Colt Buntline

The Colt Buntline Special is a fictionalized version of long-barreled Colt Single Action Army revolver that author Stuart N. Lake created while writing his 1931 biography of Wyatt Earp. According to Lake's biography, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal published in 1931, dime novelist Ned Buntline had five Buntline Specials commissioned. Lake described them as extra-long, 12 in-long barrel Colt Single Action Army revolvers. Buntline was supposed to have presented them to lawmen in thanks for their help with contributing “local color” to his western yarns. According to Lake, the pistol was equipped with detachable metal shoulder stocks.

After the publication of Lake's book, various Colt revolvers with long (10" or 16") barrels were referred to as "Colt Buntlines". Colt re-introduced the revolvers in its second generation revolvers produced after 1956.

Origin of myth
According to Lake, the weapon was a single-action revolver chambered for .45 Long Colt cartridge. However, unlike the Peacemaker, it had a 12" (305mm) long barrel, in comparison to the Peacemaker's 7.5" (190mm) barrel. A 16" (406mm) barrel was available as well.

The Buntline Special was further popularized by The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp television series. It had a removable stock that could be easily affixed through a combination of screws and lead-ins. These modifications allegedly gave the weapon better precision and range, and supposedly allowed the user to affix the stock and turn the revolver into an even more precise weapon to give it most of the advantages of a rifle. The single-action .45 Colt revolvers and their detachable stocks were real.By Brian McCombie

One of the more famous stories about detachable shoulder stocks occurs in 1876, when Western dime novelist Ned Buntline presented special Colt revolvers to five of the West’s premier lawmen, including Wyatt Earp. The Colts, known today as “Buntline Specials,” came with metal shoulder stocks and extra-long barrels and were meant to thank Earp, then a deputy marshal in Dodge City, Kansas, for letting Buntline interview him.

One small problem? Never happened.

“At no time during the period in which his interview was alleged to have taken place was Buntline even near Dodge City,” says Kelly Williams, associate curator at the Frazier Firearms Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.

The single-action .45 Colt revolvers and their detachable stocks were real enough, though probably fewer than 30 of them were ever produced, their barrels between 12 and 16 inches long.

The 29th Edition Blue Book of Gun Values lists a Buntline Special with 90 percent of the original finish as worth $135,000; add on another $40,000 for one with the original shoulder stock. The Frazier is home to such a Buntline, with 16-inch barrel and an all-metal stock made of nickel-plated brass.

“The detachable, skeletal frame stock converts this heavy-barreled pistol into a carbine but does little to improve the weapon’s accuracy,” Williams notes.

Detachable shoulder stocks arrived on the American shooting scene circa 1850. According to Richard Rattenbury, curator of history at the National Cowboy Museum, “Colt introduced full wooden stocks, with three variant yoke attachments, with the Dragoon model, followed by the 1851 Navy and 1860 Army.” Yet the shoulder stocks never gained a wide following in military or civilian circles.

Today, some 19th century shoulder stocks are actually worth as much as the handguns they were built to accessorize. Dan Shideler, editor of Standard Catalog of Firearms, recommends a professional verification of authenticity before buying one.

“All of these stocks have been copied, with some of the most ingenious aging techniques imaginable, so caveat emptor certainly applies,” he warns.

Buntline connections
Ned Buntline is supposed to have commissioned this weapon in 1876, but the Colt company has no record of receiving the order or making any such weapon. Lake conceived the idea of a revolver that would be more precise and could be easily modified to work similarly to a rifle. Lake's creative biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, published in 1931, and later Hollywood portrayals, exaggerated Wyatt's profile as a western lawman. The book later inspired a number of stories, movies and television programs about outlaws and lawmen in Dodge City and Tombstone, including the 1955 television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

Alleged presentation to lawmen
Lake wrote that Wyatt Earp and four other well-known western lawmen - Bat Masterson, Bill Tilghman, Charlie Bassett and Neal Brown - each received a Buntline Special. However, neither Tilghman nor Brown were lawmen then. According to Lake, Earp kept his at the original 12" length but the four other recipients of the Specials cut their barrels down to the standard 7½". Lake spent much effort trying to track down the Buntline Special through the Colt company, Masterson and contacts in Alaska. Lake described it as a Colt Single Action Army model with a long, 12 in barrel, standard sights, and wooden grips into which the name “Ned” was ornately carved. Researchers have never found any record of an order received by the Colt company, and Ned Buntline's alleged connections to Earp's have been largely discredited.

Earp weapon
Buntline wrote only four western yarns, all about Buffalo Bill. There is no conclusive proof as to the kind of pistol Wyatt usually carried, though it is known that on the day of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, October 26, 1881, he carried an 8 inch (200mm) barreled .44 caliber 1869 American model Smith & Wesson. Earp had received the weapon as a gift from Tombstone mayor and Tombstone Epitaph newspaper editor John Clum.

Lake admission
Lake later admitted that he had 'put words into Wyatt's mouth because of the inarticulateness and monosyllabic way he had of talking'.

Colt records
The revolver could have been specially ordered from the Colt factory in Hartford, Conn. Several such revolvers with 16-inch barrels were displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition and over-long barrels were available from Colt at a dollar an inch over 7.5 in. There are no company records for the Buntline Special nor a record of any orders from or sent to Ned Buntline. This does not absolutely preclude the historicity of the revolvers. Massad Ayoob writing for Guns Magazine cited notes by Josie Earp in which she mentioned an extra-long revolver as a favorite of Wyatt Earp. He cited an order by Tombstone, Arizona, bartender Buckskin Frank Leslie for a revolver of near-identical description. This order predated the O.K. Corral fight by several months.