Anybody familiar with 1950s Westerns would be familiar with the Colt Single Action Army Revolver, A.K.A. the Peacemaker. Real guns that used caps first appeared around the Civil War era, when faster firing weapons were needed. The Springfield Model 1855 musket was fitted with a Maynard tape primer. A roll of paper impregnated with fulminate served as the detonator, but it was found to be impractical in wet or muddy conditions and the Union army reverted to using the conventional copper percussion cap. After the demand for caps declined, firearms companies experimented with toy cap guns modeled after real percussion cap guns. [1]

Related read: 22 Must-See Modern Western Movies from the Last 22 Years 4. Smith and Wesson’s “Russian” model did in Billy the Kid. Source: Wikimedia Commons Related read: 10 Wild West Facts of Everyday Life on the Frontier 7. Riding shotgun. Source: Wikimedia Commons After the war, Erskine S. Allin proposed to convert these old muzzle-loaders to breach-loaded weapons that could fire .58 caliber bullets. After testing, this was reduced to .50 caliber and it ultimately became the most ubiquitous army rifle in the post-Civil War era. There were many types of cap guns, including guns from small Derringers to larger rifles, and even working miniatures of most of them. One of the last famous ones to sell widely was a toy rifle named after the television show, The Rifleman, which aired from 1958 through early 1963. Other shows lasted longer, such as Gunsmoke (which had 20 seasons lasting through 1975), but these did not have as much 'kid-appeal' as the earlier shows, and the sales of toy cap guns began to decline. The gun, however, reputedly was subject to glitches in its double-action trigger, and often these weapons were used as single-action revolvers instead. Both Wes Hardin and Billy the Kid used these double action firearms. Explore the Wild WestThe Lawman is one of the highest-quality cap guns on the market today. The Lawman is a 12-shot cap gun that uses ring caps to fire. The Lawman comes standard with a holster, a belt, and the gun. This gun is a die-cast collectible toy pistol replica. You may have had a lot of cap guns in the past; maybe mini caps and the larger ones, but probably nothing like this! When you finally get it, you won't be able to wait to give a shot! These weapons were called messenger’s guns‘ or cut off guns because they were shorter in length than other shotguns. As described by the Clarke Museum, in the 1850s, Wells Fargo stagecoaches carried mail, passengers, money, and gold from Missouri to California, making them plump targets for desperadoes.

Cap bombs" are devices roughly in the shape of an aerial bomb that contain a firing mechanism in the nose capable of holding a single cap, either plastic or paper (cut from a strip), though types are not interchangeable due to the mutually exclusive design. With the newer designs they have both the paper cap or plastic cap. When dropped on a hard surface, the impact detonates the cap. Buffalo hunter Bill Tilghman supposedly killed over 7,500 buffalo using an Old Reliable. In 1876, Sharp adopted “Old Reliable” as a trademark. Gunsmoke and Saddle Leather notes that the Sharp rifle was the one against which other rifles were measured in the Old West. According to one source, over 720,000 of the 1873 model were produced. Next to the Colt single-action army revolver, the Winchester is one of the most iconic guns of the Old West.Richard Jordan Gatling first patented this proto-machine gun during the Civil War in 1862. The gun, which features a revolving battery of gun barrels, was hand cranked and could fire off up to 200 rounds per minute.