RetiredUSNChief
Member
...for my Colt Peacemaker!
As the story goes, I've wanted a Colt Peacemaker since I was knee high to a snake's belly. Not a Cimarron. Not a Pietta. A Colt. Specifically a Colt SAA, 5.5 inch barrel, color case hardened, in .45 Colt caliber.
This summer I finally realized that dream. And she perfectly fit the holster of a Buscadero rig I bought a few years...er..."decades" ago when I was a teen. Unfortunately, the ravages of time over the years I spent moving hither and yon in the Navy were not kind to the rig and the leather shrank so much it no longer fit. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! The only person in the family it now fits is my 15 year old daughter.
So now, with all the personal money I never spent on the Peacemaker (it didn't cost me a penny out of my own paycheck), I went on a hunt for a replacement rig of a similar style.
Lots of searching had been done on the internet, but CraigC was my first stop. I've been impressed by his leatherwork and had him in mind as a first choice for a custom replacement.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), when I got with CraigC on what I wanted, his response was that it was going to get "cost prohibitive" very quickly for him to make the rig I wanted. Seems that a Buscadero style belt takes a MUCH larger, and therefore more expensive, piece of leather to make. And then there's all the tooling for the artwork, which takes a lot of time (again equating to a lot more money) to do. Add to this hand stitching instead of the machine stitching that larger belt/holster makers use and the sheer time involved in that also drives the price up.
In other words, God Bless him, CraigC simply did not see where he had the time and resources to make what I wanted at anything close to what he felt was a reasonable and affordable price and recommended I seek out something on the commercial market instead. A fair and honest professional opinion, which I respected greatly.
So, off I went...and let me tell you that a good western style rig is NOT cheap. They can easily run into four figures depending on who makes them, especially the more "famous" sources which supply "authentic" Hollywood holsters. Yeah, you can find a serviceable belt/holster at gun shows for less than a C-note, but they aren't the quality, style, and artwork I'm looking for.
I finally settled on the K-41 Buscadero belt and matching K-40 Texas Holster from Triple K, which you see in the picture below. I found it on cowboyshootingstore.com at more than a hundred in savings over the Triple K website...or any other site which sold Triple K products. The belt arrived rather quickly...but the holster took two months to come in because it's not as much of an "off the shelf item".
For those interested, the total cost was $370, including shipping.
For comparison, both rigs are shown in the picture...and as you can see, the older rig did, indeed, shrink quite a bit compared to the new rig.
My oldest daughter will end up with the old rig...but she ain't getting my Peacemaker until I die and she pries it from my cold, dead fingers! I'll get her a Cimarron or Pietta model later, if she wants.
By the way, how many people here remember that Samuel Colt was born 200 years ago this year, on July 19th? A great year to get my Peacemaker!
As the story goes, I've wanted a Colt Peacemaker since I was knee high to a snake's belly. Not a Cimarron. Not a Pietta. A Colt. Specifically a Colt SAA, 5.5 inch barrel, color case hardened, in .45 Colt caliber.
This summer I finally realized that dream. And she perfectly fit the holster of a Buscadero rig I bought a few years...er..."decades" ago when I was a teen. Unfortunately, the ravages of time over the years I spent moving hither and yon in the Navy were not kind to the rig and the leather shrank so much it no longer fit. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! The only person in the family it now fits is my 15 year old daughter.
So now, with all the personal money I never spent on the Peacemaker (it didn't cost me a penny out of my own paycheck), I went on a hunt for a replacement rig of a similar style.
Lots of searching had been done on the internet, but CraigC was my first stop. I've been impressed by his leatherwork and had him in mind as a first choice for a custom replacement.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), when I got with CraigC on what I wanted, his response was that it was going to get "cost prohibitive" very quickly for him to make the rig I wanted. Seems that a Buscadero style belt takes a MUCH larger, and therefore more expensive, piece of leather to make. And then there's all the tooling for the artwork, which takes a lot of time (again equating to a lot more money) to do. Add to this hand stitching instead of the machine stitching that larger belt/holster makers use and the sheer time involved in that also drives the price up.
In other words, God Bless him, CraigC simply did not see where he had the time and resources to make what I wanted at anything close to what he felt was a reasonable and affordable price and recommended I seek out something on the commercial market instead. A fair and honest professional opinion, which I respected greatly.
So, off I went...and let me tell you that a good western style rig is NOT cheap. They can easily run into four figures depending on who makes them, especially the more "famous" sources which supply "authentic" Hollywood holsters. Yeah, you can find a serviceable belt/holster at gun shows for less than a C-note, but they aren't the quality, style, and artwork I'm looking for.
I finally settled on the K-41 Buscadero belt and matching K-40 Texas Holster from Triple K, which you see in the picture below. I found it on cowboyshootingstore.com at more than a hundred in savings over the Triple K website...or any other site which sold Triple K products. The belt arrived rather quickly...but the holster took two months to come in because it's not as much of an "off the shelf item".
For those interested, the total cost was $370, including shipping.
For comparison, both rigs are shown in the picture...and as you can see, the older rig did, indeed, shrink quite a bit compared to the new rig.
My oldest daughter will end up with the old rig...but she ain't getting my Peacemaker until I die and she pries it from my cold, dead fingers! I'll get her a Cimarron or Pietta model later, if she wants.
By the way, how many people here remember that Samuel Colt was born 200 years ago this year, on July 19th? A great year to get my Peacemaker!
