Tank holding the sentimental sixgun, S.S. 1.
Storytelling has been around since mankind. It was the original entertainment until fire was discovered. Combining the warmth and glow of fire accentuated storytelling. What could be better? When man learned about fermenting berry juice, things got really cozy. Sitting around the fire, sipping a beverage and hearing stories is still a popular tradition.
No matter how many times a story is told, new details emerge, new listeners hear it for the first time, and older listeners remember the past. Whatever stage of life you’re in, gather around and hear the tale of S.S #1.
S.S. 1, field stripped, revealing its many hidden secrets.
S.S.1 and Skeeter’s gun engraved in the grip frame.
More engraving validating the gun, along with
Bill Grover’s logo of Texas Longhorn Arms.
Raton, New Mexico Territory
The story starts one day this past June. While in the outskirts of Raton, NM, at the NRA Whittington Center, I was enjoying myself with a special group of people originally brought together by John Taffin.
One day, Bobby Tyler approaches me, turning sideways to show me his holster, a Barranti Leather “Hipshot” shuck with the Bar-T stamp carved on it. “Notice anything special?” he asks. I mention the Bar-T stamp, and he says, “No, about the gun?” The gun was an old 3-screw Ruger with Ram stocks. Being holstered, it was all I could tell. Bobby draws the gun, checks it, then hands it to me.
Skeeter’s gun posed on some fine Barranti Leather.
S.S. 1 holstered in a Barranti Leather Hipshot shuck with
cast bullet handloads, a combo not to be overshadowed
by today’s standards.
Who’da Thunk?
It’s a .44 Special conversion, nicely done, but then I noticed something that set me to trembling. Rolling the gun over, I see the serial number on the bottom of the cylinder frame. It’s S.S. 1! Holy cow! Bobby has Skeeter Skelton’s famous #1 gun. I’d read everything about this gun, heard stories about it from Skeeter’s son Bart, but never laid eyes on it, not even pictures of it, and now I am holding it in my hands, dumbfounded.
All I could say was, “How?” Bobby explained he got the gun from Bob Baer’s estate. Bob got it from John Wooters some time ago.
The story starts with Skeeter being in the hospital before he died. Wooters would visit his buddy, showing support and comfort. He came up with the idea of having one last custom conversion built in hopes of cheering his old amigo up.
He got others involved, but Skeeter died before the gun was completed. Wooters decided to have the gun finished anyway. Along the way, other friends wanted a “special” Skeeter gun in honor of the man responsible for Ruger .44 Special conversions.
Bill Grover’s roll marks on the gun. Notice the front sight
has brass soldered on top to enhance sight and has a
“holdover” mark for long-range shooting.
Bob Baer flat-filed the frame, removing sharp corners,
for a Colt-like appearance.
A good shot of the serial number and Keith #5 base pin.
The Start
John Taffin wrote about this event in GUNS magazine, and through his article and John Wooters’ own words, we repeat the cycle. By retelling the amazing, heartwarming story, so others may learn, while some will be reminded of the events.
John starts, “Skeeter passed from us in 1988. Shortly thereafter, in 1989, I did an article on Ruger conversions for our sister publication, American Handgunner. Soon after, I received a letter from our mutual friend, John Wootters, and he related the tale of Skeeter’s last sixgun.”
“Your recent Sixgunner piece about the ‘little Rugers’ inspires me to tell you a tale. The so-called ‘little Ruger’ in .44 Special was the favorite type of sporting pistol cartridge of my late buddy, Skeeter Skelton, who spent much of his terminal illness in a hospital here in Houston.
Together with another friend and single-action expert, Bob Baer, we passed a lot of time plotting the creation of just such a pistol, of which he’d done several only to sell or trade them all away. We even acquired the 3-screw, .357 Mag Blackhawk for raw material. Sadly, Skeeter had to fold his hand before the last race, and the project never went further until recently.
Stone ram stocks from a “deadhead” found by Wooters and Skeeter while on a hunt together. More fitting stocks couldn’t be possible for such an emotional custom build.
The Details
“The gun was re-chambered and re-barreled (4-5/8″, from a slow-twist, proven-accurate .44 Douglas premium blank) by Houston pistolsmith Earl Long. Bill Grover (Texas Longhorn Arms) then took over. He recut the forcing cone to suit himself, put a Colt-style crown on the muzzle, and installed one of the front sights he makes for his Grover’s Improved No. 5 Keith gun.
He also re-chambered the cylinder and adjusted the cylinder gap to less than .002″ (which makes it the tightest Ruger, even customized, I’ve ever seen!), and then hand-fit one of his No. 5 basepins. Finally, he broke the leading edge of the cylinder all around to make it easy on holsters.
“Bob Baer took over from there. He installed a bolt-block and hand-tuned the action… and he is as good at that as any living man. He also performed his trigger magic, producing an exquisite 2-pound let off. Then he flat filed the frame, removing all markings, and rounded off the square corners of the topstrap, sort of ala Colt SAA.
“Many years ago, Skeeter and I shared a hunting trip in northern British Columbia, during which we jointly discovered the skeleton of a mature Stone ram, probably killed in an avalanche.
