The 10 Coolest Guns in Western Movies & TV Shows
If You're Looking For Entertainment That's Packed With Firepower, Go West!
These are some of the coolest guns in Western movies and TV shows, from Doc Holliday’s Colts to Will Munny’s Starr revolver to Quigley’s Sharps rifle and the LeMat from Westworld — in no particular order.
Westworld (2016) - The Man in Black’s LeMat 1861 Revolver
HBO’s version of the 1970s sci-fi classic Westworld was a huge hit during and after its first season. Then it kind of went downhill after that. But during that season, we got a look at an often-forgotten revolver from the U.S. Civil War era. The antagonist in the time-hopping, world-swapping drama, the Man in Black (Ed Harris) carries a distinctive sidearm. While the rest of the guests and hosts of Westworld carry more common Colt SAAs and Remingtons, he carries a LeMat 1861 revolver in a cross-draw holster.
The LeMat is interesting for a bunch of reasons. It was produced as a cap-and-ball revolver that had a single chamber in the center that lined up with an additional barrel under the main barrel. When a switch was activated on the hammer that shifted the position of the firing pin, that chamber and barrel fired a load of shot.
The gun for the show has been converted to fire cartridges and a single brass shotgun shell. We get an extended scene of The Man reloading the gun, which requires partial disassembly that removes the cylinder from the frame. The gun was likely built on a reproduction cartridge version made by Uberti or Pietta. The ammo he uses appears to be .38 Short Colt and a 20 gauge brass shotgun shell. He also carries an extra barrel and cylinder assembly for the gun on his belt behind the pistol, assumedly for a quicker reload, though he never uses it on-screen.
While the LeMat was mostly a failure in real life, the idea of an 8-shot revolver that could also fire a shotgun shell whenever necessary in 1861 is pretty cool. About 2,900 of the real guns were produced and it saw use on the battlefield by the Confederates during the Civil War.
It was invented in New Orleans back in 1856 by Jean Alexandre Le Mat. The guns were produced in multiple locations, some in Philadelphia, some in Paris, and some in Belgium. About 900 guns went to the Confederate Army and the rest to the Navy after being shipped via Bermuda to avoid blockades.
Quigley Down Under (1990) - Quigley’s Custom Shiloh Sharps 1874 Rifle
You don’t even have to guess at anything about Matthew Quigley’s (Tom Selleck) legendary Shiloh Sharps 1874 Long Range rifle from the 1990s classic, which still counts as a Western movie, even if it’s set in Australia.
When he unveils his rifle, Quigley explains its features in detail before putting on an unforgettable display of long-range accuracy.
The gun has a huge 34-inch barrel, which is 4 inches longer than a standard barrel. It’s been converted to fire “a .45-110 metallic cartridge with a 540-grain paper-patch bullet. It has double set triggers, and is fitted with a ladder-elevated Vernier peep sight and a Globe front sight.”
While all the details about the rifle check out, it’s depicted as being wildly powerful in addition to accurate, often sending bad guys flying several feet through the air.
The Sharps rifle is a historic firearm, or rather, a series of big-bore, single-shot, breech-loading rifles with a falling-block action. It was designed by Christian Sharps in 1848 and was produced until 1881. The rifles always had a reputation for long-range accuracy atypical of rifles of the era. The Sharps was available in a host of chamberings by the 1870s and was one of the very few early breech-loading rifle designs to be successfully converted to metallic cartridge use. When it was released, the Sharps used paper cartridges and percussion caps.
The Sharps became slightly infamous as a buffalo rifle because its range and large bore options made it perfect for the task of killing bison on the Great Plains.
Unforgiven (1992) - William Munny’s Starr 1858 Army Revolver
When William Munny (Clint Eastwood) decides to accept a murder contract, he digs out his older sidearm from his outlaw days and decides to shoot some cans off a fencepost and see how badly his skills have deteriorated. It doesn’t go very well.
The pistol, which he carries for half the film but we don’t really see again, is a really interesting and time-period-correct, too. The gun is a Starr 1858 Army revolver, an early wheelgun with an interesting design. It’s a cap-and-ball revolver with an early attempt at a double-action mechanism.
