The Rifle Myth That Got More Mountain Men Killed Than Grizzlies

In 1835, trapper Osborne Russell wrote one line that reveals how mountain men really died: he kept a loaded pistol beside him at all times, for the thirty seconds after his rifle fired, when the most famous weapon on the frontier became a useless club. The tribes learned to bait the first shot and charge during the reload. Of one company's 180 men, 94 died in six years. The grizzly found you once. The empty rifle found you every time you fired. The men who lived solved the empty-gun problem — and the fix isn't in the legend. Subscribe, new frontier history every week.