25 Forgotten Weapons Every Cattle Drive Cowboy Carried on the Long Drive North

Forget the two-gun gunfighter of the movies. The real cowboy who pushed a herd eight hundred miles from the brush country of Texas to the Kansas railheads carried a very different arsenal, because out on the long drive the nearest sheriff was weeks behind him and his survival hung off his own belt, his saddle, and his bedroll. In this countdown we ride from number twenty-five all the way down to number one: the loaded quirt, the camp hatchet, the hideout derringer whose bullet you could nearly watch fly, the buffalo rifle that killed at a distance the eye could barely measure, the Bowie blade that never misfired, the Winchester and the six-gun that shared a single cartridge, and the thirteen-dollar Colt that more often than any other weapon decided who rode home. Twenty-five weapons, one hard truth: on the trail north, no one was coming to save you. If you love the real history behind the American frontier, subscribe and ride with us. A new drive is always forming up. So tell us in the comments: which one would YOU want riding north with you in 1871, the blade that never misfires, or the thirteen-dollar Colt on your hip? ------------------------------------------------- SOURCES & FURTHER READING ------------------------------------------------- This video is built on documented frontier and firearms history. Key references: COLT SINGLE ACTION ARMY "The First Generation Colt Single Action Army," GUNS Magazine — https://gunsmagazine.com/guns/handgun... "150 Years Of The Colt Single Action Army," American Rifleman (NRA) — https://www.americanrifleman.org/cont... WINCHESTER MODEL 1873 "Winchester 1873: The Gun That Won The West," Gun Digest — https://gundigest.com/rifles/winchest... "The Gun That Won the West," Field & Stream — https://fieldandstream.com/stories/gu... BOWIE KNIFE / SANDBAR FIGHT "Sandbar Fight: The Duel That Made Jim Bowie Famous," World History Encyclopedia — https://www.worldhistory.org/article/... "Bowie Knife," Texas State Historical Association (Handbook of Texas) — https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/e... "Jim Bowie Stabs a Louisiana Banker With His Famous Knife," HISTORY — https://www.history.com/this-day-in-h... SHARPS "BIG FIFTY" MODEL 1874 "Buffalo Hunting on the Great Plains," History News Network (Orlando Brown, 5,855 buffalo) — https://historynewsnetwork.org/articl... "Sharps Called Its Model 1874 'Old Reliable'," HistoryNet — https://historynet.com/sharps-called-... "The Shoots Far Gun," True West Magazine (Adobe Walls, Billy Dixon) — https://www.truewestmagazine.com/arti... HENRY & SPENCER REPEATERS "The Yankee 'Sixteen Shooter'," True West Magazine — https://www.truewestmagazine.com/arti... "Repeating Rifles of the Civil War," Rock Island Auction — https://www.rockislandauction.com/ria... "The Spencer Rifle: The Civil War and Beyond," Rock Island Auction — https://www.rockislandauction.com/ria... COWBOY CARRY & THE CATTLE DRIVE E.C. "Teddy Blue" Abbott and Helena Huntington Smith, "We Pointed Them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher" (1939) — primary-source memoir; the "two guns is movie stuff" recollection and the one-in-the-scabbard, hideout-gun-under-the-arm description. Historical note: this is an educational history video. Some frontier details (exact calibers of the "Big Fifty," the true origin of the Bowie design, and the precise numbers behind period anecdotes) are debated among historians, and where the record is uncertain we have said so. Corrections and additional sources are always welcome in the comments.