Few actors have had as storied a career as Clint Eastwood. Known today as a venerable director and producer, his acting filmography ranges from his earliest television appearances in 1955 to his most recent role in the baseball drama Trouble With the Curve.

Any actor who needs some motivation should check out Eastwood’s first role. It won’t take long. He has about two lines as a dim-witted laboratory assistant in the 1955 horror sequel Revenge of the Creature.

During his career, Eastwood revived the struggling genre of the western not once, but twice, and became what could arguably be called the first American action movie star. (He's also about the best there is at delivering gravely one-liners) And he’s carried and fired more guns on screen than most people have in their real life. In fact, 35 of his film roles required slinging lead, not to mention his numerous TV roles in westerns like Maverick and Rawhide.

Eastwood has been a supporter of gun rights throughout his career. He’s a veteran, who was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1951. He was actually aboard a Douglas AD bomber when it ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. He and the pilot escaped and swam three miles to safety.

There’s a famous quote attributed to Eastwood, which is true: “I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.”

Many people assume because of the sheer amount of onscreen gunplay he’s participated in that Eastwood would be pro-gun across the board, but he’s been quoted as being in support of some gun legislation and for registering firearms, and isn’t a big fan of “assault weapons.” So like many Americans, he falls somewhere in the middle of the complicated issues.

So, let’s take a tour through some of Eastwood’s most memorable on-screen firearms, where things are usually much more cut and dry:

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

After a slew of bit parts, many of them uncredited, in TV shows and movies, the young actor landed the part of Rowdy Yates in 1955 on the popular western show Rawhide, which ran from 1959 to 1965 with Eastwood appeared in 216 episodes.

Just before the show went off the air, Eastwood’s distinctive cowboy look and squinty-eyed stare caught the attention of Italian director Sergeo Leone, who cast him as The Man With No Name the first of his many so-called “spaghetti westerns” (imdb.com credits the role with the name Joe). They were low budget films set in the American Old West, often somewhere near the Mexican border, that were in Italy (hence the name) with local Italian actors standing in for cowboys and Mexican villagers and bandits—plus some notoriously bad sound dubbing to cover non-English speakers voices and accents. Many say the film was based on the Kurosawa film Yojimbo, which even resulted in a lawsuit.

Eastwood plays a stranger who enters a small Mexican town during a battle for control between two warring families. He’s pretty much a mercenary, seeing opportunities to make some cash by playing both sides of the conflict, creating a role that would span three back-to-back films for Eastwood, which are commonly referred to the Dollars Trilogy or the Man With No Name Trology.

In Fistful Eastwood carries a Colt Single Action Army which he draws and shoots with remarkable speed and lethality. The pistol had a color case hardened frame and the infamous rattlesnake grips, which are dark red wood with a silver, coiled snake affixed to the exterior panel. It’s a flourish that remains constant through all three films, even though the revolver changes and is based on the revolver grips his Rowdy Yates character had in Rawhide.

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

Eastwood returned as the same (presumably) character in For a Few Dollars More in 1965. In this film, he carries the same rattlesnake SAA revolver, but this time he has a nickname at least: Manco, which is a Spanish term meaning “one-handed.” He also wears a laced up leather guard on his shooting hand, perhaps hinting at a mysterious unexplained injury between films.

While Manco was undeiably awesome, all the really cool guns in the movie went to Lee Van Cleef as Col. Douglas Mortimer, an assassin with the famous gun-roll saddlebags holding numerous specialized firerams, like two long-barreled Buntline Special SAA pistols, one with a detachable shoulder stock.

Manco does briefly get his hands on a rifle in Few Dollars, one that’s a bit more rare than a Henry or Winchester: a Volcanic Repeater rifle. Volcanic Repeating Arms Company was founded in 1855 by Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson to develop Walter Hunt’s Rocket Ball ammo and lever-action mechanism. The company improved the ammo and introduced a carbine and pistol version of the lever-action gun to fire it. The company was short lived, but both Smith & Wesson and Winchester Repeating Arms Company can trace their roots to Volcanic.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (1966)

This time, Eastwood’s character is referred to as “Blondie,” mostly by Eli Wallach’s extremely memorable bad guy, Tuco. Van Cleef also returned for this film, but as a different character, an assassin named Angel Eyes.

Eastwood gets more time on a rifle in this film than in either of the others. He uses a Sharps 1874 rifle with a ladder elevated sight to sever the rope around Tuco’s neck as he is hanged in a graveyard as part of a running bounty scam they’ve been running under a…loose agreement.