The gun could be operated like a normal single-action, cock, and fire, but it actually has two triggers. The first trigger looks like a trigger, but it actually only rotates the cylinder and cocks the hammer. The second trigger is at the back of the trigger guard behind the first. When the first trigger makes contact with the second, the gun fires. So, in one full trigger pull, the user can cock and fire the gun without touching the hammer.
And it absolutely worked, mechanically. The problem was the trigger pull was so long and heavy that it made it difficult to fire the gun accurately, and most users simply reverted to single-action operation.
Munny’s Starr is taken from him when he first gets to Big Whiskey and is badly beaten by Little Bill (Gene Hackman). When he returns to the town for the bloody climax of the movie, he’s armed with The Kid’s Smith & Wesson Schofield and his double-barrel shotgun.
Man With No Name Trilogy - Clint’s Rattlesnake Revolver
Clint Eastwood made his name as a movie star, after transitioning from television, via a trilogy of now-famous spaghetti Western movies made by Sergio Leone in the 1960s, in which he played a character with different nicknames, but no real name that’s ever revealed. As such, it’s known as the Man With No Name trilogy.
Through all three films, Clint carries a unique Colt Single Action Army revolver. It’s an Artillery model with a 5.5-inch barrel. That isn’t unique in and of itself, but his sidearm has a set of distinctive silver rattlesnake grips. The grips were actually seen in Rawhide, the TV Western on which Eastwood starred for several years as Rowdy Yates. In one episode, Yates kills an outlaw and takes the rattlesnake gun for himself. Maybe Rowdy is the MWNN after all.
Clint uses this revolver throughout A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). In the film, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966), Eastwood carries a different revolver with the same style grips. For some reason, he’s rocking a cartridge conversion Colt 1851 Navy revolver. In actuality, he’s carrying a cartridge reproduction of a Colt Navy with a version of the silver rattlesnake grips installed.
3:10 to Yuma (2007) - Ben Wade’s Hand of Gold Colt
Some fans of the original don’t like this 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma, partially because a British actor and an Australian are in the two leads of this American Western, but what do they know? Russell Crowe stars as the ultimate outlaw Ben Wade in this very Hollywood (but very fun) prisoner-transport movie. You can kind of think of it like an Old West road trip movie as rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale) rushes to transport Wade to meet the titular train and claim his reward.
Much is made of Wade’s outlaw prowess, by lawmen and his own gang members alike. And he has the flash to back it up. Aside from his demeanor, he carries a distinctive revolver with an actual name, The Hand of God, that he claims is cursed.
The Colt Quickdraw with a 4.75-inch barrel and case-hardened frame has custom glossy black grips with gold crucifixes embedded in them. The supposed curse says that if anyone other than Wade touches the pistol, they will soon die. And throughout the movie, that proves to be true.
However, Charlie Prince’s (Ben Foster) twin Smith & Wesson Schofield revolvers might be cooler. The guns have light walnut grips and he carries them butt-forward in leather holsters and draws them calvary style most of the time. Foster and Crowe got period firearms training for the film from the legendary exhibition shooter Thell Reed, and it shows, especially through Foster’s quick draws and reloads.
Appaloosa (2008) - Everett Hitch’s 8-Gauge Shotgun
In this underrated Western, an unlikely firearm gets a lot of center-stage time, a double-barrel, break-action, 8-gauge shotgun carried by Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) as the deputy to his longtime partner Virgil Cole (Ed Harris). He often uses the big-bore, long-barreled howitzer for its intimidation factor throughout the movie, but also for its firepower.
He wears a jacket with a thick leather patch sewn into the right shoulder to help with the shotgun’s stout recoil.
Of course, considering this movie was made in 2008, it wasn’t so easy to get an 8-gauge shotgun that could actually be fired safely, even with blanks. So, the film’s armorer “built” three shotguns for the movie out of Colt 1878 shotguns. The guns that fired essentially were 12 gauges with 8-gauge-sized barrel sleeves on top to make them appear larger; they used 12 gauge blanks.
Tombstone (1993) - Doc Holiday’s Colts
Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) keeps a nickel double-action Colt Lightning as his second sidearm, in addition to his Quickdraw SAA. Note the bird's head grip.
Val Kilmer delivered a legendary performance as Doc Holliday, the once dentist turned TB-ridden professional gambler and murderer. He carries two pistols most of the time, a fairly normal Colt SAA Quickdraw with a 4.75-inch barrel, a nickel finish, and an ivory grip, along with a Colt Lighting with a pearl birdshead grip.
