Cowboy Shooting-Bridgeport Rig - Vid.

[Factfind]

I stumbled across this and thought it was a pretty interesting piece of cowboy lore.
Frankly I had never heard of it before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnSFHQ-3Jic

[Rod]

Actually the Bridgeport wasn't meant to be a fast draw. You were supposed to flip it up and thumb the hammer back then shoot from the hip. It made it easy to sit down also. Wasn't REAL popular but some folks did use it. James Gillette, Texas Ranger and El Paso chief of police, used it.

[SoupOrMan]

Well, I think I see what could replace those skeleton holsters in IPSC...

[Netpackrat]

Actually the Bridgeport wasn't meant to be a fast draw. You were supposed to flip it up and thumb the hammer back then shoot from the hip. It made it easy to sit down also. Wasn't REAL popular but some folks did use it. James Gillette, Texas Ranger and El Paso chief of police, used it.

As Rod undoubtedly knows already, the technique was called slip shooting. I read someplace (probably in a L'Amour novel), that it wasn't unheard of for a gunfighter using this method to have his revolver modified, to take the trigger out of the equation. A slip shooter so equipped, would just thumb back the hammer and let it go, firing from a swivel style rig such as the Bridgeport.