jwrevolver

This is the pistol used by Clint Eastwood in his legendary role as Josey Wales in the 1976 Malpaso production The Outlaw Josey Wales.

The gun used by this character is an old fashioned “percussion” pistol. An 1847 Colt Army Model Whitneyville Walker pistol (a gun loaded with cap, ball and powder).

However, the percussion weapon can be only seen in the close up promotional pictures of Eastwood as Josey Wales, and also in the films finale as Eastwood repeatedly fires an empty revolver at Terrill (Bill Mckinney).

Throughout the rest of the movie, whenever a gun was actually fired, modern Italian copy Walker pistols were used, this is because that the percussion guns are impractical for the rigors of filming and also a little unsafe. To that end, modern conversion pistols were required to fire .38 blank rounds, these conversions are distinctive and fairly easy to spot on screen – you can see the silver conversion plate to the rear of the cylinder.

This pistol has been safely and sympathetically deactivated as required by UK law. The cylinder still spins and the loading lever still works. The firing pin has been removed but the gun retains full trigger and hammer action. It is difficult to describe just how big this gun is. The barrel alone measures 9 inches long and it is very heavy, weighing nearly 5 pounds! Bear in mind that Clint Eastwood fired two of these bad boys together for hours at a time while riding a horse. Quite impressive.

The gun can be precisely matched on screen to the farmhouse shootout scenes towards the end of the film. The patterns and marks above the trigger area are unique to this pistol.

The Walker pistol came with its original production paperwork from Stembridge Gun Rentals of Hollywood, California. Guns are usually, whenever possible, rented in multiples to the set, there are many practical reasons for this including having loaded guns on standby for retakes and the ever constant threat of a gun becoming damaged or misfiring while being used. In the winter of 1975, five Colt Walker’s were sent to the locations in Utah and Arizona for the filming of The Outlaw Josey Wales.