How Wild Was Wild Bill Hickok? | Hacker News Reader

How Wild Was Wild Bill Hickok?

nytimes.com

27 pointsohaikbai14 comments

The legend in my family was never really that he was that wild -- he's my first cousin ~five times removed.

The story told over and over again when I was growing up was of his death, shot in the back playing poker with his back to a window. He normally refused to sit with his back exposed, and it was used to remind us to be careful and not let us be tempted into doing something rash. The effect? I was mildly uncomfortable sitting with my back to a window in a restaurant into my 20s, and would avoid it if convenient.

Though lots of people have "heard of him", no one I've ever met can be specific about what he did or who he was, other than part of the "old west". The lasting impression he's left on the modern world seems to be the dead man's hand -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man%27s_hand -- a term commonly associated with the hand he was (possibly apocryphally) holding at his death since the 1920s.

Not related (as far as I know) to Wild Bill, but I lived for several years in Springield MO, just blocks from the square where he famously shot Dave Tutt. The evening I proposed to my (now) wife, I had some mutual friends "kidnap" her, and take her to the square. I showed up and dueled them with our cap guns, "re-enacting" the famous gun fight... rescued her, and the rest is history as they say. In those parts, there are many that still know a lot about Wild Bill.

That's fun to hear, thanks.

He could fire off 10 shots because he was ambidextrous. Revolvers are carried with the hammer down on an empty chamber lest they go off accidentally and put a big hole in your leg

Yeah, the fact that he mentions shooting 6 shots is pretty iffy on this historical account. There are stories of him knowing he was about to go out to a gunfight and preparing his guns and bullets, so maybe he loaded up six shots and was very careful while transporting his pistols

Here's a good video explaining why people would load post-Civil War single action revolvers with 5 shots instead of 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldHPNnsp-cs.

Wasn't aware they could accidental fire that easily! That sounds like a massive design defect.

> That sounds like a massive design defect.

The trade-off is between unwanted firing and failure to fire when wanted. Which risk do you suppose your shootist customer would prefer?

Theres reasons. One, we just sorta didn’t know. In less than 100 years we went from single shot flintlock pistols to repeating revolvers; we were still figuring a lot of things, like safety, out. Modern revolver lockwork would take a few more decades.

Even today, in a world of very high quality modern firearms, safety issues arise. The Sig 320 - now the M17 service pistol of the US Army - had a problem where if dropped just so, it could discharge. It was kind of a scandal; modern firearms are incredibly safe to handle, compared to even 30 years ago. Consider that in the 60s it was not unheard of for pistols to require the user to pull the trigger as part of operating the decocker mechanism. Insanity to modern eyes.

Anyway, firearms at that point were kinda new. We didn’t know what “safe” really meant, we didn’t do things like drop tests, we lacked the material science to make carefully heat-treated components, we lacked the manufacturing ability to make the sorts of small, high quality components we use today ... it wasn’t a design defect as much as we didn’t have the science and understanding.

Modern revolvers don't have the "striking the hammer can discharge the round" because they now use a hammer bar. You can load all the chambers without fear of this happening. You may be surpised to learn that all modern revolvers require pulling the trigger and thumbing the hammer down, as do the very popular 1911 pistol and it's many clones. It should be noted that modern revolvers don't have a safety. A large majority of striker fired pistols don't have a traditional safety either.

Seems like speed, nerves, and aim would be a whole lot more important than how many bullets you could fire. Check out this [1] clip of the world fast draw championships. The neat thing to do is to go frame by frame. There's just a huge difference in how fast these guys, who presumably are near the top of the game, are firing. And that's when they're firing at a target they've probably done thousands of times - not some guy who's looking back at you with a gun.

And in any case one solid hit on your opponent, and there's a pretty good chance whatever shots he manages to get off after that are probably not going to be the most most threatening / well aimed.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g11oE_nxWSU

I saw another review sometime last week and did a little research.

There was the series Deadwood on HBO, which included him for a couple years. And there’s a hand in poker which is based on his last hand.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man%27s_hand

We visited Deadwood last summer. There is a private museum I can recommend. Town seems similar to my imagination with horses replaced with Harleys. Gambling is legal. I asked my wife, ‘I wonder where are the whore houses?’

If I remember correctly, he is featured in the amazing Thomas Berger novel 'Little Big Man'.

Many colourful characters of that period is vividly portrayed in the movie "Tombstone", especially Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday. The film has a certain gravitas that is missing from more recent studio big-budget movies.

Wow.. And to this day, his name precedes him..

https://www.youtube.com/user/hickok45

Now I'll have another mental image of a man once I also hold a Mossberg 500.

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