This carbine was used by Buffalo Bill Cody in his frontier days and in his Wild West Show. It was said that many a western baby cut his first teeth on the sling ring of a Winchester Model 73 carbine. Anybody familiar with 1950s Westerns would be familiar with the Colt Single Action Army Revolver, A.K.A. the Peacemaker. 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.

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. The 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!The "Golden Age" of cap guns was roughly a 20-year period following World War II when television became popular and such companies as Nichols, Hubley, Kenton, Kilgore, Wyandotte, Classy, Mattel, Actoy, Esquire, George Schmidt, and J & E Stevens in the US and companies like Lone Star Toys in the UK made millions of cap guns in various versions. While many had their names patterned after a hero or heroine, many cap guns were also named with western-sounding names, like: "Stallion 45", "Pony", "Mustang", "Pioneer", "Cowboy", "Texan", "Colt 45", "Rodeo", and such. In the old west, cowboys used a variety of different guns, depending on their personal preference. The most popular calibers were .44-.45, as they were powerful enough to take down large game, but not so powerful that they would cause too much damage to the meat. Other popular calibers included .38-.40 and .32-.33. 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. It was called the Navy because as noted in Weapons of the Civil War Cavalryman, the cylinder was engraved with a scene from the May 16, 1843 victory of the Texas Navy over Mexico at the Battle of Campeche.

That distinction fell to manufacturers such as Colt, Smith & Wesson, Remington, and Winchester. However, Sharps’ company (he had died two years before) designed a rifle in 1874 that became an emblem of the Old West. Caps are cool. The guns we make that fire the caps are even cooler! For example, the Lawman from Replicas by Parris comes with an attractive holster that can be attached to your belt or to the belt that comes with the gun. The Lawman makes an excellent stage prop! More importantly, the Lawman and all of our toy guns are very safe, but cap products should always be used under the supervision of an adult. 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. There is no definitive answer to this question as there were many different types of cowboy rifles in use during the time period in question. However, some of the most popular types of cowboy rifles were the Winchester Model 1873 and the Colt Single Action Army revolver, both of which were chambered in .44-40 Winchester. 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 CommonsPlastic strips, similar to disks, but arranged in a line, often with means of attaching singular strips to one another This gun was used extensively in Missouri during civil unrest prior to the Civil War. According to the Smithsonian, the Colt Navy was the most popular percussion gun at that time.

Of these, the Rainmaker is exceedingly rare. According to Colt: An American Classic, only about 200 of these models were completed, and have since become highly desirable among collectors. Plug fire cap guns are almost exclusively from Japan and are more realistic in action often used by reenactors. they also fall under the category of Modelguns.

Children all over the world emulated their heroes by collecting and playing with these toy guns. However, when the Western television shows began to fade away and the heroes retired, the cap gun continued to be produced in military and secret agent modes until the popularity of the tie-in toy guns also diminished, and eventually all of the famous cap gun manufacturers either sold out to other toy companies or started manufacturing other types of toys. One prominent successor to the Colt Paterson was the 1851 Colt Navy Revolver. This weapon, as described by Shooting Times , was a single action, .36 caliber, six-shooter that was more lightweight than other sidearms of the period.