We slipped the horns, and Skeeter took one and I the other. Later, I traded Chubby Hueske, the custom knife maker of Bellaire, Texas, some of the horn material for his work and skill in flattening and rough-shaping a pair of single-action grip blanks from it. I’ve been saving them for the right gun for 15 years.
“This is the right gun. Baer fitted and shaped the grips to my order, leaving the aluminum XR3-RED grip frame bright-polished, which was the way Skeeter liked them. That sheep horn is spectacular, a beautiful, creamy, smoky gray with subtle striping. Bob says it’s harder than ivory!
Now the gun went back to Grover for marking and polishing. The only markings are ‘.44 SPECIAL’ on top of the barrel, ‘T.L.A., INC. RICHMOND TEXAS’ in two lines on the topstrap, a tiny, stylized longhorn steer head on the right side of the frame (Grover’s logo), and the serial number ‘S.S. 1’ (for Skeeter Skelton), on the underside of the frame. Finally, Grover’s man, Lee, did an inspired job of polishing and bluing.
“The little .44 is a sweetheart, quiet and pleasant to shoot, accurate (naturally, in that chambering), light as a feather, and pretty as a yellow cactus Blossom. It leaps to the hand of its own will and seeks a target with the eagerness of a pointer pup. I will cherish it ’til the day I die, and I may even have it buried with me!
“I think you’d like what I’ve come to call ‘Skeeter’s Gun’. I know Skeeter would have loved it… It’s his kind of sixgun… and mine. It’s also a sort of tribute to an old and dear friend. He comes to mind every time I buckle it on, which is daily when I’m at my ranch on the border. He’d have liked this memorial better than any other kind, I expect. Baer told Sally and young Bart about it, and they agreed; they’re touched.”
This could have been the end of the story; however, Bill Grover, who is now also gone home, had a great idea. This was the first Skeeter Skelton Sixgun, and since Bill was a manufacturer, he could change the serial number to S.S.1. He contacted several of us, and the end result was a few more, six in all, Skeeter Skelton Sixguns.
They went to Bill Grover himself and Bob Baer, Terry Murbach, Bart Skelton, Jim Wilson and me. Mine is numbered S.S. 4. Only the theme of a Skeeter Skelton Sixgun and the S.S. serial numbers are of the same style and sequence, as these sixguns are not identical, as each man incorporated their own ideas into what they wanted their Skeeter Gun to be like.
“All seven of the Skeeter Skelton Sixguns came together in 1992 as we all gathered, including John Wootters, and held a memorial service for Skeeter in the mountains of Colorado, each of us firing off a .44 Special salute to our friend. As I said, although all seven of us have S.S. Sixguns, they are all quite different, revealing the individual taste of the owners.
The “other” men who had Skeeter guns made in their own style. Tank had the honor of handling 4 of the 7 guns and meeting 4 of the 6 men pictured.
A picture of Skeeter before he died, showing signs of his illness.
Revealing Facts
One of the coolest revelations came when Bobby removed the ramshorn stocks. On the one stock panel is a note confirming the story. Written is “Skeeter’s gun for John Wooters by Bob Baer, 1990.”
Also, the grip frame is scratched with “Skeeter’s gun” and “SS1.” Just as stories are passed down from generation to generation, special guns are passed from collector to collector. We don’t own these items; we’re simply keepers of such treasures for the next lucky collector.
Just as guns pass from hand to hand, stories are passed as well. This one sparked from Skeeter and John Wooters’ friendship, was shared by John Taffin, and is now shared by me, adding a few more details and photos for others to marvel over.
I may be getting softer and more sentimental the older I get, but it’s a good feeling learning and sharing stories like these. Up-and-coming sixgunners need to know these stories to emulate, learn and remember the great sixgunners who lived before us, in hopes that the fire never dies out.
You know how sometimes you catch somebody out of the corner of your eye at the same instant they’re pingin’ you out of the corner of their eye? And you have that fleeting moment, that half-second where your choice is whether to go flowin’ right on, or snap about and take a closer look? Yeah, that drill. That’s how I spotted The Invisible Veteran.My rule for those moments is, whether I break movement or not, I send a second ping and see if the sonar shoots me back an echo. I’ve found those moments are split between early recognition of someone from my past, and possible threats; potential danger situations, and I decided long ago that either way, I wanta know, not guess.
This time the echo sounded familiar, and it must have been that way for him too, because we simultaneously locked on and put the Mark-II Eyeball on each other. I hung a hard right and steamed dead for him, clumping on my cane and scanning. He and three clones were leaning back against the curved granite lip of a fountain featuring a buncha nekkid cherubs spittin’ streams of water in the air through trumpets, against the backdrop of a black-tinted glass-front bank building. MC’s (Miscellaneous Civilians) flitted by in foreground buttery sunshine and background shadow like lost flocks of brightly-plumed parrots.
I assumed my “Get Outta The Way of The Big Scary Crippled Dude ’Cause He Ain’t Paying Attention To Ya” gait and as usual, it worked; they unconsciously altered their flittin’ patterns so I could hold a steady course and stay eyeball-locked on the guy.