Later in the film, he uses a Winchester 1866 Yellow Boy lever-action rifle to make the same shot, though he only skims the rope with the first shot with the lever gun. The wooden forend of the rifle has been removed to make it appear like a Henry 1860 rifle, but you can tell it’s a Winchester because of the loading gate on the side of the receiver. Henry rifles have a different loading mechanism. There also is no magazine tube loading break switch, which would be present on a Henry.

Though his revolver still has a silver coiled snake on the grip, it has become a larger Colt 1851 Navy cartridge conversion revolver in this film.

Hang 'Em High (1968)

Eastwood’s first non-Leone western was 1968’s Hang ‘Em High, in which he plays Marshal Jed Cooper, an innocent man accused of cattle rustling who is left for dead hanging from a tree by the four men who lynched him, led by veteran character actor Ed Begley. Federal Marshal Dave Bliss (Ben Johnson) sees Cooper and cuts him down before he can strangle to death, saving his life so he may embark on a journey of legal revenge.

Not only was HEH Eastwood’s first American big screen western, it was also the first film made by Eastwood’s production firm: the Malpaso Company.

Though it was a cool story, the armorers didn’t get very inventive on this one. Every single character in Hang ‘Em High carries and uses a Colt Single Action Army revolver. Additionally, several characters use Winchester 1892 Saddle Ring carbines when long guns are called for.

Where Eagles Dare (1968)

The next big gun movie for Eastwood was departure for the still young actor, a World War II film called Where Eagles Dare (1968), shot on location in Austria and Bavaria and based on a novel by the same name written by Brian G. Hutton.

The plot revolves around Army Brigadier General George Carnaby (Robert Beatty) who is captured by the Germans in the winter of 1943-44 when his plane to Crete is shot down. A chief planner for the second front, he is taken to the Schloss Adler, a mountaintop fortress in the Alps of southern Bavaria, accessible only by cable car.

A team of seven Allied commandoes, led by British Major John Smith and U.S. Army Ranger Lieutenant Morris Schaffer (Eastwood) are tasked with parachuting into the base, disguising themselves as German soldiers, rescuing the General, and escaping via the enemy airfield. Of course, one of the team isn’t what they appear to be, and it gets complicated.

Since he spends the combat time in the film dressed as a German, Eastwood gets to tote some of the most well known Axis arms of the war, like a captured Wehrmacht MP40 submachine gun, which is carried by almost all the guards at the Schloss Adler. At one point, Eastwood actually dual wields two MP40s to mow down attacking German troops, in what may have been the first Rambo moment more than a decade before there was a Rambo.

As Hickok45 demonstrates in this video, it’s not impossible to do at all, as long as the targets are at close range.

When it comes to being stealthy, Eastwood and Major Smith (Richard Burton) use Walther PPK pistols fitted with suppressors throughout the film.

Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

After a war film, it was time for Eastwood to get back to his roots in one of his best liked later westerns, Two Mules for Sister Sara. Set in Mexico during the French intervention, a nun named Sara (Shirley MacLaine) is aiding a group of Juarista rebels fighting the puppet reign of Emperor Maximilian.

A gunslinger named Hogan (Eastwood) happens upon and saves a woman from being raped in the desert by a group of bandits. He fires a warning shot from his Colt SAA, but when the bandits make a move, he takes them out, waiting calmly for the last man standing to yell a little while before throwing a stick of dynamite his way, forcing him to let go of the woman and run, so he can be shot.

Hogan calmly strolls to the stick of dynamite and steps on the fuse, pulling it out with his boot. The woman ends up being the titular cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking Sister Sara, who presses him into service.

Later, after trying to destroy a French ammunition train, Hogan is shot in the shoulder with an arrow. Sara bandages him and, despite ingesting a good amount of whiskey, is able to shoot the charge and blow up the train with his Winchester 1873 Saddle Ring carbine, which he rests on Sara’s shoulder to make the shot.

In keeping with the dynamite theme, Hogan later uses a stick to kill a group of soldiers manning a Gatling Gun. Somehow, the dynamite killed the soldiers, but left the multi-barrel crank machine gun unharmed. Hogan later uses it to kill a big group of soldiers. This is not the first time Eastwood uses a Gatling Gun on screen for such a purpose.

Kelly's Heroes (1970)

In 1970, Eastwood decided to switch gears a bit, but not too much, going back to the war film genre for Kelly’s Heroes, a war comedy about a group of WWII soldiers who go AWOL to rob a bank behind enemy lines starring Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O’Connor, and Donald Sutherland.

Private Kelly (Eastwood) who has been demoted from the rank of lieutenant, captures a German prisoner and learns from him that there is a cache of 14,000 gold bars ($16,000,000 worth) stored in a bank vault 30 miles behind enemy lines. he decides to go for it, picking up a group of miscreants and some tanks along the way.

