Restored Post 65: The 5Ws of the Hammer Guard

It is the stuff of legend, and completely wrong, that Milt Sparks devised the hammer guard that wraps around the hammer spur to 'improve' the Hank Sloan holster. The Sloan came with the hammer guard in the 1960s! While Milt was still a pilot for the BLM; he didn't enter the gunleather market until the 1970s when he made Keith's holster in '72. "I'm thinking of getting into the holster market and I need your help", he told Elmer that year (interviews of both men).

65 hammer guards

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The origin was the Myres Threepersons without the hammer guard, followed that same decade (1930s) by Heiser's; both for the F.B.I.

Myres Threepersons original above, below the Heiser effort called the 457 F.B.I.:

Then below, the addition of the hammer-spur guard in a Myres catalog and it has been in general use ever since. It was even on the Chic Gaylord that Milt COPIED to create another holster for Elmer Keith by inserting the Sloan invention into the Gaylord. I think all that's covered in the restored PDF above but if not, somebody holler. Saw one on a holster last night being used in an Australian mystery of this decade, that is set in the '60s, looking quite like a Myres but not one. It's not really there to protect the coat lining that is an old wive's tale; it is there to prevent the gunman's elbow cocking the checkered hammer spur and drawing to find an SA hair-trigger pull, in the days when the F.B.I.'s draw was to begin the pull through of the DA trigger as the revolver left the holster:

Chronologically, the Myres above is from Sam's time in El Paso so 1920 to 1953 (his death)(appears in a Myres catalog in the '40s). Below the Heiser called the 459 that was introduced 1950 when Heiser was sold by The DDG to Keyston Bros:

Then the Chic Gaylord of Keith's that was late 1950s (Chic's first appearance is 1953 and he was out of business in 1967 when Seventrees appeared). The con was so complete that this very image of the Gaylord has been misidentified by writers as the Sparks; who are after all 'writers' and simply write down what the holster maker claims:

Then below, the Sloans of Keith at No. 8 and 15, sent directly to him from J.M. Bucheimer itself mid-1960s when the Sloan was launched commercially:

Then below, Milt's 1972 hybrid of the Sloan and the Gaylord; nobody asked either man if it was OK with them! Notice also the forward sight track a ala Safariland that was new then; here Sparks likely used a simple leather welt vs the complex patented welt of the Safariland:

Read more in my book titled "Holstory -- Gunleather of the Twentieth Century -- the Second Edition" that is available at www.holstory.com and printed for you/shipped to you in USA.