A fairly straight forward post this time as almost all of the information is available on line. I trawled several web sites to get as accurate a view of the guns used as possible. Wikipedia's Gunfight at The OK Corral page was a good starting point. I also Found the 'Guns in Movies' pages on IMFDB really useful Internet Movie Firearms Database - Guns in Movies, TV and Video Games (imfdb.org). I picked up some odd snippets from the transcripts of witness statements given in the Spicer Hearings and lastly Guns and Ammo magazine has a four part article of the shoot out online starting with Gunfight On Fremont Street: O.K. Corral Part 1 - Guns and Ammo. So without further ado here is what I have gleaned.
Tom Mclaury - probably unarmed. However, some witnesses claim to have seen that he was firing even after he was shot. It does make a certain amount of sense for someone carrying $3,300 in cash to have had something in case of trouble. If he was armed it would have to have been something small enough to evade Sherriff Behan's cursory check before the fight. Something like a short barrel Colt, or a clover leaf.
Frank McLaury - Carried a Colt Frontier which was a Colt 1873 Single Action Army (aka The Peacemaker) rechambered to fire a Winchester 44-40 round. He also had a Winchester rifle in a saddle holster.
Billy Clanton - Armed in the same way as Frank McLaury.
Ike Clanton - Unarmed. He had been pistol whipped earlier in the day and disarmed. He was also probably still drunk from the all nighter he had just pulled! Some witnesses claim he fired at the Earp's after fleeing into the street but I can't see what he would have used to do that.
Billy Claibourn - Unarmed. Like Ike he had been pistol whipped earlier in the day and probably disarmed.
Wes Fuller - The simple answer is no-one knows. Tombstone required all persons coming into town to give up their firearms and knives by lodging them at a livery, saloon or hotel unless leaving town. There is no suggestion that Wes was amongst those Virgil was intending to disarm so he had probably already handed his weapons in.
Virgil Earp - carried a revolver, probably a Smith & Wesson Model three Scofield . In his evidence at the Spicer hearings he stated that he had fired four shots in the fight but doesn't state what his gun was.
Morgan Earp - In the absence of any evidence one way or another I'm going to make a guess and say that Morgan would have used one of the common pistols available so either a Colt single Action Army or a Smith & Wesson Model 3. For most rule sets it will not make any difference as the gun's performance is broadly similar.
Wyatt Earp - Wyatt may have carried a Colt 1873 Single Action Army Cavalry model but there is a strong possibility that he used a Smith & Wesson New Model 3 this was chambered for the Smith and Wesson. .44 Russian cartridge. One site I have seen states that he was definitely carrying the Smith as this was stated in the Spicer hearing. I have read as much of the testimony as is available on line and cannot find any such reference. In fact almost all of the witnesses use the term 'six shooter' when talking about hand guns so that isn't of any help.
Doc Holliday - He was passed the 10 gauge coach gun Virgil had collected as he could hide it under his long coat. This was to avoid triggering trouble by being seen to be armed. He also had a nickel plated Pistol possibly a Colt .38 Lightening double action but more probably a Colt 1873 Army Cavalry model.
Notes on the Guns
The Colt 1873 Single Action Army is the most commonly seen sidearm in westerns. It was a very common weapon historically as well. It came in three standard barrel lengths, Civilian (or Quick Draw) with a 4.75 inch barrel, the Artillery model with a 5.5 inch barrel and the Cavalry model with a 7.5 inch barrel. Why the difference? Well the longer the barrel the longer the combustion gases from the cartridge being fired have to accelerate the bullet and impart spin from the rifling. There is a law of diminishing returns at play and once the gas has expanded to it's maximum extent no further acceleration can be imparted and the barrel will start to actually slow the round. Plus longer barrels create issues with balance and speed in drawing. Colt would actually make almost any length barrel required as a custom build. They also made versions with shorter barrels such as the Sheriff or Storekeeper model at 3.5 inch both custom made or cut down by a gunsmith. These had problems with lower muzzle velocities and due to the short barrel no extraction rod could be integrated under the barrel to remove spent cartridges.
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| 7.5 inch barrel Colt 1873 Single Action Army |
The Colt Frontier was a variant of the 1873 single action Army chambered to take the Winchester 44-40 round so that the same ammunition could be used in sidearm and rifle.
Smith and Wesson made popular revolvers which used metal cartridges from well before Colt. They also featured a tip up frame where the gun hinged open to allow easy access to the cylinder for loading and emptying cartridges. By the 1880's the Model 3 was the most common Smith & Wesson but it came in three variants, the American, the Russian and the Schofield. Essentially the American and Russian were the same gun chambered for different rounds both were .44 calibre but the Russian had a bigger powder charge and so more stopping power. The Scofield was chambered for S&W .45 but not Colt .45 ammunition. It also had some improvements to the break mechanism and latch. The New Model Three carried at the fight was a final version of the Model Three. This was chambered for the .44 Russian cartridge although eventually it was available in a number of different popular ammunition sizes.
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| S&W Model 3 Russian (top) and New Model 3 (bottom) nickel finish |
In fact most popular pistols were available in a wide (almost bewildering!) range of ammunition choices and barrel lengths. The only one that I can be fairly confident in saying was not used at the gun fight was Wyatt's 'Buntline Special' as it probably never existed! Colt did make Single Action Army revolvers with long barrels but there is no evidence of Ned Buntline ever commissioning any as gifts for famous law men. On top of which Wyatt placed his side arm into a specially reinforced side pocket of his top coat and was able to draw it with great speed at the start of the fight. A twelve inch barrelled pistol would not have fitted into such a pocket and would have been slow to draw.
All of the above are single action pistols meaning that the hammer has to be cocked manually with the shooter's thumb with the trigger releasing the hammer when pulled. Self cocking and double action revolvers also existed. The difference being that a double action could have the hammer cocked manually or simply pulling the trigger would both cock the hammer and release it on one pull. A self cocking action could only be cocked by a trigger pull. These generally do not have a spur on the hammer or had a hammer concealed within the frame. Most shootists favoured a single action as the trigger pull was lighter so less likely to pull the gun off target. Even then the trigger pull was some 6-8lb so much heavier than modern pistols unless 'fettled' by a gunsmith. The Colt Lightning which Doc Holliday May have carried was a double action weapon. This allowed second and subsequent shots to be fired faster than with a single action as the hammer did not require manually cocking before each shot but at the cost of reduced accuracy.
Coach guns (also termed a messenger gun) were essentially a sawn off double barrelled shotgun. Usually in 10 or 12 gauge and loaded with buckshot. Before the late 1880's or early 1890's these did not feature a choke so had a wide spread of shot and a fairly short range compared to modern sporting shotguns. They were a side by side double barrel design and generally had hammers which had to be cocked manually (single action). Some examples are known which had a single trigger set to fire both barrels although it was more common to have a trigger for each barrel. Double action and self cocking variants exist but the most likely model to have been used at the OK Corral was a single action type.
As a last point I found the four part article in the online Guns and Ammo magazine about the shoot out. That made the point that the hit rate of around 25% is in line with modern police findings in shooting incidents. It seems that the tech really doesn't make that much of a difference it's the man behind the gun which counts. To be honest most of the reading I did was nicely summarised in those four articles and if I had found them earlier in the process I would probably have had everything I needed.
