Hollywood loves a good myth. If you watch Tombstone or Wyatt Earp, you see Kurt Russell or Kevin Costner strutting around with a long-barreled Buntline Special, looking every bit the legendary lawman. But history is a lot messier than a movie script. When we talk about the Colt 45 Peacemaker Wyatt Earp supposedly carried, we’re stepping into a world of conflicting testimonies, missing serial numbers, and a hefty dose of 19th-century marketing.
Honestly, the "Peacemaker" wasn't just a gun. It was a cultural shift. Officially known as the Colt Single Action Army (SAA), this revolver changed the way people survived—or didn't—on the American frontier. Earp is the name most associated with it, but whether he actually used the specific, oversized version everyone credits to him is a point of massive debate among historians.
The West was loud, dusty, and violent. You needed a tool that wouldn't jam when your life depended on it. That’s why the Peacemaker became the gold standard.
The Reality of the Colt 45 Peacemaker Wyatt Earp and the Buntline Myth
Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: the Buntline Special.
The story goes that Ned Buntline, a dime novelist who loved exaggerating the truth, commissioned five special Colts with 12-inch barrels. He supposedly gave them to famous lawmen like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Bill Tilghman. It makes for a great story. A long-barreled cannon that could pick off a target from a distance.
But there’s a catch. There is zero record in Colt’s shipping ledgers from that era of such a gift. None.
Most serious historians, like the late Lee Silva, spent years digging through the archives. While Earp certainly favored the Colt 45 Peacemaker, he likely carried a standard 7.5-inch barrel model or even a Smith & Wesson Model 3 at various points in his career. The Buntline story didn't even surface until Stuart Lake’s 1931 biography, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal. Lake was known for "polishing" Earp's legacy. He basically turned a gritty, sometimes morally gray gambler into a stainless hero of the Republic.
If Earp did have a Peacemaker at the O.K. Corral, it wasn't some ornate trophy. It was a working man's weapon. The Single Action Army was chambered in .45 Colt, a round with enough stopping power to drop a horse. In a tight alleyway in Tombstone, that’s what mattered. Not the length of the barrel, but the reliability of the cylinder timing.
Why the Single Action Army Ruled the Frontier
You’ve gotta understand why the Colt 45 Peacemaker was such a big deal back then. Before 1873, most revolvers were "cap and ball." You had to pour powder, seat a lead ball, and place a percussion cap on each nipple. It was slow. It was fussy. If it rained, you were basically holding a very expensive club.
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Then came the Peacemaker. It used metallic cartridges.
You just flipped open the loading gate, dropped in the rounds, and you were ready to go. It was rugged. You could drop it in the mud, wipe it on your chaps, and it would still fire. For a man like Wyatt Earp, who spent as much time riding through the desert as he did sitting at a faro table, that durability was everything.
The .45 caliber round was the heavy hitter of its day. It pushed a 250-grain lead bullet with about 30 grains of black powder. It didn't have the velocity of a modern magnum, but it had "thump." It moved slow, but it stayed together and transferred all its energy into the target.
The Mechanics of the Peacemaker
The "Single Action" part of the name means you have to manually cock the hammer for every shot. This sounds slow to us now, but in the hands of a professional, it was lightning fast.
Earp wasn't a "fast draw" artist in the way we see in movies. He was a "deliberate" shooter. He famously said that the most important thing in a gunfight isn't how fast you are, but how much you take your time. You can’t miss fast enough to win. The Peacemaker’s sights were just a groove in the top of the frame and a blade at the end of the barrel. Simple. Effective.
Tombstone and the O.K. Corral: What Was Actually Fired?
October 26, 1881. Tombstone, Arizona Territory.
When the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday walked down Fremont Street to confront the Cowboys, the Colt 45 Peacemaker Wyatt Earp might actually have stayed in his pocket or a holster—or he might have been using something else entirely.
Evidence suggests that for the actual fight at the O.K. Corral, Wyatt might have been carrying a Smith & Wesson .44 caliber. Why? Because it was easier to conceal in an overcoat pocket. The Peacemaker is a big, heavy hunk of steel. If you're trying to walk down a street without alerting the Sheriff that you're armed (even though everyone knew), a shorter barrel helps.
