Old West Sourcebooks?

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by Dunadin777

I'm thinking of doing a special campaign sometime in the future set in the Wild West. Specifically, I'm looking at doing something within a few years of the end of the American Civil War. I know there's a GURPS Old West book for 3e, but I'm wondering how useful that will be for making a campaign in 4e--whether it retains its value as a guide for creating a setting in the current edition, and so on.

Some other sourcebooks I'm looking at right now...
Knuckleduster's Firearms shop and Cowtown Creator: I'm certainly going to be picking up Cowtown Creator, but I'm not too sure about the Firearms Shop. It says it contains 80 period weapons with a detailed treatment and some interviews with police with gunfight experience. I'm not sure how this might compare with the information already presented in High-Tech and other supplements.
Precis Intermedia's Shady Gulch Revisited: I've heard of this being another useful setting book, with a detailed treatment of one specific town.

Do any of you have these books? What's your input on how useful they will be? Any other suggestions for books would be appreciated, particularly if they won't require much translating from other systems(generic stuff would be great).

Both of the Knuckleduster books are excellent. The firearms book goes through a number of period firearms in a qualitative fashion that should give you a good handle on them. Add High Tech and Tactical Shooting for realism. And the 3e GURPS sourcebook is quite good, giving a nice overview of the genre and era. Ultimately, it depends on what you want to do, exactly. Post civil war is pretty much the quintessential "old west" period, so most "old west" supplements should speak to it (Deadlands included, with the exception of anything dealing with weirdness). Thaumatology provides the alternative magic systems that might work well for "historical" Indian magic (or Occidental, for that matter).

If you're doing a straight up Old West game (realistic or cinematic) without obvious magic/supernatural events, I recommend picking up something by Louis L'amour. Those books run around 150 pages and can be read in a day or so, but give you great adventure ideas.