horn bears a strange resemblance to my personal favorite Western, Quigley Down Under. In fact, Steve McQueen was initially approached about starring in Quigley in the 1970’s. The exigencies of show business intervened, and the movie was not made until 1990 with Tom Selleck and his Shiloh Sharps .45-110 rifle in the lead roles.
There is a pervasive melancholia about Tom Horn. McQueen’s character does some bad things, but he has a good heart. The viewer wants him to prevail.
However, the Cattleman’s Association, a timeless personification of faceless greed, ultimately takes his life unjustly. A special gallows was constructed that was activated by Horn’s own weight, no one in attendance being willing to throw the lever.
Tom Horn seems oddly similar to the Tom Selleck classic Quigley Down Under. (Moviestillsdb.com)
Tom Horn hit theaters in March of 1980. Steve McQueen died of malignant mesothelioma eight months later at age fifty. The cumulative effects of a terminal disease and McQueen’s Hollywood lifestyle were beginning to take a toll during the making of the film. This toxic combination likely contributed to the movie’s gritty edge.
Denouement
The historical Tom Horn, like the character in the movie, was a frontier Renaissance Man. He served as a civilian scout for the US Cavalry, a ranch owner, a Pinkerton detective, a deputy sheriff, and a “Range Detective.” In the latter role he was essentially a paid assassin who meted out frontier justice to cattle rustlers in exchange for a stipend for every dead outlaw he could produce.
Tom Horn is a Hollywood classic coming at the end of the golden age of Western films. The movie is avail-able to stream for free on Vudu. (Moviestillsdb.com) (Moviestillsdb.com)
Unlike the film’s title character, the real Horn was more morally complex. He likely killed at least seventeen men, the first in a duel over a prostitute.
It was his conviction for the murder of a 14-year-old boy named Willie Nickell near Iron Mountain, Wyoming, for which he was hanged the day before his 43rd birthday.
The film was inspired by his autobiography The Life of Tom Horn: Government Scout and Interpreter as told by Himself that he wrote while in jail while awaiting execution.
Steve McQueen was in his time the highest paid actor in Hollywood, and he carries a gravitas to which other lesser actors still aspire. The tale of Tom Horn has all the elements of ruggedness, passion, and justice ill-served that make for a compelling Western. Tolerate a few commercials and you can catch it for free on Vudu.
Cimarron Tom Horn Winchester 1876
- Caliber: .45-60
- Barrel Length: 28-inch octagon
- Frame: Blued
- Stocks: Walnut
- Magazine Capacity: 11+1
- Overall Length: 49 inches
- Weight: 10.05 pounds
- MSRP: $1,864.17
- Contact: Cimarron Firearms, (877)-SIXGUN1, Cimarron-Firearms.com
An Interview with Actor Mel Novak
Firearms News Editor, Vincent DeNiro, asked me to reach out to his friend Mel Novak as he acted in the movie Tom Horn.
Mel Novak is the veteran of fifty-four movies. A legendary martial artist, he’s died twenty-three times on screen and worked alongside the likes of Yul Brynner, Isaac Hayes, Sybil Danning, and Chuck Norris. He fought Bruce Lee’s character to the death in Game of Death as “Stick” and lived to tell the tale. He was also a friend and spiritual mentor to Steve McQueen.
Mel’s real calling is to serve those society finds the most unlovely. An ordained minister, Mel has for more than thirty-six years led services in prisons and skid row areas reaching the homeless and the incarcerated for Christ.
Starting out with a stint playing professional baseball with the Pittsburgh Pirates, that was cut short by a severe shoulder injury, he has gone on to a long career in movies and along the way reached countless souls for Jesus.
A perennial villain in dozens of familiar action movies, martial arts legend Mel Novak has devoted his life to Christian ministry. (Wikipedia)
WD: Tell me something memorable about Steve McQueen. What was he really like up close?
MN: Steve was a real down-to-earth kind of guy. One day I was out trap shooting with Stephen Spielberg, Ken Hyman, and John Milius when up walks this guy with really long hair and a full beard.
Once I saw those bright blue eyes I realized it was Steve. This was maybe seven months before he died. I had first met Steve McQueen, through his karate instructor Pat Johnson, years before at a birthday party.
Coppola and Milius were making Apocalypse Now, and they wanted Steve to play the part of LTC Kilgore. They offered him $2 million on the spot for one week’s work in the Philippines, and he turned him down cold.
Steve didn’t have anything else going on at the time, but he just didn’t feel like leaving the country.
WD: Hard to imagine “Charlie don’t surf!” and “I love the smell of napalm in the morning!” coming from anybody but Robert Duvall, but apparently that was almost Steve McQueen. Share with us a memory about making the movie Tom Horn.
