MovieChat Forums > Pale Rider (1985) Discussion > What kind of gun was preacher using?

What kind of gun was preacher using?

posted 11 years ago by Charlie Goose
7 replies | jump to latest

It wasn't the normal western six-shooter. The camera focused on Preacher unlocking and reloading it, I've never seen anything like it.

I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.

[–] stoneyfromhollis44 11 years ago

Hes using a Remington 1858 New Army.

[–] ACT_l 9 years ago

Re: What kind of gun was preacher using?
by stoneyfromhollis44
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur21105592/
IMDb member since May 2009
Sun Mar 10 2013 16:32:04
Hes using a Remington 1858 New Army.
- - -
       

Internet Movie Firearms Database - Pale Rider
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Pale_Rider
Preacher (Clint Eastwood) carries a Remington 1858 New Army
with a cartridge conversion as his sidearm in the film,
and carries several pre-loaded cylinders to use like a modern speed loader.
Preacher (Clint Eastwood) uses a Remington 1858 Pocket .31 caliber
as a backup, carrying it stuck into his belt.

Photos and more...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remington_Model_1858
The Remington-Beals Model Revolvers
along with subsequent models and variations were percussion revolvers
manufactured by Eliphalet Remington & Sons in
.31 (Pocket) .36 (Navy) or .44 (Army) caliber, used during the American Civil War
It saw use in the American West,
both in its original percussion configuration
and as a metallic cartridge conversion, as well as around the world.

EDIT:
US TV Schedule: Wed. Nov. 5 2014

  
-----
ACT1

[–] Kimo46 10 years ago

I think Stony was correct as to the model. However, I think the point of your question was how/why Clint manipulated it the way he did. Back in the cap & ball days, reloading a pistol required measuring out powder into each chamber, fitting a bullet into the mouth of the chamber and then ramming it home with the loading lever. If there was time, the mouth of the chamber was sealed with grease to prevent a "chain fire" in which the flame from firing one cylinder set off one or more adjacent cylinders (pretty bad, since only one cylinder sent a bullet down the barrel and the rest ricocheted off various parts of the frame), and then prying the old percussion cap off each nipple and pressing on a new one. This time-consuming procedure wasn't usually practical to do in the midst of a firefight, so many pistoleros of the day carried one or more extra pistols. If that got too bulky, it was possible to change out the empty cylinder for a fresh, fully loaded one. That's what you saw Clint doing.

[–] Bry-2 10 years ago

Right, except that what Preacher is carrying a a cartridge-converted Remington, with two extra loaded cylinders on his gunbelt. He's just changing out the fired cylinder for unfired, as Kimo said.

--If they move, kill 'em!

[–] Darren (1127) 3 years ago

It's a nice idea, but we have no actual evidence that anyone ever carried spare cylinders and reloaded that way. Karl Kasarda, at InRangeTV has done a good deal of research, and he's unable to come up with any real world examples of this happening. That doesn't definitively prove no one ever did, of course, but does indicate that it certainly wasn't commonly done. One reason for this is probably because the practice would be actually quite dangerous. A loaded cylinder, with percussion caps on the nipples is fine in the revolver because the percussion caps are protected by the pistol's recoil shield. A detached, yet loaded cylinder, on the other hand, has completely exposed percussion caps that would fire one or more chambers if the cylinder were ever dropped and landed cap side down -- which would also entail the muzzle end pointing up and in the general direction of the shooter who just dropped the cylinder. Not a good thing. Clint's gun in this movie is coverted to fire metallic cartridges, but such Remington conversions featured a seperate back plate with six individual firing pins behind each chamber, which would also be exposed, leading to the same danger.

The reality is that almost everyone in the frontier era who felt he might need a quick reload carried a second gun. And the Civil War guerrillas in Missouri and Kansas carried multiple revolvers on their belts and holstered on their saddles.

[–] Traianus 9 years ago

The camera focused on Preacher unlocking and reloading it, I've never seen anything like it.

You probably had never seen anything like it because it wasn't widely featured in a lot of Western films.

However, in reality it was a pretty popular pistol in its day, during the latter half of the Civil War and in the postwar West. A lot of its popularity had to do precisely with the easy reloading that Preacher demonstrates in this film.

[–] joegerardi (376) 7 years ago

Correct. It was also shown in Gettysburg when Joshua Chamberlain - the Jeff Daniels character - is on Little Round Top- he reloads his Navy .44 cap-and-ball revolver the same way.

In those days it was pull out the wedge, pull off the barrel, slide out the cylinder, slide on a new one, replace the barrel, and push in the wedge. Took about 15-20 seconds.

..Joe