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However, the Peacemaker is the gun that defined his era as a Deputy U.S. Marshal. During the "Earp Vendetta Ride" that followed the O.K. Corral, Wyatt and his federal posse were definitely packing heavy iron. When you're hunting men across the Arizona wilderness, you want the Peacemaker. It was the same sidearm used by the U.S. Cavalry. If you ran out of ammo, you could usually find .45 Colt rounds at any military outpost or general store. It was the universal language of the West.
The Modern Collector’s Hunt for the Earp Colt
If you find a genuine Colt 45 Peacemaker Wyatt Earp actually held, you're looking at a seven-figure payday. But be careful. The market is flooded with fakes.
Authenticating an Earp gun is a nightmare. Since Wyatt lived a long time and moved around—from Dodge City to Tombstone to Alaska and finally Los Angeles—he owned many guns. He pawned them. He gave them away. He lost them in card games.
One famous Peacemaker attributed to him was sold at auction recently, but even then, the provenance is often based on family letters and "heirloom" stories rather than a solid paper trail from the 1880s. Collectors look for specific serial number ranges. If the serial number places the manufacture date in the late 1870s, you’re in the ballpark. If it’s a "black powder frame" (the ones where the cylinder pin is held in by a screw rather than a spring-loaded button), you're getting closer.
Standard barrel lengths were:
- 4.75 inches (The "Civilian" or "Gunfighter" model)
- 5.5 inches (The "Artillery" model)
- 7.5 inches (The "Cavalry" model)
Most working lawmen preferred the 4.75 or 5.5-inch versions because they were faster to pull. The 7.5-inch was more accurate at range but a bit of a literal pain in the hip when sitting on a horse all day.
How to Experience the Earp Legacy Today
You don't have to be a millionaire to get a feel for what Earp felt. Several companies still manufacture high-quality replicas of the Single Action Army.
Colt still makes them in limited batches, though they are expensive and hard to find. Companies like Uberti and Pietta in Italy produce incredibly faithful reproductions that are used by Cowboy Action Shooters today. When you hold one, the first thing you notice is the "four clicks."
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As you cock the hammer, it spells out C-O-L-T.
Click. (Safety notch)
Click. (Half-cock for loading)
Click. (Almost there)
Click. (Full cock, ready to drop the hammer)
It’s a mechanical symphony. It feels balanced. The plow-handle grip is designed to let the gun "roll" up in your hand under recoil, which actually makes it easier to cock the hammer for the next shot. It wasn't just a weapon; it was an ergonomic masterpiece for its time.
Actionable Steps for Western History Enthusiasts
If you're looking to dive deeper into the world of Wyatt Earp and his weaponry, don't just take the movies at face value.
- Visit the Gene Autry Museum: Located in Los Angeles, this museum holds some of the most significant Western firearms in existence, including pieces connected to the Earp family.
- Read "Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend" by Casey Tefertiller: This is widely considered the most balanced biography. It strips away the Stuart Lake "superhero" tropes and looks at the court records and contemporary newspaper accounts.
- Study Serial Number Ranges: if you are looking to buy an antique, verify the manufacture date through the Colt Archives. Any Peacemaker with a serial number below 164,100 was made before 1896 and is considered an "antique" under U.S. law, but more importantly, it fits the timeframe of the Earp era.
- Learn the "Load Five" Rule: For safety, people in the 1800s rarely carried six rounds in a six-shooter. The firing pin rests directly on the primer. If you dropped the gun, it would go off. You load one, skip a chamber, load four, cock it, and lower the hammer on the empty chamber.
Wyatt Earp survived until 1929. He saw the world go from horse-drawn wagons to Ford Model Ts and silent movies. He even consulted on early Western films in Hollywood. He knew the power of his own myth. Whether he carried a 12-inch Buntline or a battered 5-inch Peacemaker doesn't change the reality: he was a man who understood that in the Wild West, your tools were your life.
The Colt 45 Peacemaker Wyatt Earp story is a mix of cold steel and tall tales. It’s exactly what the American West is all about.
To truly understand the impact of this firearm, look into the ballistic differences between black powder and smokeless powder loads used in the late 19th century. Understanding the pressure limits of those early "iron" frames versus later "steel" frames will give you a clear picture of why the Peacemaker had to evolve to survive into the 20th century. Researching the transition from the .45 Colt to the .38-40 and .44-40 Winchester rounds—which allowed lawmen to use the same ammo in both their revolvers and their lever-action rifles—will provide the necessary context for frontier logistics.