Talk:Hatfields & McCoys

Brass Framed Remington

The Remington carried by "Devil" Anse throughout the miniseries is a historically inaccurate, brass-framed replica by Pietta, and is therefore incorrect for the time period. As if that wasn't bad enough, it appears that it has been cartridge converted. While you can convert these brass-framed guns to fire cartridges, it was never done in the 19th century and is still discouraged, as the frames can't handle the pressure and will eventually lead to the guns shooting loose and becoming unusable. This is a problem with brass-framed percussion firearms in general. Many black powder shooters will tell you about the dreaded "frame-stretching" that occur, particularly with the Colt-type, open top brass-framed guns. Despite this there actually have been conversion cylinders in modern times offered for brass framed percussion firearms. There was a company who's name escapes me at the moment that offered .38 S&W conversion cylinders for percussion revolvers at some point in the 1970s that they said were okay to use in brass framed revolvers. While such a conversion is still pretty hard on brass framed guns, it is more forgiving if you're using lower-powered rounds such as the .38 S&W, however it is still widely seen as impractical. Anyhow, I digress, the point I was getting around to is the armorers for this film really goofed up on choosing Devil Anse's sidearm. I'm guessing maybe one possible reason they chose a brass-framed "Remington" for Devil Anse is his service as a Confederate soldier during the civil war. Perhaps they knew enough about firearms from that era to know that the majority of Confederate produced guns, which generally were copies of Northern produced firearms, were brass framed, but didn't know that there were no copies of the Remington produced in the South at all, let alone brass framed ones. The majority of Confederate firearms were copies of Colts, the Spiller & Burr being one well-known exception, as it was a copy of the Whitney revolver. All that aside, why they chose to turn it into a cartridge conversion and have Devil Anse carry it all the way up until the 1890s instead of having him upgrade to a Colt Single Action Army or something, I have no idea. I'm aware it was rather common for people in those days to have their old percussion revolvers converted to fire cartridges as it was cheaper than buying a brand new gun, but the Hatfields were pretty well-to-do financially, and I seem to remember reading an article in a gun magazine or something at one point that talked about how the real Hatfields were pretty good about keeping the family arsenal up-to-date (the McCoys not so much as they were rather poor). Anyway, minor historical mistakes aside, I can say with no uncertainty that I enjoyed Hatfields & McCoys as a whole. It's an otherwise historically accurate portrayal of the actual events, albeit with a few minor embellishments as you would expect with any dramatization. I just wish the armorer for this series did a better job of keeping the firearms period correct, particularly when choosing the sidearm of one of the central characters. -- -Jared (talk) 09:08, 2 September 2020 (EDT)

Oh, one last thing, this page isn't entirely complete. I seem to recall a few other firearms being distinctly shown in the series that aren't listed, so when I find the time, I'm gonna add them as well as screencaps. Just thought I should mention that :) -- -Jared (talk) 09:13, 2 September 2020 (EDT)