Classic Single Action's Grips
Last updated
Last updated
"Fine Custom Grips & Quality Gunsmithing For Single Action Firearms Since 1987" run by Joe Perkins.
2318 W Rapallo Way, Tucson, Arizona 85741
Phone: 520-888-6799 (This is a land line, no texts.)
Fax: 520-877-5026
Email: classicsa@comcast.net
Official website | On Google Maps
My quest for re-creating these snakes began when I saw one of Clint’s “Man With No Name” guns on display at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles in 2005. By the way Robert Conrad, in the TV series The Wild Wild West, used the very same snakes on his revolver. Every detail of this reproduction is accurate to a fault. Short face, large eye, long tongue (not forked) and scales down the belly. The shape of the mouth, top coil large and bottom coil small. The tail is in the classic “J” hook with round rattles. The diamond patterns on the body are even the exact number, curved in shape, and in the exact place on the body as the original. Special tools were made to replicate the dots inside the diamonds and place them in the same pattern. They are made from 100% new Sterling Silver. They are exact mirror images of eachother. I worked on casting and inlaying prototypes for two years starting in 2015. (After carving waxes you don’t know how they will look until you cast them and inlay them). I spent spent four months looking at the smallest details, comparing mine to to the originals (my photographs) and making minuet changes. Two years, four versions and eight master castings later, I guarantee these are the closest to the originals ever made.
What You Should Know About The Snakes Being Sold On The Internet
You will see leather makers, Internet companies and even other grip makers claiming they are selling “exact” copies of the snakes that were on Clint Eastwood’s revolvers. Sorry, this is not true. If you do your research, you can find a few images on the internet of Clint holding the guns. Yes they are a touch blurry, but you can clearly see how different his snakes are than the ones being sold on the Internet. The biggest difference being that Clint's snakes do not have forked tongues.
In 2012 I started my journey to find out who made the snakes you see below in the left photo below. The highest quality ones are currently sold by Cimarron F.A. These are the ones many companies have copied and are claiming they are "exact copies" of Clint's, again, this is not true. Know that if you do not buy these snakes directly from Cimarron they will be considerably smaller because of the way they were copied. They are also often not made of silver. If you want these snakes, buy them from Cimarron.
After speaking with everyone in the industry that has contact with the snakes with the forked tongues, my search led me to Bill Falk. He designed the snake you see at far left with the short forked tongue. No one seems to know who made the one with the longer forked tongue that goes on the left grip panel. Bill was quite the character and one of his many hobbies was jewelry making. He did not make the snakes for Clint Eastwood. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2015.
The snakes you see below in the right photo were sold by a company that offered movie prop reproductions and went out of business many years ago. I call this my "Standard" rattlesnake. These snakes match each other because they were indeed made by the same person. The company claimed they were close to the originals and they are. I bought six of them in 1997 and made molds. After close examination of these snakes, comparing them to the photos I took at the Autry Museum and at Planet Hollywood, I saw just how close they were. They are much closer to the originals than the snakes you see on the left.
Cimarron Snakes My "Standard" Snakes
The snakes on the left don't match each other because they were made by two different people at different times. Notice the tails, the head shape, the mouth and the tongues. I don't make or sell these snakes. The real Man-With-No-Name snakes do not have forked tongues and the bodies and heads look considerably different.
The snakes on the right are my "Standard" rattlesnakes. These are the snakes I have been making since 1997. I will continue to offer this "Standard" version of the snakes inlaid in any wood for the same price as I always have, $195 for one and $360 for two. Add the grips you want them inlaid into to that. If you want my "Authentic" snakes, see the revolver images above.
