Colt Buntline
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The Colt Buntline Special is a fictional weapon invented by Stuart Lake in a 1931 fictionalised (or at least highly inaccurate) biography of Wyatt Earp. The Buntline Special was supposedly based on the famed Colt Peacemaker revolver manufactured by the Colt's Manufacturing Company, and was commissioned by the Dime Novelist Ned Buntline. Subsequently to the publication of Lake's book, various Colt revolvers with long (10" or 16") barrels were referred to as "Colt Buntlines".
According to Lake, the weapon was a single-action revolver chambered for .45 Long Colt ammunition. However, unlike the Peacemaker, it had a 12" (305mm) long barrel, in comparison to the Peacemaker's 7.5" (190mm) barrel. A 16" (406mm) barrel was available as well. The Buntline Special was popularised by The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp television series. It had a removable stock that could be easily affixed through a combination of screws and lead-ins. These modifications gave the weapon better precision and range. It also allowed the user to affix the stock and turn the revolver into an even more precise weapon and give it most of the advantages of a rifle.
Ned Buntline is supposed to have commissioned this weapon in 1876, but the Colt company has no record of receiving the order or making any such weapon. He based its conception on the idea of making a revolver that would be more precise and could be easily modified to work similarly to a rifle. Weapons were produced so that he could give them to the prominent personalities of the Wild West. Wyatt Earp is stated by Lake to have received a Buntline Special, but no actual evidence of him owning one exists. Nor for that matter does any evidence exist that the weapons were ever made.
The revolver was never mass-produced, but could have been specially ordered from the Colt factory in Hartford, Conn., except that the company's records are intact and mention no special order for Ned Buntline, nor of any such weapon.
