http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmSDHjotKug

I’m headed to the new Bond movie this afternoon. Review to follow. Meanwhile, what’s your favorite gun-heavy TV show of all time? Dragnet (1967 series) wasn’t long on long guns or shoot-em-ups, but when Sergeant Joe Friday did the firearms thing, it was pretty damn cool. OK, covering a bad guy by holding a scattergun with one hand isn’t the smartest possible move. And yes, it looks like he’s aiming the muzzle away from his fellow actor’s chest. But hey, what did I know? Which TV show fired-up your firearms fascination?

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46 COMMENTS

  2. Richard Boone as Paladin was my guy.

    A bit OT:

    Note that it was just SGT Friday and and his partner rousting those guys.

    Now in most places, it would be a SWAT team and they’d be looking for a dog to shoot. . .

  3. Not an actor but a movie….Zulu. Ever since seeing that movie as a child I’ve wanted a Martini-Henry. I’m currently searching for one in good shape. I missed out on some MHs in 310 Cadet and I’m still kicking myself very not buying one.

    • I was raised around guns. But as a youngster I saw a double feature, remember those, it was Zulu and Night of the Grizzly. I too would like a M-H and satisfied my Webley jones years ago.

      This is probably what got me started on my love of history and Mil Surp guns.

        • Not a rumor. I believe they were called Martini Enfields and they were chambered for the standard .303 round.

          Of all the milsurp guns, and I’ve used and owned just about all of them, the Lee enfield is my favorite.

    • Oh yeah. Matinis and Webley top-breaks. Picked up a battered long-lever Martini when I was 18, and scored on a .310 Cadet in 1970. That got me started in reloading, since I had to shoot it. Got a cavalry carbine Martini (.577-.450) in1982, and a .455 Webley in 1994. Funny how most of the guns I like have obsolete ammo requirements.

    • Ha!

      Thanks for the link, I’m watching those now.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87LLK7BFQCU
      Sledge Hammer – S01E02 – Hammer Gets Nailed

      Your stereotypical donut is nothing but dough and sugar, fried in fat. Am I right? Now that fat gums up your arteries and goes to your brain, and you turn liberal. And the next thing you know, Barry Manilow is on the turn-table and you’re not going to work and you’re voting for gun control! You see what I’m saying? You see that connection? That’s why I eat granola.

      at 6 min. 47 sec.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87LLK7BFQCU#t=06m47s

  5. Roughly in order of coolest:Combat, Sgt.Saunders& his squad;Johnny Yuma,The Rebel;Cheyanne; The Rifleman; Simon&Simon; Magnum P.I.;& Miami Vice. Good times, great memories.
    P.S. ANY iteration of Star Trek for cool weapons!

  6. Thanks to my Grandfather, I was already shooting farily early, but sitting with him to watch reruns of The Rifleman with Chuck Connors as well as any Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western or westerns like The Wild Wild West and Maverick pretty much got me hooked. For my brother it was SWAT and the A-Team.

  7. Showing my age but mine would be

    The Rifleman (1958–1963) – really liked how he loaded another shell in his Winchester lever action
    Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958–1961) – with the cut down Winchester lever action, had a toy one
    The Rebel (1959–1961) – loved that little sawed of double barrel shot gun

    Might be why my Marlin lever action is one of my favorits, maybe I should look for a Winchester

  8. I’m more of a movies guy, myself. While they had cool guns on Miami Vice and such, it has always been movies that fire up the part of my brain where my gun lust lives. Examples:

    Aliens (the second one)
    Any Clint Eastwood western, ever
    Terminator & T2
    Grosse Pointe Blank (still one of my all-time favorites)
    Hobo With A Shotgun (kidding… kinda)

  10. Not one mention of the Untouchables! What beats a Model 1927 Thompson Sub-Machine as a duty weapon. Robert Stack knew what he was doing, back then it was live firing with high pressure blanks to work the actions, yeah baby!

  12. Ah finally something I love besides guns…1950’s and 60’s TV westerns !!! Of the hundred or so shows that were on, I have to say that I have a special place in my heart for John Russell and Peter Brown in “LAWMAN”. It has to have the coolest theme music. Part of the mystique of the shows were the MEN who played the leads. They were men. Plain and simple. Unlike the metro-sexual crowd on TV these days. Remember that quite a number of these stars, had served in WWII and Korea. They were familiar with guns and what they do. Plus catch the supporting cast in this show !

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=FWBsTjqW-wE&NR=1

  13. I like Avid Reader’s suggestion of (Richard Boone), Paladin.

    For law enfrocement, Matt Dillon (James Arnes), TV Gunsmoke, hands down gotta be the best.

    For anybody who had to pull a gun, Maverick (James Garner), is my favorite.

