Finally found "Triggernometry: A Gallery of Gunfighters" by Eugene Cunningham, which is apparantly a 1996 reprint of the 1934 original, with introduction by eminent gunfighter historian Joseph Rosa (author of 'The Gunfighters').
The chapter on John Wesley Hardin is indeed titled "Forty Notches" and on p.40, the author notes "...he would not be 18 until May 26th, but already he had notches on his guns-eight of them!".
On p.56, "...the famous gunman who had forty notches on his weapons".
In the introduction, obviously written some 62 years after the original work,
Rosa notes (p.xxi) that "...John Wesley Hardin was credited with forty notches (not that there is any evidence that anyone really notched pistols)".
On p.xxii he notes further that Hardin apparantly had concerns as he was finally released from prison about his faded reputation, and had written his autobiography which apparantly suggested the notches. The work was published posthumously (he was killed the following year) and apparantly the suggestion remained, as recounted by Cunningham in his 1934 work.
In another interesting twist, having to do with the rather ridiculous modern manner of firing guns held sideways, in so called gangsta style, I came across some intriguing information, and thought I would include it here as a point of interest.
In references to this method of firing, mostly about looking cool rather than any effective advantage, and which seems to have evolved over about the last 15 years, there is some much older history to this.
Apparantly the old M1898 Broomhandle Mauser pistols found favor in China (as well as Argentina) and were produced at Sichuan arsenal, later Hanyan arsenal beginning about 1920 as the C-96 version. These found use from the pirates we have been discussing on another thread (hu die shuang dao butterfly knives) to the mounted Manchurian bandits and in many groups from the 1920's until c.1949.
It was found that they could throw the weapon up quickly held sideways, index finger stabilizing and be instinctively pointing at the target, also used full automatic unleashing a horizontal traverse fire. Also, and most importantly, the casings were ejected straight upward, so these were insured to clear the weapon rather than potentially jamming.
I am unclear on how this style of shooting might have transmitted to the pop culture in todays training films (movies) but suspect perhaps action movies of the 80's, possibly John Woo ? In any case, I thought it was interesting as a sort of addendum to the gunfighter theme.
All best regards,
Jim
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