Using American gear in this war picture, Eastwood carries an M1A1 Thompson submachine gun in most of the movie. Kelly specially requests Thompsons for his squad. Throughout the movie, the M1A1 Thompson alternates with the M1 Thompson with a more complex bolt and a bolted peep sight with no protective housing.

Later, Kelly mans and fires a Browning M2 .50 BMG Aircraft gun mounted on one of Sgt. Oddball’s (Sutherland) Sherman tanks. You can tell its an M2 by the perforated barrel shroud, which was meant to prevent the hot gun barrels from contacting the walls of a plane when mounted in an aircraft. In the photo, you can clearly see that the ammo can is filled with blank .50 caliber cartridges.

Dirty Harry (1971)

In 1971, Eastwood took a role that would launch an entire new stage of his career, and a new franchise that would span three decades. The role of Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Police Department was tailor-made for Eastwood’s steely-eyed demeanor and surliness, and the role.

Callahan is an old-breed cop in a city that is moving on with ideas that just don’t make sense to him. Before the drug epidemics and gang wars of the 1980s, Callahan’s concerns center mostly around violent robbers, psycho killers, and extremists.

in DIrty Harry, Callahan is introduced along with what he calls “the most powerful handgun in the world”, the Smith & Wesson Model 29 in .44 magnum. At the time the movie was made, it was indeed the most powerful commercially available revolver, though it was eclipsed a year later by a gun chambered for the powerful .454 Casull.

S&W introduced the Model 29 in 1955 and saw a big uptick after the release of Dirty Harry with its prominent featuring of the gun. It’s still made to this day.

However, it almost wasn’t so. The part of Harry Callahan was originally meant for Frank Sinatra. At the time, Sinatra was 55 and the script called for a cop in his mid-50s, so it lined up just right. They even got as far as printing a poster for the film with Sinatra in an overcoat carrying a case of some kind. That, combined with the fact that an early version of the script features Harry explaining why he prefers a 12 gauge, and then demonstrates by shooting a cantaloupe wth a .38 ad then wth buckshot, indicate that a Sinatra Dirty Harry would have been toting some kind of short shotgun instead of a .44 magnum. Sinatra broke his wrist while filming The Manchurian Candidate and didn’t feel up to shooting a whole film shooting a gun.

The part was offered to John Wayne, who turned it down. The producers then went to Robert Mitchum and Burt Lancaster, and then, when they turned it down, they went to Eastwood.

In the film, Eastwood carries a Model 29 with a 6-1/2" barrel, but in some shots, you can see it has been swapped for an 8-3/8”-barrel model.

Harry also uses a rifle in the film, and characteristically, it’s an overpowered monster for its intended purpose.

For the nighttime rooftop stakeout intended to nab the Scorpio sniper, Harry hauls out a Winchester Model 70 chambered in .458 Winchester Magnum, which is a dangerous game cartridge that was designed to compete against the .450 Nitro Express and .470 Nitro Express, which were found in big-bore British double rifles.

For rooftop sniping, the rifle would have some immense recoil and wouldn’t have been a good choice for a long-range human target. Also, in 1970, issues with the cartridge began to crop up because Winchester had been using compressed ball powder as a propellent to get enough power to propel the heavy bullet. Over time, the compressed powder could clump and create erratic burn characteristics, affecting performance and reliability. Even though Winchester quickly addressed the issue and the .458 is still the standard for dangerous game, the stigma remained for a some time. But who knows? Maybe Harry loaded his own rifle cartridges.

In a bit of a goof, when the Scorpio killer shows up, Harry attempts to shoot him while taking cover from suppressive fire from the killer’s MP40 submachine gun that he keeps in the special case with his sniper rifle. Harry fires six shots, missing with all of them, and without reloading. The rifle’s capacity in the chambering is only 3+1.

Joe Kidd (1971)

For his next gun movie, Eastwood went back to the Old West for 1971’s Joe Kidd, which was written by Elmore Leonard and co-starred Robert Duvall. It follows an ex-bounty hunter in the early 1900s hired by a wealthy landowner named Frank Harlan (Duvall) to track down Mexican revolutionary leader Luis Chama, who has organized a peasant revolt against the local landowners, who are throwing the poor off land that is rightfully theirs.

Kidd ultimately remains neutral and eventually ends up on Harlan’s bad side and as his captive. Kidd escapes, saving the other hostages, and captures Chama, delivering him to Sherif Mitchell and the law instead of letting Harlan’s posse get him. Of course, Harlan is waiting for them, and a gun battle ensues. Kidd hides in the courthouse in the judge’s chair and takes out Harlan. Chama surrenders to Mitchell, Kidd punches the sheriff for not standing up to Harlan, and then Kidd rides off with Helen, Chama’s one-time lady love.