    Mavrick represnts the best of winning a gunfight by not having one.

    Anyway, that is my philosophy.

  17. Loved Adam 12 and SWAT reruns on Tv Land. Also another good episode of Dragnet invovled Sgt. Friday telling another Det. to “get a thompson gun and plenty of ammunition.”

  20. Oh, and it just dawned on me why Friday only loaded four and pocketed the fifth. It’s an LAPD Special Ithaca ’37, four shot tube. He put four in the tube, put the safety on, and racked one in and topped off the mag off screen before disengaging the safety. Pretty cool.

  22. Kind of a tie between Chuck Conner’s lever action shorty and Kirby and his bad ass BAR from Combat. Always coveted Vic Morrow’s Thompson, as well.

  23. Pick a Western or Cop Show starting in the mid 1950’s. That’ll do it. I’ve always blamed TV for my 32 year LE career and all that came with it (guns, cars, etc)

  25. Does anyone remember Strike Force? I think it only lasted a season or two — Robert Stack and Dorian Harewood leading an elite cop squad. Anyhow, I remember Stack toting a massive Colt Python. It never slowed him down.

  26. Oh boy!!! Rawhide reruns, Shane( the movie), Combat reruns, Any Clint Eastwood Spaghetti western, Untouchables(Robert Stack and the Sean Connery movie), Miami Vice. Don’t remember the names exactly right but the 2 John Wayne movies…one with James Caan and the shorty shotgun, and the one where Dean Martin played the drunk sheriff. Oh and also the John Wayne movie”Sons of Katie Elder”.
    Many more but those are most memorable. Some of the early tv shows were either before my time or I was too young to remember when they were on, since I wasn’t born until Aug 1962.
    And one of the better modern movies was Quigley Down Under!!!!

  28. Really? No love for Justified? Didn’t get me started, but totally awesome.
    I was originally turned on, if you will, by Die Hard. Horrible gun play, now that I know better, but still, I was one when the first one came out.

  29. Shotgun Slade and the Cisco Kid. O.K, I’m just kidding.

    For real; almost anything with John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. To put them in order, it would be the Ringo Kid (“right folks just call me Henry”…Stagecoach) , and Rowdy Yates (damn…Rawhide)

    Although he came much later, I have to give a huge shout-out to Matthew Quigley. (actually Tom Selleck has done a bunch of damn fine westerns.)

    One thing these characters had in common was that that they mostly fought alone, against overwhelming odds, and had personal honor. Usually.

    It might not be real, but good stuff that.

  30. An old TV show with Lee Horsley called Paradise got me into westerns.
    Since then:
    Have gun will travel, Wanted dead or alive, and the guns of Will Sonnet.

    Paladin to beet all comers.

  31. Grew up in Chuck Norris and Arnold Schwartzenegger. Wasnt a huge Stallone fan and always though Sagal was a tool. Maybe hes a good guy though, I dont know.

    Anyways it was a movie that really got me going on guns, two movies actually. Aliens (the second one) with the Colinial Marines. The tech was so bad @&&! And one of my all time favorate movies, Robocop.

    Movies then took real guns and made them in to futuristic scifi guns. The Marines “pulse rifle” is a modified Tommy Gun while Robocops “Auto 9” is a Beretta 93. These days your lucky a hollywood flick has any real muzzle flip, recoil or flash. They want to portray guns as scary and evil but wont even go as far as simulating realism off a computer.

  33. Another vote for Richard Boone’s Paladin.
    Best shot: The Rifleman
    Sidekick: Leo Carrillo as Pancho on the Cisco Kid
    Awesome rig: Paladin
    Horse: Without a doubt….SILVER

  36. Another vote here for;

    Richard Boone. But wasn’t his character named “Paladin” and the show called Have Gun Will Travel”?
    Chuck Conners in “The Rifleman”
    Vic Morrow in “Combat”
    &
    Any Charles Bronson film.

  38. “Which TV Gunslinger Got You Going?”

    Well, in keeping with the actual question asked and not running off down a rabbit hole with it, yeah there was one TV guy that I thought was cooler than a mountain lake in October… Sonny Crockett was the MAN. Yeah, he went from a euro Sig P-220 in .45 to the Bren Ten in 10mm, then a S&W 645 and finally a 4506, but even with all those switches, the dude actually looked like he knew what he was doing with a handgun. I read years ago that Don Johnson had been trained by Miami Metro Dade SWAT in weapons, and it if true it seems he paid attention. Favorite scene with his heater? Bad guy holding a shotgun to a little girl’s head and tells Crockett “If I twitch, she’s gone…” to which Crockett says, “Maybe…you won’t even twitch….” BOOOMM!, head shot and the bad guy’s is instantly smoking a turd with Hitler in Hell. Miami Vice was IT, man….

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