Yes it was a prop "smoothbore" made from a trapdoor Springfield with a special hammer to sorta look like a cock with a flint in it. The Klingon agent tells the village headman that a "rifled barrel" will be added in the future to the guns.
Yup and one of the better ones. The movies ate these up with rough handling. 1000's of Black powder Cartridge blanks (and no cleaning) took care of the rifling so "smooth bores" were the norm. I was told buy the prop sale was an accumulation of items from the entire film industry not just MGM. The real treasures were arsenal cases of new parts like locks, hardware carbine parts and some super rare bayonets/swords. Even arsenal unfinished parts and Faux Flint stuff sold. Unaltered stuff went fast like anything associated with big names or big movies. I Nabbed some unmentionables purportedly from waynes "yellow ribbon" and "searchers". Bet folks were really reviewing old movies after that especially "stooges". Can only imagine what was "high graded" out before the sale.
Agree.. and lots of social commentary in even earlier shows like Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Perry Mason, ...most all of them actually and some started befrore the shows were even on TV. Even Rochester won out over Jack Benny and proved he was the smarter one of the lot. It was much more than slapstick even then. To note, in Gunsmoke, Miss Kitty was a successful business woman of a bar non the less. And there were two other ladies who portrayed the general store owners.
That's how they looked to me. Large patch boxes as well.
Too late Leonard Simon Nimoy (/ˈniːmɔɪ/; March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015)