Set a little later than most of Eastwood’s westerns, he gets the chance to go beyond the SAA and lever-action rifle pairing in this one. When it comes to handguns, Kidd uses one of his captor’s C96 Broomhandle Mauser with an affixed shoulder stock. During his escape, he fires about 30 rounds from the 10-shot pistol without reloading.

For long-range applications, Kidd swipes a rifle case during his escape that contains a custom built Ross Model 1910 straight pull bolt action rifle in .280 Ross that has been sporterized and modified as a break-down rifle. It has also been fitted with a Wollensak 4x scope and micrometer mount.

Kidd uses the rifle, which also has a fixed five-round magazine instead of the extended 10-round version, in a sniper standoff with Olin Mingo (James Wainwright).

As you can see in the photo, Eastwood aims and fires the rifle left handed. If you try to figure out if Eastwood is left- or right-handed from his movies, you might have a little trouble.

In most of his roles, Eastwood appears right-handed. As The Man With No Name (Manco), he carried his revolver on his right hip, and shoots with his right hand, but performs almost every other action, like dealing cards, with his left. And you’ll notice in some films like High Plains Drifter and Unforgiven he fires a rifle left-handed. As Harry Callahan, he shoots his Model 29 right-handed in every film and carries it in a shoulder holster under his left arm.

In truth, Eastwood is left-handed, according to a biography by Richard Schickel, but he grew up in an era when children were often “trained” to be right-handed if they weren’t born that way, so he is effectively ambidextrous when it comes to some tasks. However, people who are naturally left-handed are most often left-eye dominant, which may explain why Eastwood often shouldered rifles left-handed when he had to aim, but usually fired shotguns from his right shoulder with both eyes open. However, in White Hunter Black Hear he shoots and aims rifles right-handed, so perhaps he did whatever looked best on camera, like the great actor he is.

Toward the end of the film, Kidd used Harry the Bartender’s 10-gauge double-barrel shotgun. He shoots the giant gun one-handed at one of Chama’s men, while drinking a beer with the other.

Magnum Force (1973 - Dirty Harry series)

The second installment in the Dirty Harry series, 1973’s Magnum Force sees Harry investigating a series of murders, the victims all being notorious criminals. He discovers that the perpetrators are actually a tight-knit group of Army-training motorcycle cops who are on a vigilante mission and commanded by a corrupt police captain.

Harry Callahan returns with his S&W Model 29 as his sidearm. The gun is features prominently, and lengthily during the opening credits against a red background.

During the shooting range scene, Harry mentions that his .44 loads are actually .44 Special, not .44 Magnums. The .44 Magnum can run .44 Special rounds much in the same way a .357 Magnum can run .38 Special shells.

He says, “It’s a light Special. This size gun it gives you better control and less recoil than a .357 with wadcutters.”

It’s possible he meant, in this context, that he uses a “light” .44 Magnum cartridge, maybe rounds he loads himself. According to imfdb.org, the movie’s screenwriter, John Milius says in the film’s audio commentary that the “light Special” line was misinterpreted by the cast and crew and actually meant he used a specially prepared lighter Magnum load.

Harry also uses a Colt Python in .357 Magnum during the police shooting competition, which is the preferred sidearm of the outlaw motorcycle cop squad. Harry intentionally misses with the Python so he can recover the slug and analyze it.

During the intro action scenario, Harry uses a S&W Model 10 he takes from a terrorist, having left his Model 29 behind so he could be searched and board a hijacked plane.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

In 1976, it was back to the range for Eastwood, who played one of his most famous western roles as the titular character of The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Wales is a vicious character with an emotional backstory. Once a Missouri farmer, Wales’ family is murdered by Union militants during the Civil War. Driven by revenge, Wales joins a Confederate guerrilla band for the remainder of the war.

Afterward, when the film catches up to the present time, the war has just ended and all the fighters in Wales’ band have surrendered to Union officers. When the surrendering guerrillas are massacred, Wales becomes an outlaw pursued by bounty hunters and Unions soldiers. The movie was a massive box office success, earning $31.8 million against a $3.7 million budget.

Wales carries two big Colt Walker 1847 revolvers in twin holsters as his main sidearms, though he carries four pistols at all times.

Though they make many efforts to hide it, the guns have all been converted to fire metallic cartridges, making it much easier and safer to shoot blanks on screen. Because of the time period, in many scenes where the guns aren’t fired, they are replaced by period correct cap-and-ball pistols. When they’re being fired, you can see the ejector rods and loading gates on the converted guns.

