MovieChat Forums > Nevada Smith (1966) Discussion > Jonas Cord hand-loading ammo out in the ...

Jonas Cord hand-loading ammo out in the sticks???

posted 11 years ago by movies789
4 replies | jump to latest

Jonas Cord sold guns for a living, and presumably ammunition as well. He made it clear that he traveled in his work, but he must have had a base of operations somewhere from which he would send & receive orders and maintain his stock. Other than hand-loading some cartridges for his own use and other special orders at that base of operations, it's likely that most of his ammunition-for-sale would come from commercial manufacturers. Regardless, why on earth would he haul a work table, chair, hand-loading tools, shell casings, caps, bullets, black powder, and a supply of food & supplies out into the hinterland (where he first encountered Max Sand), just to camp for the sole purpose of hand-loading pistol cartridges? That's a task he would certainly do back home, where he wouldn't have to haul all that stuff around with him, and where he could conduct the other central functions of his trade.

[–] Henry_Framus_Valentine 11 years ago

In real life, no dealer in weapons would do what Cord did in the scene you refer to. But for the sake of "color", the filmmakers wished us to suspend our disbelief, that is, the small minority of movie goers who, like ourselves, notice things like that.

Eat every carrot and pea on your plate. ~ Mom

[–] NOTACLERK1 9 years ago

I mean no offense but you realize this is the late 19th century.out in the territories and new states of yhe south west and west a lot of people so called drummers made their way to small towns boom towns etc. In that same way. There was no fedex or ups and the mail was scetch at best. As seen in the movie the carpetbaggers he did eventually have a base of operations which became cord industries. And the tech of the day...a man who knew about loading metalic cartridges could make money. It was still a fairly new tech only having started as we understand it in the 1860s. Even revolvers had all 5 or 6 cylinder chambers loaded with powder ball and cap individually and many still used those weapons uptil the 1890s and beyond

[–] PoliticallyIncorrectone 8 years ago

Traveling photographers carried all the necessary equipment with them, including a portable dark room so they could develop and print pictures on the spot. Photography is even more complex than reloading ammo and the processing part must be done in darkness.

[–] MAGolding (1236) 7 years ago

In one case Mr. C.S. Fly of Tombstone took photographs at a conference between the US army and hostile Apaches.

About reloading cartridges. I have read that the Sioux Indians invented a way to reload cartridges with black powder.