shanneba
Professional
Michael Helms
@FirearmsHistory
There's rare. And then there's this.
Exhibition shooters like Annie Oakley sometimes used smooth bore revolvers loaded with shot — purpose-built for shattering glass targets mid-air in front of a live crowd.
This @Smith_WessonInc .44 Double Action left the factory in 1887 — smack in the middle of Annie's peak years with Buffalo Bill's Wild West. I haven't conclusively tied this particular revolver to her, but it's consistent with other documented guns she ordered during this era. And it's one of only a handful of revolvers we can document as leaving Springfield with a smooth bore.
Now pair it with this: an actual blown glass target ball — the kind Annie would toss into the air and obliterate. For obvious reasons, very few survived well over a century of shot, gravity, and neglect. This one did.
Sometimes the gun and the story find each other.
@FirearmsHistory
There's rare. And then there's this.
Exhibition shooters like Annie Oakley sometimes used smooth bore revolvers loaded with shot — purpose-built for shattering glass targets mid-air in front of a live crowd.
This @Smith_WessonInc .44 Double Action left the factory in 1887 — smack in the middle of Annie's peak years with Buffalo Bill's Wild West. I haven't conclusively tied this particular revolver to her, but it's consistent with other documented guns she ordered during this era. And it's one of only a handful of revolvers we can document as leaving Springfield with a smooth bore.
Now pair it with this: an actual blown glass target ball — the kind Annie would toss into the air and obliterate. For obvious reasons, very few survived well over a century of shot, gravity, and neglect. This one did.
Sometimes the gun and the story find each other.