Wales also carries a standard model Colt 1860 Army revolver, which he keeps tucked into his pistol belt cross-draw fashion.

Wales also uses a loading gate conversion 1860 Army at the beginning of the movie, which he retrieves from the ashes of his burned home and practices with shooting at targets.

The fourth gun Wales carries is a Colt 1849 Pocket revolver that he keeps in a breast-pocket holster that allows him to draw it with either hand in an emergency.

In the river crossing scene, Wales uses a Sharps 1865 Sniper Rifle fitted with a full-length J. Stevens brass tube target scope to shoot the ferry rope in two, leaving the pursuing Redlegs stranded in the water with their horses. Later, he uses the rifle as a flag pole when approaching the Comancheros, before using it to shoot one of them off their horses.

Though it is anachronistic for the time period, Union troops use two Colt 1872 Gatling Guns to kill Wales’ comrades after they surrender. Afterward, Wales kills the gunner and loader on one of the carts and uses it to kill a number of Union troops and destroy the other gun. According to imfdb.org, one of the guns used in the film was sold at auction for $30,000 and it was listed as a Colt 1872 in .45-70 caliber.

The Enforcer (1976 - Dirty Harry series)

For the third installement in the Dirty Harry franchise, Eastwood is back playing Callahan with his trusty Model 29 revolver. In the beginning of the film, the closest thing Harry has to a friend and sometimes partner Frank DiGiorgio (John Mitchum) is killed by a group of militants stealing guns and rocket launchers. Harry is again saddled with a new partner a female officer on her first assignment as Inspector played by Tyne Daly, who carries the 2-inch barrel version of the Colt Diamondback revolver. You can tell it isn’t a Python from the trigger guard.

You know the old rule of Chekhov’s Rocket Launcher: if you show an M72A1 LAW rocket launcher in the first act…

While the militants use the stolen anti-tank weapon to destroy a truck, Harry gets his chance behind the M72’s trigger at the end of the movie, when he uses it to end the big showdown on Alcatraz to blow up the tower where Maxwell has taken cover. It represents the first time the rocket launcher was featured on screen. Since then it’s been featured in dozens of titles.

Firefox (1982)

Eastwood did five movies before returning for another Dirty Harry flick. One of those movies was 1982’s Firefox, in which he plays retired Air Force Major Mitchell Grant, who is a Vietnam veteran and former POW. Because of his ability to speak Russian and his skills as a test pilot, Grant is tapped for a mission to steal a highly advanced Soviet fighter plane, codenamed “Firefox” which is capable of going Mach 6, is invisible to radar, and carries a weapons payload controlled by the pilot’s thoughts. Yeah, it was one of those 1980s “Oh my God, computers! They can do anything!” movies.

Though most of the movie consists of Grant getting to the plane itself, about $20 million of the film’s $21 million budget was spent on special effects.

During his mission into the Soviet Union, Grant uses a Walther PP series pistol as his covert sidearm.

Earlier in the film, Grant grabs a Remington 870 Police Folder pump-action shotgun to defend himself when a military helicopter lands at his cabin unannounced.

Sudden Impact (1983 - Dirty Harry series)

For the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact, Eastwood goes in a slightly different direction when it comes to handguns. The character is also taken out of his native San Francisco for the majority of the film, instead investigating a multiple murder case that leads him to the California town of Santa Cruz.

In the beginning of the film, Callahan returns with his Model 29 and delivers the famous “Go ahead, make my day” speech before taking out a bunch of bad guys trying to rob a restaurant. There's also another great line from that scene that gets overshadowed by the now-immortal tagline:

Harry: "Well, we're not just gonna let you walk outta here.

Armed Robber: "Who's we, sucker?"

Harry: "Smith. And Wesson. And me."

During a transition scene, we see Callahan setting up a makeshift shooting range near his car in the woods in order to try out a new acquisition: an AMP Auto Mag Model 180 chambered in .44 AMP. If you never heard of it, don’t feel bad. They haven’t been around for about 30 years.

The .44 Auto Mag was designed between 1966 and 1971 and produced until 1982 with the goal of bringing .44 Magnum power to a semi-auto pistol. The .44 Auto Mag cartridge was designed to shoot .429-inch, 240 grain bullets at about the same velocity as the .44 Magnum and we formed from cut-down .308 Winchester or .30-06 cases.

The pistol's relative short life span had less to do with the gun and more to do with constant leadership changes and bad decisions at AMP. The company ended up losing more than $1,000 on each gun they sold, which retailed wholesale for about $170. They intentionally under-priced to indicate market demand to potential investors. The guns sold for about $220 in the 1970s. Used Auto Mags sell for $3,000-$4,000 today.

