Famous Frontier firearms professional and modern-day “Buffalo Invoice,” Phil Spangenberger had shut ties to the household and founding of Cimarron Firearms.
On Sept. 26, 2024, the passing of Phillip Howard Spangenberger was quietly introduced on a number of on-line platforms. For many who knew the person, it was a blow to the cowboy motion taking pictures and cowboy mounted taking pictures group, the firearms media household, and the Harvey household that based and operates Cimarron Firearms nonetheless right this moment.
Phil was born in Miami, Florida, however the name of the West introduced him to California at a younger age. His fascination with Previous West Lore grew into an encyclopedic information of firearms from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Within the early Nineteen Seventies, Phil mixed his love of Frontier firearms together with his ability as a horseman and took his Wild West present on the street throughout America and overseas. Phil is credited with the event of the Cowboy Mounted Taking pictures occasions and competitions, during which mounted riders have been judged on their capacity to attract a firearm, intention, and precisely hit targets whereas the horse galloped by a course.
Finish of Path 1993 with Allen Wah, founding father of Wahmaker clothes, Mike Harvey, President of Cimarron Firearms, and Phil Spangenberger, Firearms Professional.
“Buffalo Invoice,” Phil Spangenberger
In retaining his Wild West exhibits genuine to the interval, Phil realized that the clothes obtainable was a far cry from what individuals wore within the Previous West. He was the primary to supply interval clothes and authentically reproduced gun holsters from the interval. His firms, Pink River Western Put on and Previous West Gun Holsters, additionally provided weapons, gear, and attire to Hollywood prop firms for the films and tv collection westerns. His ability with firearms as a quick-draw and shot artist, to his huge storehouse of gun information, made him invaluable as a marketing consultant on Hollywood units. Phil educated actors in the usage of firearms, consulted on period-correct firearms, saddlery, and extra on a wide range of movies, TV exhibits, and documentaries. He personally educated such well-known actors as Charles Heston, Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Rob Lowe, Catherine O’Hara, Paul ‘Crocodile Dundee’ Hogan, and Patrick Swayze. Phil introduced all his expertise and information collectively in his years as a preferred author, first as Blackpowder Editor for Weapons & Ammo Journal, then as Firearms Editor at True West Journal. He made the Previous West come alive once more on the pages of the magazines. Followers would point out they might really feel the warmth of a desert solar, style the mud, and scent the leather-based in his articles. He made heroes and villains come alive once more.
By means of all his endeavors as a reenactor, businessman, historian, and storyteller, Phil was additionally an avid collector of Frontier firearms. By means of his connections, he met one other collector and entrepreneur, Mike Harvey, and his spouse, Mary Lou. Mike operated a Houston-based retail retailer “Bigfoot,” named after considered one of Mike’s childhood heroes, “Bigfoot” Wallace, a legend in Texas. Initially, the shop specialised within the shopping for and promoting of Previous West revolvers and rifles and finally grew to become a distributor for Western Arms, importers of Uberti “cowboy” type firearms. When Mike purchased out Western Arms and needed to begin a brand new firm devoted to bringing actually authentic-style replicas to the American public, he reached out to long-time buddy and assured, Phil Spangenberger. If anybody encompassed the spirit of the Previous West by and thru, it was Phil. After some thought, Phil advised that there was actually just one phrase that described what the West was to him, and that phrase was Cimarron. Henceforth, Mike and Mary Lou Harvey named their new enterprise Cimarron Firearms, the primary firm to supply unique finishes on modern-produced replicas.
Phil had developed an in depth relationship with the Harvey’s and continued to offer assist. Because the Blackpowder Editor for Weapons & Ammo journal, Phil usually reviewed Cimarron Firearms. Bryce Wayt, VP of Operations and Media for Cimarron, recalled when as a younger Western film fanatic and rock musician, he had requested Jamie Harvey, daughter of Mike and Mary Lou, then a rock and steel blogger, on a primary date. Another get-together was advised by Jamie to go to the Autry Museum of the American West; a alternative Bryce discovered odd, however Jamie insisted was for “work.” It was on the L.A. Museum devoted to preserving the tales of the American West that Bryce met Phil Spangenberger. Phil offered the backdrop to the various artifacts on the museum, offering the couple with anecdotes and tales from way back on the frontier. “That man” who Bryce first assumed should be a museum information, turned out to be an in depth household buddy, offering the casual training on a tradition nonetheless needing to be preserved and carried ahead. Quick ahead, Bryce and Jamie married, and whereas working for Cimarron Firearms, Phil, alongside Bryce, labored on many Cimarron catalogs, utilizing his weapons experience to offer correct specs and the tales behind so a lot of Cimarron’s superb reproductions.
Within the following years, the friendship between the Cimarron household and Phil Spangenberger continued. Phil appeared on The Story of Cimarron Firearms YouTube collection offering context to the historical past of the Previous West firearms and the Cimarron story. Phil and Mike usually hunted collectively and supported the rising sports activities of Cowboy Motion Taking pictures and Cowboy Mounted Taking pictures. The final hunt that they had deliberate, sadly, had been postponed on account of Phil’s well being.
“Phil was the true deal, he beloved and lived a life that’s now not current in our present society,” Mike Harvey, CEO of Cimmaron Firearms, mirrored. “He preserved the previous and shared his enthusiasm and wealth of information with a beneficiant coronary heart. So many individuals have been touched by his particular capacity to reconjure the previous and produce the tales of the American West alive, by his work in Hollywood movies, reenactments, writing, and his action-packed Wild West Exhibits. He will probably be significantly missed and we want him peace in his closing experience into the sundown.”
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