Chisholms Trail Old West Leather is ran and owned by Alan and Donna Soellner. We are purely dedicated to recreating cowboy gun leather found in your most favorite old westerns, from the outlaws to the lawmen.

This quest does not take place from a deck of a Lazy Boy recliner with a single malt scotch. It requires thousands of miles of travel and a tremendous expense to actually go to the historical sites where these items were worn and used. Just to be allowed to personally examine rigs such as the ones worn by Geronimo, John Wesley Hardin, or Wild Bill Hickok are pretty exciting.

Our next great venture is the recreation of “Shane,” a 1953 movie filmed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The first process of this was to gather all photos of Alan Ladd from the movie as possible. Enlarging the size of these photos we were able to examine every aspect of the gun leather and construction. In our collection of researchers that include people that have collected Idian “Tufa” cast jewelry and buckles for more than 50 years and a foundry that has molded these items for Indians for the same amount of time.

During this time we made a source and a new friend that happen to be at the creation of the movie and was kind enough to provide us with hundreds of photos taken during the movie that are not available anywhere else. Soon we will be leaving to tour Jackson Hole where the movie was shot.

In the result of our research shows that the Shane concho was huge. Approximately 2 ” tall and 3 wide. The buckle being even larger. Buckle and conchos were “Tufa” cast. This style of Indian construction requires the craftsman to carve their design into a smooth block of Tufa sandstone. And a flat second block secured to the first one. Then molten silver is poured into the mold. Once the metal cools it is removed from the mold and the final product will be flat on the back and rounded in the front. To get the concho or buckle to curve with the body, the Indian creators would hollow out a cotton wood stump, and then place the flat metal over the depression and use a rounded limb as a striker, this is to get the soft silver to take on the arched shape wanted.

Silver conchos and buckles such as these are commonly attached to Western style belts and holsters. Chisholm’s Trail concho set and buckle will be the closest to the original not to mention the first crafted in the same way since the original.

A collection of all the Shane holster and belt buckle photos, including those that we got exclusively, is then placed in our architectural AutoCAD program. Then will be opened up a holster photo and provide us with a flat pattern in which to recreate the original.

The western style Shane holster is already on our site under the Historical button. Trust me when i say it wears comfortably and is lightning to draw from. An Indian stuntman named Rod Redwing, in the 1950’s and fast draw coach for Hollywood designed this rig. Rod said that he actually purchased the conchos and buckle from a Indian selling jewelry along the trail.

Donna as well as myself encourage you to visit our website and see for yourself the quality and care we put into our Cowboy gun leather. Don’t forget to look at our buckle and jewelry section with both reproduction of western movie buckles as well as historical rigs worn in the American West. Ride for the Brand.

So head on down and check out our classic rigs, not to mention our buckles and jewelry down at Chisholm’s Trail Leather an checkout our western gun holsters