Recently, rumors of the Auto Mag’s return have been circulating since Walter Sanford sold all the company assets, including the name and trademark to Auto Mag Ltd. Corp. in August 2015.

Callahan keeps the semi-auto in a wood case with two spare magazines, though it seems he keeps the gun unloaded. Apparently, the production crew had a tough time acquiring an Auto Mag. They actually had to contact the original designer who built two guns for the film from parts in his basement. The first was left in live fire mode so Eastwood could shoot it and accurately depict recoil. The second gun was converted to fire blanks for the movie. The serial numbers on the guns were “Clint1” and “Clint2”.

From a tactical standpoint, the Auto Mag gave Harry two additional rounds over his Model 29, and much faster reloads, even though Harry uses speedloaders for his revolver.

In the film, he has to retrieve the Auto Mag from his rented room when his Model 29 is kicked off a dock by the leader of a group of rapists and thugs, Mick (Paul Drake) and uses it for the remainder of the film to go up against the gang and avenge the death of his friend Horace King (Albert Popwell), and the beating of his dog, “Meathead.”

City Heat (1984)

In 1984, Eastwood was cast in City Heat, a period gangster film in which producers attempted to pair him with Burt Reynolds. The movie was a success, but not the hit the studio thought it would be. The movie takes place in 1933 Kansas City near the end of Prohibition. Speer (Eastwood) is a police lieutenant who is buddies and rivals with a former cop turned private eye Mike Murphy (Reynolds).

At one point, Speer uses a M1911A1 taken from a thug to threaten Dub Slack (Jude Farese).

In a comical scene, Murphy pulls a long-barreled artillery model of the Luger P08 before the gun battle at the warehouse. As a rebuttal, Speer pulls a ridiculously long Colt Buntline Special revolver from his coat, which is a Colt SAA with a 12-inch barrel.

During the gunfight, Eastwood also uses a Winchester 1897 pump-action shotgun.

Pale Rider (1985)

As he is wont to do every couple of years, Eastwood returned to westerns in 1985 with Pale Rider. As the Book of Revelations-referencing title indicates, the hero of the story, a mysterious unnamed preacher (Eastwood) protects a humble prospector village from a greedy mining company trying to take their land.

While it was a return to westerns for the actor, it wasn’t a return to the Colt SAA. In PR, Preacher carries a Remington 1858 New Army revolver with a cartridge conversion. He also carries several pre-loaded cylinders to use like a modern speed loader. Though it isn’t particularly easy to swap out the cylinders on some converted 1858 revolvers, with practice and the right gun, it could be faster than unloading and loading each chamber through the loading gate.

Perhaps in a nod to his previous character Josey Wales, Preacher carries a backup gun tucked into his gun belt with the butt to the left so he can draw it easily with his left hand. This time, it’s a Remington 1858 Pocket revolver in .31 caliber converted to fire metallic cartridges.

Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

The following year, Eastwood followed up with a new military film, but this time, it was set in the present day of 1986. In Heartbreak Ridge, he plays Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway, a Marine Corps NCO and Medal of Honor recipient.

The title is a reference to the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge in the Korean War. Highway earned his MOH during the battle while serving in the U.S. Army before joining the Marines.

Highway is nearing mandatory retirement age and finagles a transfer back to his old unit, where he proceeds to whip the young Marines into shape. The movie is notoriously over-the-top, depicting a lack of discipline in the Marine Corps that man found objectionable. When approached before the film’s production, the Army refused to participate due to Highway being portrayed as a hard drinker, divorced from his wife, and using unapproved motivational methods on his troops. The Army reportedly called the character a “stereotype” of World War II and Korean War attitudes that did not exist in the modern army of the 1980s…plus the “obscene dialogue.”

According to Wikipedia, Eastwood pleaded his case to an Army general, contending that while the point of the movie was that Highway was a throwback to a previous generation, and that there were values in the World War II and Korea War era armies that were worth emulating. The Army didn’t agree, but the USMC provided its support, so Highway became a Marine in the movie. The movie has since become an ‘80s cult movie favorite.

In the film, Highway and most of the Marines use semi-auto slab-sided AR-15 rifles as well as full-auto M16A1s. In the photo below, Highway puts three rounds in the center ring with an AR-15, demonstrating that there’s nothing wrong with Lance Cpl. Fraghetti’s rifle.

During the training portion of the film, Highway regularly uses an AKM standing in for an AK-47 so his recruits learn the distinctive sound of the “preferred weapon of our enemy.”

