Authentic Gunleather
We would have said that Walton & Taylor is your best source for authentic frontier-era reproduction civilian gunleather, but it seems like we're the only source for hardcore historically correct gunbelts, holsters, and scabbards made in the old ways of 1837-1876. These belts and scabbards are made here in Texas; 100% hand-sewn with real linen thread (no nylon, no polyster; period correct materials and techniques only) and hand-riveted with copper rivets in Dallas, Texas. The thread is treated with a historically correct mix of tar, beeswax, and linseed oil which gives the stitching a distinctive three-colored look. More...
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Slim Jim Style Holsters
Early Texas Style Mexican Loop Holsters
Paterson Scabbards (in 3 styles)
3/4 Flap Holsters
Dozens of companies machine sew 1930's movie versions of Mexican loop and Cheyenne double-loop holsters and 1950's style steel-sleeved Hollywood "fast draw" Buscadero rigs; but those are made for people who are interested in the history of the "Movie Business." Walton & Taylor belt rigs are for those interested in the actual historical practice of wearing and using arms on the Western frontier in the Nineteenth Century. It's very telling that the majority of civilian holsters shown in "Packing Iron", probably the best and certainly the most popular book on the subject, are from the 1900's and not the 1800's.

The Frontier Era reached its zenith in 1876 and just about the only people in the west with a Colt Peacemaker at that time were the soldiers of the U.S. Army. The pistol was designed specifically for the Army and they absorbed all the early production. Civilians wearing pistols before 1878 were mainly using Colt's percussion pistols or one of the many Colt copies that flooded the market after the expiration of Colt's patent; after 1870, Colt conversions and the top break Smith & Wesson #3 began to be worn. Only about 50,000 1873 type cartridge Colts were made between the start of production and 1880, and the Army got 40% of them.

All the great frontier pistoleros started out with Colt percussion arms and some of them never made the switch to the Peacemaker. Hickok had just made the switch to Navy conversions in .38 rimfire before he went to Deadwood in 1876, and when Hardin was captured by the Rangers in 1877 he was carrying a .44 Colt 1860 Army. It was 1879, the twilight of the West, before Colt could really begin to meet civilian demand for the 1873.