Average wages ranged from 40 cents to a dollar per day. An acre of land cost around $5. The era’s standard muzzleloading rifle could be purchased for $8. So, in 1849, when Christian Sharps introduced his newly patented “slanting breech action” percussion rifle—which fired paper cartridges loaded from the wrong end of the barrel—hunters must have been shocked at the price tag near $30!

Yet it wasn’t long before Sharps’ rifles began earning their absolute iconic status in American history.

Interestingly, Sharps, born on this day in 1810, never got rich from his invention. Lack of funding forced him to subcontract manufacturing to outside firms. Eventually, investors built a factory in Connecticut and the Sharps Rifle Co. seemed on the verge of fortune, but personality clashes drove Sharps from the company in 1855. Today’s prize is among the last of the Sharps rifles engineered by Sharps himself.

Sharps moved on, collecting $1 royalty on each rifle sold, to form C. Sharps & Co., which made four-barrel pepperbox pistols, another of his innovative designs. He died of tuberculosis in 1874. Seven years later, in 1881, the original rifle company that bore his name would close its doors to bankruptcy.

In just 32 years of existence, Sharps rifles etched a permanent place in firearms lore. Military models were so popular in the Civil War, one Union sharpshooter regiment threatened mutiny when it was shipped Colt revolving rifles instead of the Sharps rifles it had been promised. Sporting models, ideal for hunting especially in the wide-open West, were renowned for the biggest of big game: elk, buffalo, bear.

Replica Sharps are still produced by several makers, but the originals—like the one we’re giving away in today’s prize drawing—grow more scarce, collectible and valuable as time goes on. Good luck!

Before the battle, Lakota leader Sitting Bull had a vision in which he saw many U.S. soldiers, “thick as grasshoppers,” falling upside down into a Lakota camp. His people took it as a foreshadowing of a great victory to come. It came true on this date in 1876, as warriors annihilated U.S. Cavalry forces on the grassy breaks of the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory.

Even now, 147 years later, historians debate how that outcome was shaped by flawed military strategy, miscalculation, ego, fatigue and, of course, weaponry.

Cavalry troops, famously led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and numbering 323, had been issued trapdoor Springfield Model 1873 carbines. The little single-shot rifles were chambered for big .45-70 rounds and could be fired accurately 12-15 times per minute.

Across the battlefield were 2,500 Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors. They wielded bows and arrows but also were surprisingly, devastatingly, well-armed with gunpowder weapons. In the 1980s, archaeologists unearthed cartridges, cases and bullets representing 45 different firearm types (including Cavalry guns). The Indians, researchers learned, had used a variety of breechloaders and muzzleloaders. More importantly, they also had many repeating arms—Spencers, Henrys, Evans and Winchesters. These rifles could send bullets toward soldiers much faster than the Springfields could return fire. Custer’s men were outgunned as well as outnumbered.

Today’s winner will receive two period-authentic collectibles that tell this part of the Little Bighorn story.

Exact serial numbers of the Springfields used at the battle are unknown. Historians say guns between 1 and 43,700 could have been there. Today’s Springfield prize is “Custer range.” The Spencer could have been there, too. Manufactured in the 1860s, this old repeater is still decorated with the brass tacks that many Native Americans, especially in the West, once used to personalize their rifles.

Hopelessly surrounded by raging inferno, forest exploding into flames in every direction, the fire-crew chief ordered his men to safety in an old mineshaft, but his shouts were lost in the deafening roar of wind, crashing trees and fire.

Then, through blinding, choking smoke, the frantic firefighters saw Ed Pulaski draw his Smith & Wesson .44 caliber revolver, point it at them, and aggressively motion them into the tunnel.

Inside, now panicked at the thought of being trapped and burned alive, some sobbed, others prayed. One jumped to his feet and rushed to escape until Pulaski threatened to shoot him. Then fire swept over the entrance. One by one, 45 men and two horses lost consciousness as the searing heat sucked oxygen from the mine. Pulaski later remembered the support timbers along the ceiling catching fire. He used his hat to dip water from a trickle on the floor, throwing it on the burning timbers, before he too passed out.

In the early morning hours of this day in 1910, Pulaski and 40 survivors dragged themselves out of their would-be tomb and started toward Wallace, Idaho, for help.

The five who died were among 87 known fatalities of the great fire that blackened 3 million acres—an area approximately the size of Connecticut—across North Idaho and Western Montana. The big blowup driven by hurricane winds on August 20-21 remains an unprecedented and historic tragedy.

Today, of course, wildfire impacts elk country almost every summer. Over the past two years alone, RMEF committed more than $1 million for restoration efforts, and since 1984 has completed over 1,500 different projects specific to fire-related habitat treatments. The conservation benefits span 1.3 million acres across 23 states!

Our prize giveaway today is dedicated to Pulaski, who used his gun to save many lives.

For most of the world, today is all about hi-tech commerce, but Gun-Day Monday is sticking to its own tradition: We’re not selling anything—just giving away an old rifle rich in obsolescent glory!

In 1876, following the successes of its Models 1866 and 1873, Winchester launched its first rifle built especially for elk country. Coinciding with America’s 100th Birthday celebration, the new “Centennial Model” was introduced at the first World’s Fair in Philadelphia. A promotional brochure explained:

“…the constant calls from many sources, and particularly from the regions in which the grizzly bear and other large game are found, as well as from the plains where the absence of cover and the shyness of game require the hunter to make shots at long range, made it desirable for the company to build a still more powerful gun.”

The earliest Model 1876s were chambered for monster cartridges: .40-60, .45-60, .45-75, even .50-95 Express—the only repeater to see widespread use by professional buffalo hunters. Model 1876s were issued to the Texas Rangers. Theodore Roosevelt used one on Western hunts. Geronimo had a ‘76 when he surrendered in 1886. No-nonsense “Stagecoach Mary” Fields (see photo), the first African American female star-route mail carrier in the U.S., carried one during her deliveries through the raw wilds of Montana in the late 1800s. But no one used the Winchester Model 1876 more famously than the Canadian North-West Mounted Police, who were issued the rifles in 1883.

The American public’s fascination with “the Mounties” was pure marketing serendipity for Winchester. The image of a red-uniformed officer, working all alone deep in the wilderness, facing down large groups of hostile natives with unassailable authority, bringing in conniving lawbreakers, fending off surprise attacks by big hungry predators, helped cement Winchester as a rifle of utmost reliability.