The Dead Pool (1988 - Dirty Harry series)

In 1988, Eastwood was back for his last go as Inspector Harry Callahan in The Dead Pool who finds himself trying to solve a series of murders in San Francisco that appears to bel inked to al list of celebrities who were included in a tontine list. The film includes a young Liam Neeson and one of Jim Carrey’s first film roles as a drug-addicted rocker.

The Model 29 Callahan carries in the fifth Dirty Harry movies appears to have lighter colored grips than his previous revolvers, which makes sense since his gun was kicked into a bay in the last film. The only other gun Harry uses in the movie is a gigantic spear gun during the film’s final battle.

White Hunter Black Heart (1990)

Clint Eastwood began yet another decade of filmmaking with 1990’s White Hunter Black Heart in which he plays the brash John Wilson, a character based on real-life director John Huston from the 1953 book by the same name. Wilson travels to Africa for his next film. While there, he becomes obsessed with hunting elephants while neglecting the preparations for the film, leading to conflicts between him and his crew.

Wilson concedes that killing an elephant is tantamount to “a sin” but he cannot overcome his desire to bring down a giant bull with its extremely valuable ivory tusks.

Eastwood carries a Holland & Holland Double Rifle in the film valued at about $70,000. The rifle was sold back to H&H “unharmed, unscratched, unused.” The real Huston also had a Holland & Holland while he was in Africa filming The African Queen in 1951.

The other rifle Wilson uses is a Mannlicher Schoenauer sporting carbine fitted with a scope, which he is seen purchasing from store early in the movie. Eastwood also directed this film, in which he plays a film director. (That must have caused some crossed wires at times.)

The Rookie (1990)

Eastwood continued what would be one of his busiest years for film releases with The Rookie, a buddy cop movie Eastwood also directed that teamed him up with the popular Charlie Sheen as the titular rookie cop who gets teamed with the veteran Nick Pulovski (Eastwood). They embark to take down a German crime lord in downtown Los Angeles in a movie meant to capitalize on the popularity of the new genre created by Lethal Weapon in 1987, and was full of elaborate pyrotechnics and stunt work.

Previously, the most modern semi-auto handgun Eastwood ever carried on film was the Auto Mag from Sudden Impact. That changed in this film, as Pulovski carries a Smith & Wesson 4506 as his main sidearm throughout the movie. The .45 ACP pistol had been recently approved at the time by the LAPD as an optional carry gun in addition to the Beretta 92FS.

Oddly enough, this film and not a Dirty Harry movie, marks the last time Eastwood has used a Model 29 on film. Pulovski grabs a Model 29 after taking a beating to chase Strong (Raul Julia) through LAX airport. Later, he takes the bullet that hangs around Strom’s neck and loads it in the gun.

Pulovski is also seen using a Smith & Wesson Model 28 in the airport.

Unforgiven (1992)

Two years later, Eastwood released the movie that would be the jewel of his later acting career and his directorial career as well as his last western. Unforgiven was a film considered to provide a rebirth of the western genre that dispelled many of the cliches of previous films set in the time period, replacing them with more realistic and conflicted characters and circumstances.

The film, which Eastwood dedicated to the late Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, won four Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman) and Best Film Editing. Eastwood was nominated for Best Actor for his role as William Munny, but lost to Al Pacino for his role in Scent of a Woman.

An interesting bit of trivia: the boots Eastwood wore in this movie are the same ones he wore while acting in the TV series Rawhide in the 1950s and 60s.

Unforgiven is only the third wester to ever with the Best Picture award following Cimarron (1931) and Dances With Wolves (1990).

At the beginning of the film, we see Munny practice with a Starr 1858 Army percussion revolver in .44 caliber that has been stored away in his home for many years. He tries to shoot a can from a wooden post, only to find he’s lost his aim since the last time he pulled the trigger.

The Starr was unique in that it was a double-action-only percussion revolver used in the western theater of the American Civil War. The cylinder could also be quickly removed by pulling forward on the cylinder pin. The revolver also included a safety that held the hammer away from the percussion cap under it so the gun could be carried with all its five cylinders loaded, unlike the Colt which required one of its 6 chambers to remain uncapped when carried so the hammer couldn’t accidentally discharge it. Starr also produced a single action version in 1863.

During the target shooting scene, you can see the Starr’s double action correctly portrayed by Eastwood’s long, smooth trigger pull. When he misses the can with the Starr, Munny proceeds to fetch a 10-gauge shotgun from the house. He does not miss with that. Later, Sheriff Little Bill Dagget (Hackman) takes Munny’s Starr before beating him nearly to death the night he arrives in Little Whiskey.