MN: The movie was already cast, but Steve fired the director Steve Guercia right after filming began. He got rid of several of the cast members and said he wanted me in the film. I got a call from the producer Fred Weintraub at 3pm telling me I needed to be on a plane for Arizona at six.
The next morning, I went through wardrobe and makeup but still had not seen a script. On the drive out to the set, they told me I was getting a different role with a lot of dialogue, and I still hadn’t seen any of it. As soon as I got there they were ready to shoot.
I said a quick prayer for help, and the new director announced unexpectedly that it was time for a lunch break. I skipped lunch and went back to my trailer to learn my lines. When it was all over Steve was happy with it.
Mel Novak was a friend and spiritual mentor to Steve McQueen. Here is seen on the movie set of Tom Horn. (Photo courtesy of Mel Novak)
WD: Tell us about Steve’s last months.
MN: He had a horrible cancer, but I know Steve McQueen is in glory with the Lord. Billy Graham went down to Mexico to meet with him. I was once giving him some scriptures and he told me,
“Mel, you sound just like my pastor.” We both laughed, and I said, “Well, Steve, we read the same book.” I was blessed to know him and to minister to him. He’s someone that you never forget.
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MP5 – The King of the SMGs
Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t good at rendering firearms, and that’s probably not a bad thing, for reasons that will soon be explored. It should also be noted that while AI rendered guns isn’t good yet, it is likely to improve. That might not be a good thing either.
First, we need some background on what exactly AI is, or more accurately, what is generative AI. It has been in development for decades, but it was only in 2022 that generative AI entered the public consciousness with consumer-friendly programs.
Suffice it to say that generative AI, which includes OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google Gemini, among many others, is the evolution of technology that emerged in the 1960s and is something that is now used every day, again both for good and bad.
That’s not just in how it renders firearms.
AI can create visual artwork, compose music, write papers and stories, and produce other content. Students are using it as a shortcut with homework, and anyone who has been on social media has likely seen images and videos of varying quality. With a few prompts, which are written instructions, AI can generate content that just a few years ago would have taken design teams days, even weeks to produce.
However, there is a lot of “AI slop,” as in low-quality, mass-produced digital content that shows a lack of human effort. Such content is seemingly created — if created is really the right term — by those seeking to flood the Internet to exploit algorithms and to generate quick ad revenue on some platforms.
How AI Works
It is important to understand how AI images are generated. How “intelligent” AI actually is remains a matter of debate.
Generative AI is based on “Large Language Models” (LLMs), which are trained on massive datasets of text and code to recognize patterns. Although they can be effective at parsing data, solving logic puzzles and even summarizing lengthy documents, LLMs can also produce factually incorrect, nonsensical, or made-up information that may seem plausible.
AI generates images by “learning” patterns from billions of existing pictures and their accompanying text descriptions. This process is called diffusion. AI is very good at generating images of well-known objects, where the attributes, including dimensions, color, and other properties, are clearly described.
It would seem that AI, therefore, should be good at rendering firearms, but a search of social media tells a very different story. AI-generated images of firearms depict weapons that would be impossible to produce in the real world, much like the fantastical settings created by the late Dutch artist M.C. Escher.
In the case of firearms, LLMs and AI have no shortage of information to draw from, yet generative AI platforms still struggle because they lack a true 3D understanding of the underlying mechanics, resulting in nonsensical attachments, bent barrels, missing triggers, and incorrect magazine placement. AI is still treating firearms as abstract collections of shapes rather than focusing on the functional mechanisms. That has resulted in impossible geometry.
There are now Facebook Groups and Reddit subs devoted to sharing AI-generated firearm images that defy reality. Even when it gets the basics right, AI still misses some key details. Several factors are at play, but the most basic is that generate AI is based on algorithms, and many are far less “intelligent” than it might seem.
Guns And Media — It’s Never Been Accurate
It is further worth taking a step back and remembering that mainstream depictions of firearms have long been questionable. Consider firearms in comic books and video games as just two examples.
Writers of the former and developers of the latter would routinely ignore basic mechanics, notably magazine capacities and recoil, opting instead to treat firearms as versatile plot devices that are only as accurate or deadly as the story demands at any given moment.
Likewise, the World War II-based comic books of the 1960s didn’t bother to feature realistic depictions of the enemy. The Germans were often presented with big red swastikas on their helmets, carrying weapons that were not an accurate drawing of the MP-40. It was a version that fit the narrative, even if it was far from accurate.
Video games have, in recent years, gone to great lengths to get many details of modern firearms right, including the look and sound, yet other attributes are often still very wrong, notably the weight and recoil. The guns may look correct, but they way they are employed and operate is anything but accurate.
