Normally, James Arness' character, U.S. Marshal Matthew Dillon carried a Colt Single Action Army with a 7 1/2 inch barrel - a fairly unusual choice for the hero character in those days. Usually the good guys carried shorter barreled models and the baddies carried the long barrels.
The actual revolvers normally used in the TV show, however, were not genuine Colts. Instead they used a Colt replica made under the name Great Western, not to be confused with the currently manufactured Great Western II revolvers. The Great Westerns, also known as California Colts, were used in many movies and TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s. They were pretty good replicas for the era, but they had a very distinctive and fake looking faux stag-horn grip option, seen here: http://www.sixguns.com/galleries/images/21.jpg, which may be clearly viewed during the closing credits of every Gunsmoke episode,
It currently resides in the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, WY.
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