Silver Dollar "shot-through" by Buffalo Bill

Was the coin holed with a rifle in .45LC? That might have added velocity.

 

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if memory servies me right the lead used in the times of Buffalo Bill was to soft to shoot throw a coin it would dent the coin but would brake apart befor going all the way throw.

 

This sounds like it would be a fun experiment: Testing the "myth" of Buffalo Bill shooting through a silver dollar with contemporary firepower capabilities. The only problem is that you have to get somebody willing to part with a couple of silver dollars.

Maybe this is a situation we should submit to "Mythbusters" the T.V. show so that the expense is out of their pockets and not ours! Not to mention, it would make for entertaining T.V.

 

Myth Busted!

From the Myth Busters Web Site: http://www.mythbustersfanclub.com/mb2/content/view/202/27/

Putting a hole in a silver dollar:

The myth here is that you can shoot a hole through a silver dollar with a handgun.

Kari puts the coin on the coin holder and fixes it with 3 screws carefully balancing it as if the coin would be floating in air. The coin is an 1879 silver dollar. Tory fires the Peacemaker with a real bullet. The bullet hits the very center of the coin, makes a huge dent, but fails to pierce it. The Navy Colt is next but it doesn’t make a hole either, just a dent. It seems like cowboy guns don’t have enough force. They get a 357 double action Magnum to see if a modern gun with higher velocity could do the trick. Bullseye! There is a hole. Tory hands over the coin to Kari and says, “You could make a necklace out of it!” Myth busted as cowboy period guns were not powerful enough to put a hole into a silver coin. :crying:

 

I think Buffalo Bill was mainly a rifle shooter, and he had guns powerful enough to slay a whole slew of bison. Maybe that's what he used?

 

Well, now that we have pretty much ruled out the pistol theory here are some of the alternatives. I took this picture at the museum. All of these rifles were either owned by Buffalo Bill or his foster son "Johnny Barker".

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Or....

Some indian rifles, supposedly recovered from Indian War era battlefields. I am particulary fond of the Springfield trapdoor with the sawed off barrel and stock.

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You may have an argument here. I don't know what the added velocity would have amounted to out of a rifle though. I'm guessing some but not much.
I'm not an expert on .45LC's but the reloading book I've got shows that single action army revolvers and cowboy gun replicas can't handle the higher power loads that modern day .45LC Rugers like mine can take. It's a considerable difference in velocity. You're talking 6-800 FPS compared to 1000 to 1100+ FPS. It's just such a large slug. I would think it would take a very high velocity to get through the coin. Maybe a modern one could do it? The .45LCs for the rifles of the day would have been the same consistency as the revolvers were using so they could be interchangable, I would think.

I don't mind testing the theory some day. I'll find an old, beat up, scratched, cleaned, junk one for cheap and test it. Might make for a good contest. Will it go through or wont it? Unless the mythbusters test was enough for you guys. They didn't try the .45LC.

 

I am curious now--would like to see the Myth Buster's take it on.

Next part of the myth--how would you shoot a full load cartridge without hitting a bystander

 

They did also have the .45-70 govt rifle round back then too. Created in 1873. The earliest loads had a 405 grain bullet (as opposed to a .45LC 250 grain). Average muzzle velocity around 1300 fps from a 32.5-in. barrel back in the day. I'd bet thats what he shot buffalo with mainly. Maybe that could do it.

Modern day 300 grain muzzle velocities approach 2400 fps out of a 26 in. barrel with the same cartridge.

 

Good point. There'd still be lead flying somewhere. I've read they used bird shot and previously holed coins. As far as being able to hit anything with a bullet, I've seen a guy shoot an egg with a .45 pistol at 100 yards and I've seen a guy turn an aspirin thrown into the air, 10 yards away, into powder using a recurve bow and arrow. So it would be theoretically possible to hit a silver dollar.

 

I don't think a .45LC was used at all for the coin shot. Would he have tried to kill a bison with it? Of course not...his bison rifles were waaaaay more powerful.

 

Even if he hit the coin (tough to do EVERY time in live outdoor shows with varying weather conditions) and even if the bullet holed the coin, the coin would go flying, tough to find. The showmanship was probably leaving that coin "lost" in the soft, soft dirt of a rodeo ring while an assistant "found" the coin with a hole in it. Probably lots of smoke to help.

 

I wonder what a slightly harder mix then normal lead would do?

 

I think it's impossible with any round made at that time to hit a coin in the air and put a hole in it. It was all for show.

 

No. I agree. That's why I mentioned the 45-70 in post #30. He probably used that.

 

Mythbusters tried it with an 1873 colt peacemaker and put a nice dent in an 1879 silver dollar - no hole. There was even a thread here at the time stating that they did not like them ruining the old silver dollars. However a 357 magnum absolutely put a hole in the silver dollar. Here is the script from the show (it startes at about 32 minutes) http://www.livedash.com/transcript/...ighter)/60/DSCP/Friday_January_1_2010/129605/