Cosby's Custom Cowboy Classics

Brian Cosby continues the tradition of fine gunsmithing on single-actions.

As a kid, I spent many an hour looking through the pages of Outdoor Life and American Rifleman dreaming of hunting trips and guns. It was a real chore waiting every month for Outdoor Life [even tougher to come up with a quarter to buy it!] to see Jack O'Connor in all sorts of exotic places with various great trophies.

American Rifleman carried the works of Elmer Keith. Especially intriguing to me were his sixgun articles about customized big bore revolvers. Keith was always the experimenter in those days and brought us the works and ideas of Croft, Houchins, Sedgely and their peers.

Those articles in the early '50s were so good that eventually I traced back and acquired copies of all of Keith's sixgun articles going back to the 1920s. They are still a valuable resource.

It has been my good privilege to know the top single-action sixgunsmiths today. Men that simply are the best ever at their craft. Bowen, Clements, Grover, Horvath, Linebaugh, Morrison and Stroh are names that come quickly to mind. All of these men have built sixguns for me and they are prized possessions as well as everyday working sixguns. To this list we can now add Brian Cosby as one who really appreciates and understands great single-actions.

Cosby's platform for customized single-actions is the Ruger Blackhawk, Vaquero or Single-Six. He especially prefers the opposite ends of the spectrum, that is, the big bore .45s and the diminutive .32s. He is also an artist with metal, shortening barrels, remounting front sights, re-shaping top straps and especially cutting and welding grip frames.

Recently my friendly UPS driver dropped off a large box full of custom sixguns from Cosby's Custom Gunsmithing--all single-actions built on various Rugers. It has been a most pleasant time, admiring, shooting and photographing eight of Cosby's creations.

Roundbutting Rugers

There are several 'smiths who roundbutt the Ruger grip frame by simply working with the metal, filing, grinding and polishing it to minimum size. Cosby goes further. He cuts and welds the grip frame, be it steel or aluminum, and really roundbutts it to absolute minimum size.

The result is a grip frame that is very easy to conceal and also handles felt recoil extremely well. Those who have never shot a big bore sixgun with a roundbutt will be very surprised at how well the recoil is tamed.

There is some confusion regarding the use of the terms Sheriff's Model and Storekeeper's Model when it comes to sixguns in general and Colt SAAs in particular. Here we are talking about singleactions without ejector rod assemblies.

That is, to unload, one has to punch out the empties with a small rod of some kind, usually requiring the removal of the cylinder.

Now anyone with a modicum of intelligence realizes that no sheriff would place himself in the position in which he could wind up with a Colt that he couldn't quickly unload and reload.

This is born out by the Colt factory in that they never referred to this particular variation as a Sheriff's Model or a Storekeeper's Model. The records simply say "without ejector rod assembly."

The vast majority of these sixguns were made with 3 1/2" or 4" barrels; however, some were even manufactured with 7 1/2" barrels. Terminology changed after World War II as the Colt factory was not as particular about model designations.

During the run of Colt SAAs known as the Second Generation (1956 to 1974), a .45 Sheriff's Model was offered with a 3" barrel, and during the Third Generation (1978 to present) a dual cylinder 3" Sheriff's Model was offered with .44 Special and .44-40 cylinders.

So, with that in mind, the first Cosby Custom Cowboy sixgun tested was a true Storekeeper's Model with a 3" barrel. Starting with a stainless steel Vaquero in .45 Colt, Cosby removed the ejector rod housing and also modified the frame to remove the receptacle for the ejector rod, shortened the barrel to 3", re-installed the front sight and radically roundbutted the grip frame by cutting and welding, grinding and polishing.

The result is one of the easiest handling single-action .45 Colts ever for quick defensive work from the leather or waistband.

Today the trend is to semiautomatics that hold at least 10 rounds backed up by large capacity magazines. Frank Hamer, the Texas Ranger who was called out of retirement to stop Bonnie and Clyde, which he did, permanently, carried a Colt SAA for most of his law enforcement duties. His sixgun was a 5 1/2" .45 Colt that he called "Old Lucky."

With five rounds in the cylinder Hamer rarely ever felt the need to strap on a cartridge belt: "...any man who got himself into a position where he needed all those shots was just plain guilty of sloppy peace-officering."

Could there be a lesson in there? I find a single-action to still be a viable self-defense handgun. No, it isn't the best, but it is still viable. Cosby's Storekeeper custom is one of the best possible single-actions for--what do they call it?--serious social purposes.