Western TV show - wagon train attacked & saved by expert rifleman

I'm looking for an American western TV show. It had cowboys and indians which I'll call Native Americans "NA"). I'm guessing it's from the 1950s or 1960s, and I think I saw it in the early 1970s. I believe it is B&W, and I'm guessing it's an hour long TV show.

There was a wagon train that came under attack by NAs. There might have been a soldier or two escorting the wagon train. The people circled the wagons and fought a gun battle with the NAs. The chief sat on his horse atop a local hill and would watch his warriors fight and tell them when and where to attack. He had a few elder warriors on horseback next to him.

One of the people in the wagon train was an 'older' person, maybe 50 or 60yo. He was a crack shot/sniper with a fancy rifle. The rifle was a single shot with a very long scope. The scope was almost as long as the barrel of the rifle. The people were worried that they would get overwhelmed soon (or at night in the dark). The expert shot decided to try to shoot the chief in the hope the rest would be scared off. The army officer didn't believe the expert could make this 'impossible' long shot. The expert took aim and fired. The chief sat on his horse for a few seconds and then fell off dead. The NAs retreated from the battle, and the wagon train was saved.


Here's a similar rifle from what I remember the expert shooter having.



Western TV shows I used to watch:
Gunsmoke
The Rifleman - the rifle wasn't a repeating lever gun
Alias Smith and Jones
The High Chapparal
The Virginian
The Big Valley
Branded
and The Wild Wild West & F Troop

Could it actually be Wagon Train which ran from ‘57 to ‘65?

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Thanks for the suggestion. I did search through the episodes, but I couldn't find one that fit. There were ones that fit part of my episode, but not completely.

According to the webpage that I have linked below, a rifle with a telescopic sight was employed as a plot element in two 1960s western TV series: The Rifleman and The Westerner.

https://www.riflemanconnors.com/bloo...erry_mason.htm

Thanks. I was able to watch the two episodes listed on the page, but neither had the plot or the rifle.

This sounds vaguely familiar to me, but I don't really know what it is or if I have actually seen what you're looking or or just something similar, but my guess was either Wagon Train or possibly Rawhide.


But while I was looking, I came across a post on Movie Forums from 2010 where someone describes something similar, which turned out to be the movie The Hunting Party (1971). Pictures from the film online show that Gene Jackman uses a gun similar to what you describe. Here's a link to the post:


https://www.movieforums.com/communit...ad.php?t=22507

I watched The Hunting Party, and it wasn't it. The rifle looked right though.

It could be Rawhide. I don't remember seeing that TV series until the 80's, but maybe I saw one episode on the TV.


The crack shot in my movie was dressed more like a banker, a gentleman, or maybe even an Englishman. I don't remember him having an accent, but it's possible.

I checked the Rawhide episodes, and I couldn't find one that fit.

Do you remember anything more about him, like: Was he a killer for hire, gun salesman, soldier, etc? And was he a major or minor character?

No killer. He was a skilled rifleman from back East or England. Maybe he was a big game hunter. He was a respectable person that others probably viewed him as what now would be called white collar - not really fitting in the West. Maybe he was going along in a stagecoach - a handful of new characters that week - on his way to San Francisco or something like that. This would have been the only episode he was on.

It's possible it was a stagecoach and not a wagon train. Maybe a few soldiers happened upon them to help them when they were attacked - it's possible I was wrong about the soldiers being there.

I searched through the Gunsmoke episodes but none matched.

How about Have Gun Will Travel? I haven't seen every episode by any means, but Paladin always seems to be traveling somewhere, getting involved in altercations and meeting strangers. While I can't say that I've seen your specific scene happen on the show, I have seen episodes where Paladin winds up in a situation with a group of other people who happen to be there at the same and they defend themselves against adversaries.


Also, if this is any help, there apparently is a internet movie firearms database that highlights tv and movie weapons. I didn't have any luck, but maybe you will:


https://imfdb.org/wiki/Main_Page



In the meantime, I'll keep an eye peeled for your episode. Two stations in my area run marathons of all these shows and I often tune in.

Also, Have Gun Will Travel was on tv a lot in the seventies, at least in my area (NY).

In the 1968 movie Shalako, Jack Hawkins' character has a rifle with a telescopic sight. It also has a bunch of covered wagons and a stagecoach. Unfortunately, I don't remember the plot well enough to have a sense of whether it is what you are after or not.



https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Shalako#R...Deluxe_Sporter

I was able to view about a third of the movie, Shalako. While it did have many of the items I had described, the attack that I saw did not fit my memory. None of the scenes I saw were familiar.

I'm tentatively saying that is not the show I remember.

Thanks, anyways.

I searched through The Death Valley Days episodes, but I couldn't find the episode.

I have used IFMDB in the past. Unfortunately, you need to know the model of the firearm. Al I remember is a single shot rife with a long scope. It could be percussion cap, trapdoor rifle, .45-70, etc.


AFAIK, I’ve never seen a HGWT episode - even today.

Bump for Thanksgiving

Someone on a different forum suggested Winchester '73 which was a near perfect match of my scene. It had the wagons, soldiers, and even the damsel in distress. The fallen tree and the wagon nearby fit my memory. Even the hero shoots the leader. I've seen the movie before, but I forgot that scene.

Unfortunately, it's in the heat of the battle by a lever gun and not a slow, aimed shot by the crack shot with a sniper rifle.

My current guess is either I merged these two scenes together, or, possibly, a writer re-used the scene in a TV episode.

I can see where the movie was filmed, but it may take me a while to search through them and see if a Western TV episode was also filmed there.

Someone also suggested the long-range shot matched an event at the Second Battle of Adobe Walls.

What about this episode of Wagon Train (The Robert Harrison Clarke Story):





It doesn't have all the details you describe, but there's a lot that's similar. The rifle shot scene is the last five minutes or so.