When the trio of Munny, The Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) and Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) carry out the murder contract on one of the cowboys who cut Delilah’s face, they use Ned’s Spencer 1860 Saddle Ring Carbine for the long-range shot. It’s revealed that it was Ned’s preferred gun when the two men used to ride together, and that he was a crack shot with it. After he can’t bring himself to kill the outlaw, he gives the rifle to Munny, who delivers the fatal shot, after missing a few times. “I ain’t never been too good with one of these.”

During the movie’s final shootout, Munny grabs the rifle and uses it again in the bar, at one point reloading the tubular magazine that he removes from the shoulder stock. During the same shootout, Munny also uses his W. Richards 10 Gauge Double Barreled Shotgun with most of the finish worn off. He actually only gets to fire it once, killing Skinny Dubois (Anthony James) for displaying Ned’s dead body outside his bar. He then attempts to shoot Little Bill, but the shotgun misfires, likely from being in the pouring rain.

The surprise of the gun not going off gives him enough time to draw the Smith & Wesson Schofield Model 3 from his holster. He got the break-action revolver from The Kid when he learned of Ned’s death and began drinking the bottle of whiskey. The Kid happily gives it over after claiming he doesn’t want to kill anyone else, ever again. Munny uses it to great effect in the Saloon, using it to kill most of Little Bill’s deputies.

In the Line of Fire (1993)

The following year, Eastwood stars as aging Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan, who was assigned to protect John F. Kennedy when he was a young agent. Horrigan was actually running alongside the limo in Dallas in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated.

Now, a clever assassin and former CIA hitman, Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) has targeted not only the current president, but Horrigan as well, striving for some poetic bookending of Kennedy’s assassination and his own would-be assassination of the fictional President, who is never named.

Leary plays on Horrigan's guilt over being the only Secret Service agent to have ever lost a president during a legthy cat and mouse game of phone calls and deliberate clues.

Horrigan, along with the other Secret Service agents in the film, carries a SIG-Sauer P228. At the time the film was made, the P228 was the actual sidearm carried by agents of the agency, before the agency switched to the P229.

While undercover at the beginning of the movie, Horrigan carries a Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolver during his meeting with Mendoza (Tobin Bell). It’s possible the revolver was his sidearm in the SS before the agency moved to semi-autos.

Blood Work (2002)

In 2002 Eastwood starred in Blood Work playing Terry McCaleb, a retired FBI agent who suffered from a bad heart. Ironically, after investigating homicides and profiling killers his entire career, he receives the heart of a murder victim in a transplant operation.

Later, while living on a houseboat, he is approached by Graciella Rivers, a woman whose sister was killed during a robbery. Things get personal when McCaleb realizes the victim is the woman whose heart is beating in his chest. Defying the advice of his doctors, McCaleb sets out to find the killer with the help of his neighbor and a local police detective.

McCaleb carries a snubby Smith & Wesson Model 627 as his sidearm through the movie. The gun is actually a special version of the robust revolver featuring an unusual barrel profile and an 8-shot cylinder made by the S&W Performance Center. The gun also has a fluted cylinder, not common to the snub-nose version of the 627, and Hogue grips.

When McCaleb spots a suspect observing him from a parked car, he takes a Remington 870 Police pump-action shotgun with newer-style black polymer furniture from a detective’s trunk and fires at the man as he speeds off. The shotgun includes a 6-shell side-saddle carrier on the receiver.

Gran Torino (2008)

In 2008, Eastwood took his second to last role to date, and his last role that called for him being armed. In Gran Torino, which Eastwood also directed, he plays Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed veteran of the Korean War, who has alienated himself from his family over the years and is now angry at the world, and alone. Walt’s young neighbor, Thao Vang Lor, is pressured by his cousin into stealing Walt’s prized 1972 Ford Gran Torino as an initiation into a gang.

Walt thwarts the robber by discovering the boy while armed with the M1 Garand rifle that he kept from the war. He uses the rifle to chase the boy from his garage and to later scare the Hmong gang members off his property in the now infamous “Get off my lawn” scene.

Kowalski also keeps an M1911 pistol, which it is assumed he also kept from the war, in his truck. He uses it to scare some unsavory characters away from Thao’s sister Sue Lor (Ahney Her) and carries it in his belt without a holster in several scenes.

And here, as a final rumination on his long career, are 170 of Clint Eastwood's greatest one-liners and another compilation of his on-screen shootouts.

WARNING, a little adult language ahead.

"You got any kids, lieutenant?"

"No."

"Lucky for them."

Yeah Clint. Yeah.

170 Greatest Clint Eastwood Quotes

Clint Eastwood's Best Shootouts