Doc’s holster setup is interesting, but you don’t get to see it much except in two scenes. As a professional gambler who doesn’t spend much time anywhere but a poker table, Doc wears a sort of shoulder rig that carries his Colt SAA in a crossdraw holster that hangs near his lower ribs on his left side. The closest thing I’ve seen in design is a WWII tanker pistol holster. It puts the grip only a couple of inches away from his right hand at all times and in plan view. If he’s only carrying one pistol, this is the one he carries.
During civilian life, if he carries the additional Colt Lightning, it’s actually tucked into the right pocket of his vest and held in place by the strap from his shoulder rig. At the table, this pistol would be concealed by his jacket, and equally as accessible to his left hand as the SAA is to the right.
When he accompanies Wyatt on his vengeance ride, he carries the Lightning in a similar position, but a bit lower in a cross-draw belt holster, because having a pistol tucked into your vest isn’t going to cut it on the trail.
Django, Unchained (2012) - Dr. King Schultz’s Taxi Driver Derringer
While this Western movie is technically a Southern—since it takes place before the Civil War in the American South—it still counts.
There are plenty of guns throughout this bloody Quentin Tarantino classic, but one that stands out is the Taxi-Driver derringer carried by Dr. King Schultze (Christoph Waltz) most of the time, but also used by Django (Jamie Foxx).
The Cobra “Big Bore” Derringer is concealed in the sleeve on a drawer slide, just like Travis Bickle’s pistol. They feature pearl grips and nickel finishes. The bounty hunter Schultz uses the concealed, quick-deploy two-shot pistol to dispatch a wanted outlaw posing as a town sheriff. Django later uses the same gun to kill one of the Brittle brothers on a plantation, and in one of the movie’s most famous scenes, Schultz uses the gun to kill the vicious plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).
Were derringers around in 1858? No, they weren’t. Remington popularized the tiny, concealable self-defense firearm in 1866 after the Civil War ended. The Cobra derringers used in the movie are modern versions of those early Remington models.
Django (1966) - Montigny Mitrailleuse Maxim 1895 Hybrid
Some folks don’t know this, but Tarantino’s movie was based on a series of low-budget Western movies from the 1960s. The first of which, titled simply Django (1966), uses one of the coolest guns ever featured in a Western.
The movie takes place a little later than most films in the genre, in the 1890s. As such, it had more firearm options, but for the most part, it stuck to fairly old firearms.
Now, this isn’t a realistic Western movie by any means. Think of it like a samurai movie, but with cowboys, including dubbed dialog.
Throughout the movie, Django (Franco Nero) drags a coffin behind him that houses a wild belt-fed machine gun that appears to be a blend of a French multi-barreled Montigny Mitrailleuse and a Maxim 1895 machine gun.
The gun in the movie was likely just a pyrotechnic device inside a fake machine gun housing, especially since the “ammo belts” never move when the gun is being fired. But it’s an extremely cool and ultra bad-ass gun moment in a niche but classic Western. If you’ve never seen it, give it a watch.
The gun, and variations of it, showed up in later Django movies and other Western films directed by Sergio Corbucci and starring Nero.
Back to the Future III (1990) - Doc Brown’s Custom Winchester Rifle
People call this the worst entry in the BTTF series, but if you were around 12 or under when Back to the Future III came out in 1990, you know it was doubtlessly awesome. The sequel sees Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travel back to 1885 to save Doc Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd). When he gets there, he finds out that he and the 1950s Doc Brown drastically misunderstood a lot about the Old West, especially the clothes.
He’s almost immediately dragged and hanged by a gang of outlaws when he finally reaches the earliest version of Hill Valley, California when it was a ragged mining town. He’s fortuitously saved by Doc Brown, who severs the rope Marty is hanging from with a bullet, just like Clint Eastwood (it’s a recurring theme).
Doc is carrying an unforgettable rifle: a customized-by-science Winchester Model 1866 Yellow Boy with a very steampunk custom scope with exposed optics, custom iron sights, and a large lever action.
You get the impression that it’s wildly accurate, and it’s 100% the kind of rifle Doc would have after living in the Old West for a good while. And if you were 12 when you first saw it, you just wanted it.