41 caliber Colt Thunderer?” Channing answered, “Yes.” I became excited; I knew that particular model was the Kid's weapon of choice. As I recall, I obtained the gun in or about 1983.
Historian and actor Peter Sherayko (Texas Jack Vermillion in 1993's Tombstone) and renowned gunsmith Larry Zeug take us into a gunroom, with a dog following them in, to look over a table full of handguns, repeating rifles and shotguns. They show us an example of Billy's single action Colt Thunderer and the actual .
Again, looking at the photo of Billy, it's clear that he's packing a single-action revolver--probably a Colt Single Action Army--but he may have been carrying a Colt Lightning when he was killed. Single Action Army, one of which hit the Kid in the chest and killed him almost instantly.
A tintype taken of the Kid in either 1879 or 1880 showed him with his holster and pistol on the left side. There was even a 1958 movie starring Paul Newman as “The Left-Handed Gun.” (It was all about New Mexico, but filmed in Thousand Oaks and Burbank, California, so what can you expect?)
In 1954, western historians James D. Horan and Paul Sann wrote that Bonney was right-handed and carried his pistol on his right hip. The opinion was confirmed by Clyde Jeavons, a former curator of the National Film and Television Archive.
Billy the Kid spoke his last words in Spanish. Calling out “¿Quién es? ¿Quién es?” before he was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett, the young outlaw's final moments signal his diverse ethnic context.
Bonhams held the auction for the iconic Billy the Kid gun, wielded by Pat Garrett to end the outlaw's reign. The . 44-40 caliber Colt Army revolver has a serial number of 55093 with DFC stamped over it and the 7 1/2-inch barrel rides above the one-line Hartford address crescent ejector rod head.
Though many gunfighters were remembered to be dangerous with a pistol during the American frontier, only a few known historical individuals have been noted by historians as "fast", such as Wild Bill Hickok, Doc Holliday, John Wesley Hardin, Luke Short, Tom Horn and Billy the Kid.
Shot by Pat Garrett when he was only 21, Billy the Kid's reputation and legend only grew larger after his death. The one known image of William Bonney is a tintype that portrays him in mismatched cowboy duds, posing with a Winchester Model 1873 Rifle and a single-action Colt.
Also known as: Brushy Bill, Henry McCarty, William H. Bonney, Jr. Billy the Kid (born November 23, 1859?, New York, New York, U.S.—died July 14, 1881, Fort Sumner, New Mexico) was an American outlaw who was one of the most notorious gunfighters of the American West.
The iconographic photo of Billy the Kid, his body at a slight rake, a holster and pistol cut on his hip, shows him left-handed. Reverse that image as recent scholarship demands and, faster than you can slap leather, William Bonney is right-handed.
Doc carried a nickel-plated . 41 caliber Colt Thunderer or sometimes a . 38 caliber Colt Lightening, both modern (at the time) double action pistols. There is no reliable account record of Doc carrying two pistols at the same time as Doc was not a gun fighter but rather an acclaimed and award winning dentist.
The Colt Buntline Special was a long-barreled variant of the Colt Single Action Army revolver, which Stuart N. Lake described in his best-selling but largely fictionalized 1931 biography, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal.
LOS ANGELES, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The gun that killed American Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid sold for more than $6 million at auction on Friday in Los Angeles, more than double the pre-sale estimate.
The Guinness Book of World Records listed Bob Munden in the 1980 and previous editions as the “Fastest Man with a Gun Who Ever Lived", but they discontinued publishing Munden records in later editions so that the book could be approved as a reference source for school libraries.
The Kid was a charmer; he spoke fluent Spanish and easily befriended Hispanics, especially the señoritas. But the Kid's cheerful disposition only disguised a quick temper that sometimes drove him to commit audacious acts of crime. Contrary to popular folklore of the Old West, Billy the Kid never killed 21 men.
There's No Record Of Billy The Kid & Jesse James Ever Meeting In Real Life. Despite the similarities between the two outlaws, Billy the Kid and Jesse James likely never met, especially considering that there was no record of their union ever happening.
How much did the gun that killed Billy the Kid cost?
The crown jewel of the collection was a gun used by sheriff Pat Garrett to kill Billy the Kid. It was estimated to be worth from $2-3 million, but sold for over $6 million, believed to be the highest price ever paid for any firearm, according to the auction house Bonhams.
I have read that Billy the Kid used a Colt double-action Lightning revolver, which was . 41 caliber. A supposed photograph of him shows him holding a Winchester lever-action rifle. It is pretty likely that he used other weapons as well.
Taken by an unknown photographer outside Beaver Smith's Saloon in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, the 2x3-inch tintype shows a cocky Billy the Kid wearing a Colt Single Action Army on his left side and leaning on a Winchester Model 1873 carbine.
Tom O'Folliard (1858 – December 19, 1880) was the best friend of outlaw William Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. Both were members of the Regulators during the Lincoln County War.
Billy the Kid was born Henry McCarty, but went by the name William “Billy" H. Bonney; he was known as “The Kid" because he began his criminal career at the age of sixteen. He lived from 1859 to 1881, and allegedly murdered between 21 and 24 men, in addition to being an armed outlaw, horse thief, and cattle rustler.
The gunslinger Frank “Buckskin” Leslie shoots the Billy “The Kid” Claiborne dead in the streets of Tombstone, Arizona. The town of Tombstone is best known today as the site of the infamous shootout at the O.K. Corral.
