Ned Buntline - The Buntline Special

The Buntline Special

According to Wyatt Earp's biographer, Stuart N. Lake, Wyatt Earp and four other well-known western lawmen - Bat Masterson, Bill Tilghman, Charlie Bassett and Neal Brown - each received a Colt Single Action Army revolver as a gift from Ned Buntline. The revolvers were chambered in .45 Colt, had 12 inches (30 cm) barrels, a removable shoulder stock, standard sights, wooden grips into which the name “Ned” was ornately carved and came to be known collectively as "The Buntline Special".

According to Lake, Earp kept his at the original 12" length but the four other recipients of the Buntline Specials cut their barrels down to 7½". Lake spent much effort trying to track these guns through the Colt company, Masterson, and Earp's contacts in Alaska. Researchers have never found any record of an order received by the Colt company, and Buntline's alleged connections to Earp have been largely discredited. Schillingberg states that there is solid proof that Buntline was in the Eastern United States during the time the presentation was supposed to have happened. There is also no evidence that Buntline wrote about the occasion, and Buntline wrote about everything.

In Massad Ayoob's Greatest Handguns of the World Volume 2, Ayoob states "Historians debate whether Wyatt Earp owned a “Buntline Special” (author is inclined to believe that he did), but Colt manufactured many in the latter half of the 20th Century."