



Alan Brooks writes:

Some of you may know of the stories and legends surrounding the famous “Wild West” gunfighter, lawman, and Army scout, William “Bat” Masterson. What you may not know is that in 1909 the Savage Arms Company convinced Mr. Masterson to write a guide to defensive gun use as part of a promo for their new “Savage Automatic” pistol. The pistol, while advanced for its time, was overshadowed by that other pistol that god gave to John Moses Browning in 1911. As a result, the Savage Automatic has since been relegated to dark recesses in the safes of hardcore antique-gun collectors. The book, The Tenderfoot’s Turn, was lost as well… until now. After a little sleuthing, I managed to find four copies of the book in collections around the U.S. (and one in Australia). The University of Arizona’s special collections library was kind enough to scan their copy for me and so now, for the first time in nearly one hundred years, Bat Masterson’s guide to gunfighting is once again available to the general public as a TTAG exclusive. Click here to read.