Lack of Instruction?
AI continues to struggle with firearms for some very simple reasons. There is an old saying among computer programmers: “Garbage in, garbage out,” which is the principle that the quality of a system’s output is directly linked to the quality of input. Flawed or low-quality data will produce equally flawed or useless results.
In the case of AI, the “garbage in” is the lack of clear instructions.
“One of the reasons that guns are not properly rendered in AI is in the details,” explained Roger Entner, founder and principal analyst at Recon Analytics. “AI is only as good as the instructions you give it.”
AI often needs more information and details than it is given. It can get the basic shapes right, but it still doesn’t understand the mechanics.
“Guns are such intricate tools, with minuscule differences that are huge,” Entner told The Armory Life. “Gun owners may know these things so intricately, but AI does not.”
That is a key point to consider. There is already massive confusion in the mainstream consciousness about the differences between a commercial AR-15 and the military M16, so how can we expect AI to know better?
AI doesn’t just fall short with firearms, but all sorts of things.
“AI isn’t good at depicting a Cadillac XTS from a Chevrolet Malibu,” said Entner.
There is also the issue of bias, and it is firearm enthusiasts who are likely to notice the rendering problems of AI when it comes to guns.
“AI really does render firearms poorly. Many details range from implausible to outright wrong. But in perspective, AI renders many objects poorly,” noted Dr. Jim Purtilo, associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland.
“If someone in the firearm community notices it with guns more than with other objects, then this could well be another example of a selective attention bias, which is where people with a decided interest in a given object will be much more inclined to notice when details are wrong. Show a young man the photo of a pretty young girl, and he will never notice what is in the background. ‘What monster?’”
Such a selective attention bias has cropped up in cinema for years.
“Show an old war movie and the gun enthusiast will complain, ‘that’s not a rifle they used,’ the history aficionado will say, ‘that’s not how it happened,’ and the linguists will lament that characters used words that didn’t become common until the modern era. This illustrates our biases,” Purtilo told The Armory Life.
Still, the implausible images result from how AI generates them today. There is ample data on firearm attributes, but few descriptions of how everything connects. AI’s LLMs make a best guess, often with comedic results.
“Pictures are tougher for AI than we understand,” added Entner. “Generic descriptions of something to AI will generate a generic description. It is like asking a five-year-old to draw a Single Action Colt.”
AI is thus like a child, and it may not provide all the details unless pressed. Even then, it may not fully appreciate how things go together without further explanation.
“Said simply, the program is averaging all the details of its training images when deciding which features to include,” said Purtilo. “It might know that a firearm has sights, a shoulder stock, and attachments, but it doesn’t know how these details might depend on one another.
The average sight across all the images it analyzed might have been a scope, the average stock might have a pistol grip, and the average attachment might be a laser pointer — and that is how it gives you a Revolutionary War musket with pistol grip, high power optic, and laser pointer.”
The Barriers of AI
The current technical barriers are just one of the main reasons that AI is bad at rendering firearms. The other is policy. AI developers are already cautious about how AI can be used.
“On the technical side, guns are complex objects with very specific features. Because they are so specific and have many parts that can be rendered incorrectly, it’s easy for a human to identify them as incorrect, as AI is not good at replicating specific weapons,” said Dr. Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.
Lampe, who focuses on the study of misinformation in media, told The Armory Life that the policy reason is that many models specifically list firearms as a type of object to render poorly.
“You can imagine, for instance, that you don’t want to be able to have GenAI [generative artificial intelligence] create specific schematics for firearms. Different models may have different thresholds here as a matter of policy, but all of them will have some safety restrictions built in,” Lampe noted.
Microsoft’s Copilot and ChatGPT are now among the generative AI platforms that won’t even render a firearm if requested. Copilot won’t even render soldiers holding firearms. However, because of the rise in “AI slop,” it may be a good thing that AI can’t generate extremely accurate firearms in videos. No manufacturer would be happy to see their product — a car, gun, or something else — used irresponsibly in an AI-generated video.
For now, we may need to accept that AI doesn’t do guns well, just as comic writers and video game developers missed the mark in the past.
“I don’t know whether AI is more likely to generate silliness with firearms than other objects. But if so, then this may well reflect a selection bias in training materials,” Purtilo continued. “AI models are trained by ingesting a huge volume of raw content. The companies scrape pages from websites, books, social media, and more for this purpose.”
As Lampe noted, there is also the issue of policies that restrict many sites from including firearm images, which could impact how AI learns.
“This limits what material AI has for training,” said Purtilo. “If you can’t depict safe and responsible firearm use on the web, then no AI will be able to render images with safe and responsible use of firearms. Whatever it generates will be inherently gibberish.”
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