Secrets Of TV’s The Rifleman: More Than Just Guns And Good Times

McCain depended on his rifle to help him pretty much conquer anything that came his way. When he didn’t have it, he was absolutely powerless. In one episode, Micah got beat up pretty badly. Then so did Mark and McCain, who was unable to get to his rifle. Everything was really tense as the villains destroyed McCain’s property and even took some of his food. This made McCain very angry, but he struggled to get his rifle. When he finally did, he made the bad guys pay. When McCain had his Winchester, he was on top of the world and all powerful.

During the show’s opening credits, McCain fires 12 shots from his rifle. Seven of the shots are featured in a close-up shot, and the other five are made as the camera changes positions. The rifle featured blank cartridges, which are shorter than standard cartridges, allowing the magazine to hold more blanks than standard ones. The soundtrack of the show contained a 13th, dubbed shot. This was done so the end of the firing would coincide with a particular section of theme music. McCain could reportedly fire off his first round in just three-tenths of a second, which gave him an advantage in a showdown.

Fan Al Williamson wrote on TVparty.com, “We used to love watching the show just to see him cock that rifle – you know, the looping underhand action Chuck Connors would use to load a round into the .44-.40 chamber. Man, he’d cock that rifle and all the bad guys would know they were messin’ with one bad mofo. My dad used to say that Connors was known to swing his baseball bat like that in the on-deck circle as a pro ball player. We also loved to hear the rifle being fired – it was like no other gun sound on TV.”

When The Rifleman aired, it was considered the most violent show on TV alongside The Untouchables, which aired at the same time. McCain pretty much created the world’s first semiautomatic weapon, which allowed him to fire incredibly fast. The town’s Marshall Micha Torrance (played by Paul Fix) was a recovering alcoholic. He struggled to keep order in North Folk and often asked McCain for help to keep things under control. When things got tough, Torrance often headed to Sweeney’s bar to drown out his sorrows. Often, villains would force alcohol on the Marshall to take control of a particular situation and get him out of the way.

One fan of the show disagrees that it was violent. Each person who died was killed for a reason. Plus, there were moral lessons in most episodes. The fan wrote on TVParty.com: “The show was shown widely in syndication on local stations after it left the network for most of the mid-late ‘60s. I disagree with it being the ‘most’ violent western – most shows of that era contained quite a bit of violence. What seemed to make The Rifleman different was the fact that those who were killed truly deserved it and frequently episodes included a moral lesson – often quoting a biblical passage.”