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Writer's pictureRed Nichols the Holstorian

"It Must Be Jelly 'Cause Jam Don't Shake Like That!"

Updated: Aug 25

That really is the correct way to say that, because the headline is from a Glenn Miller single of 1944. Even the year is perfect for 'our' Jelly:


I understand from an FOH that there is a thread running on FB about Jelly Bryce. Today I reckon I have the only complete reference library about Jelly Bryce and his mysterious (no more) wife Sandra Bryce nee Minnie Kirkman. Prior authors didn't ever know who she was!


The storyline is that perhaps another Jelly revolver has been found. No, not THAT Jelly revolver he called 'Lucky' and with which he shot many, many men. This one is a 2" in .38 S&W (so .38 Short) that Boothroyd only incidentally replicated (down to the caliber) in creating his own Fitzed revolver.


Knowing that Jelly's mate Jerry (Jelly and Jerry? Got to be a connection with those two, perhaps somebody had a lisp or a left palate) had the same revolver in his collection (best pics are in Holstory, both editions) caused me to think that perhaps they had identical armouries. Because . . . both their .44 revolvers from Smith were identical, and both of their Myres holsters for the Smiths were identical; so if the small .38s were identical, then perhaps also missing are Jelly's Brill and his Clark spring holster, plus at least one .357:

Both .44s came from Wolf & Klar for the two men's service at OCPD in the early 1930s. Quick trip south to a shop that also sold . . . the Brills scabbards:

Below, like Jerry's real scabbard, the Brill pictured is an 'early' by Charles Kluge, and Jerry joined Oklahoma City P.D. in 1930 ('earlies' are before 1932):


And another FOH tells us this:


"A number of years ago I had a chance to buy his Colt Trooper 357 four inch for $850 and now rather wish I had although I typically don’t buy guns from famous people but still….

I also remember when Jerry Campbell’s stuff was up for sale including a 17 inch pump 12 gauge he took away from a guy he shot and killed. i was puzzled how he managed to do it as they were pretty picky about taking weapons at the bureau but then i learned that was when he was with the Oklahoma City police so it made sense". So there was a Colt, too.


Oh yeah, Jelly's .357 is kicking around somewhere; here it is, 'on the cover of a magazine' (thanks, Madonna):

Perhaps that's his original Myres with the later silver plate attached to it, above and below? (the upper image is acknowledged to have been 'flopped' by the artist). 1961.


More about Jelly's "FBI" Draw, which is as if from The Rocky Horror Picture Show musical:



Notice, above, how Jelly's elbow has swung out significantly. I call this 'the sling draw', the Kelley article calls it 'throwing'.


Above is one of four contemporaneous newspaper articles about Jelly's killing of a man named O'Donnell; this one is like another two in making the claim that O'Donnell was a crim but a fourth article acknowledges that he was instead the lover of the landlady and had armed himself believing that the pounding on the door was an angry husband. So Jelly 'shot the wrong man in the head, five times".


Notice in another of the articles above, that there is another reference to firing five shots, then reloading; you don't supposed those dumbasses were loading only five in their Hand Ejector revolvers, in the manner of the Colt single action revolvers, do you?

To read more about it all in my book titled "Holstory -- Gunleather of the Twentieth Century

-- the Second Edition", click on the new link at top of page.

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