Elmer Keith's Dragoons

[SAJones]

Just pulled out my old copy of Elmer Keith's "Sixguns". The dust cover has pictures of some targets, a 20 Yard Standard of the old days & an ace of Spades w/ the spade completely shot out. Never paid much attention to them until I caught the words"...Colt's Dragoons.." on the 20 yd target. Using my trusty magnifying glass, I could read most of the writting, to wit:

"? Shooting alternately by H W Bradly & Elmer Keith Sunday Apr 19-1931 with two Colt's Dragoons serial numbers 12774 and 5847. Load 50 grs F.F.F.G. Dupont black, greased felt wad and 146 gr round ball. 10 yards standing both hands. Very hard trigger pulls and both ? ? sighted so we had to select separate aiming points ? ."

Question marks are words I couldn't make out. Anyway, measuring one of the holes I could make out, & with a little math, the group is about 2.0" in maximum diameter, about 1.7 at minimum.
Aiming points were about 2.7" at 7 O'clock, & 3.6" at 5 O'clock. I could count 11 distinct ball cutouts, didn't say how many shots. Very tight group, even at 10 yards, & the load is something we've discussed at length on this forum. Notice the greased wads & low aiming points. In 1931, these were original Colts, not quite a hundred years old yet. Of course, Elmer's pistol skills are legendary.

 

thanks for sharing. Elmer Keith shot them all I believe.

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

Sounds like old Elmer didn't feed his Dragoons any cereal, just powder, wad, and lead :thumbsup: ! But then I wouldn't expect anything less from the man responsible for the introduction of the .44 Magnum!

Thanks for sharing! :thumbsup:

Dave

 

[Norinco]

Cool stuff. Could you do page scans of some parts of Sixguns? I've always wanted to read it.

I find it interesting that the original Colts that we revere and preserve today took a beating even after the Civil War for recreational shooting.

 

[Greg Perry]

If I recall correctly, Elmer says somewhere in the text that he and HW shot a practice target first to check their point of impact. Once they figured out their respective aiming point, they put up a fresh target and fired a 12-shot group, 6 from each shooter.

Greg Perry

 

[CaptainKirk]

Thanks for the info, Greg. And welcome to MLF!!! :v

 

[Greg Hardy]

I remember an article I read about a 45-70 single action where the revolver was being fired by Keith. The caption read, "I think we finally found a revolver with enough recoil for Elmer". As I recall, the muzzle was straight up.

 

[Kevin Makel]

Very good info, thanks! I bet back inthe 1920s-30s Dragoons were inexpensive, if you could find them for sale.

 

[Berkley]

They weren't hard to find. This is from 1933:

$30 in 1933 = $500 today.