Four clones—clean-shaven guys in their mid-to-late 30s, white long-sleeve dress shirts, dark slacks, neat ties, no jackets, all holding identical bubble-topped semi-frozen drinks with straws stickin’ up. From the subtle way they altered their bodies as I approached, I knew they were clones in a way other than appearances, too. But I still didn’t have an ID on the guy, nor him on me.
For a lo-o-o-ong moment we stood and stared, peeling away years and then draping old layers on each other; sweat-soaked dust, body armor, rucks and harnesses, Band-Aids and bug bites. I saw an image of him with eyes hollowed from unending exhaustion and a lopsided grin and I don’t know what the hell he saw on me—but that lopsided grin suddenly curled up.
“Mister… Connor?”
Enter Lieutenant Dan
“Lootenant DAN!” I blurted in my best (bad) Forrest Gump voice, “You got legs, Lootenant Dan!” It was a semi-private joke. He had been a lieutenant then, his given name Daniel, and you can guess what some folks called him as they closed on Baghdad and learned he was one of those not-so-rare young officers who was just as much in his element leading a stack of infantry into a concrete compound as he was with the inevitable paperwork and frustrating, conflicting orders from On High.
“Yeah, the kid’s a keeper,” his leathery platoon sergeant had said then. “He wasn’t roont by all that college crap. Good soldier!”
“Yes, I got outta there with both legs,” he smiled, “But, uhhh… What about yours, sir?” I assured him I still had mine; they just didn’t work very well—but good enough. That tore the last flimsy curtain down and we pumped paws, bumped chests, grabbed onto each other and maybe, maybe got a teensy bit wet in the eyes.
We had shared a few moments back when, like the night the whole world was shooting streams of tracers and rockets and flares skyward apparently at nothing in particular, some from the next block, some klicks away, and we couldn’t tell the players without a scorecard, the radio was either rackety-riot or stone silence and he asked me, “Didja ever see the fireworks on Main Street in Disneyland? Just like it, I swear, only these are gonna come down somewhere,” adding wistfully, “I used to live in Anaheim.” As with so many others, I hadn’t known if he had made it home. My relief was… significant. The depth and power of it kinda surprised me.
All four guys were Army combat veterans, three former junior officers and one NCO. None had known each other in the Army, though all had left service about the same time. They worked for different outfits in the same big building complex, and had found each other by “GI Gravity Effect.”
The overwhelming point for me was that you probably could have plucked four non-veterans in their age group outta that block and the vast majority of people couldn’t have told them apart. If they were standing in a crowd on a sidewalk at a Veterans Day parade, unless they wore something clearly identifying themselves as veterans, you’d never know it. I’m reminded of others….
Dickens & Tapley
There was an almost painfully young trigger-puller serving with the 10th Mountain who was widely known as “the happiest, most positive guy in the ’Stan.” He was the guy who jumped to shoulder part of another soldier’s load if he was fading in the heat; the guy who filled someone else’s share of sandbags because “Do ya see how blistered his hands are? Lemme do it”; who volunteered to hump water cans across the compound for his whole squad so they could rest, with “You dudes are thrashed; I got this,” and always, always with a smile.
His sergeant said “I used to worry that he would crack under this always positive stuff, because I know he ain’t brain-damaged or got a wire loose; he’s just bulldog-determined to be that way. Now I don’t worry so much because,” he shook his head in wonderment, “I really think he’s got the grit for the long haul.” A buddy of his told me to ask him about Dickens—so I did.
“I hated reading Dickens!” he laughed. “I had this fussy, prissy ol’ English teacher who made us read it. I thought it sucked, and I couldn’t wait to get away from it, and from her.” He smiled wider. “She got my address from my folks—and sent me Dickens! Now we write back and forth all the time, and when I get back, after my folks, she’ll be the first one I’ll visit.”
He had read Martin Chuzzlewit and discovered Mark Tapley, a simple, good-hearted man who felt that his cheerfulness didn’t really reflect very well on him because his circumstances were happy. The only real test of character, he decides, lies in being perennially positive under the most miserable circumstances.
The kid pointed out that Tapley wasn’t a major character in the book, nor was he particularly intelligent. “Whattaya think I am in the Army? And I’m no genius.” But he found purpose and salvation in meeting the toughest challenges with the greatest cheerfulness.
“This ain’t gonna end with Afghanistan or with the Army,” he said. “Know why?” I shook my head. “Because,” he confided quietly, “It’s the best feeling in the world, and… it makes me—different.”
Invisible Veterans
So many stories, so little space. Early in my military life I learned not to ask too much if somebody “made it,” because too often, the answer hurt. But I wonder about so many I knew, some well, most not, some barely, but all adding to my memory-files as we trod the same paths—and many were just kids, even to me. I think most Americans visualize veterans as elderly, graying men squeezed into fading uniform jackets, solemnly saluting the colors on Veterans Day.
Now we have a generation of combat vets both in and out of the mainstream who still look far too young to have done so much.
Let’s remember them on Veterans Day too, OK? Thanks. Connor OUT