Factual error: The rifle model which the rifleman used was manufactured in 1892, but the film takes place in 1881.
Factual error: Lucas is constantly twirling the rifle after rapid firing a few shots. Since the cocking ring is set on semi-automatic, the rifle should fire as it comes around.
Suggested correction: He twirls the rifle in the opening of the show, after he's just emptied it completely.
The original comment doesn't state the beginning of the show. This does happen throughout the series.
Continuity mistake: Mark and Vern sit at a table in the hotel dining room. After they order beef stew, Vern sets his menu on top of a plate. When Lucas enters and sits down, the menu has vanished.
Factual error: Lucas is wearing a pair of jeans with a large "W" stitched on the right back pocket. These are Wrangler jeans, which first went on sale in 1947. "The Rifleman" is set in the 1880s.
Continuity mistake: The wagon is full of bundles of barbed wire when the boy falls off his horse and into the barbed wire fence. The boy is injured and loaded into the same wagon, that is now completely empty.
Character mistake: Micah is clean-shaven but he enters the barber shop and asks for a shave.
Continuity mistake: During most of the show Billy is wearing a shirt and vest. When he starts to go outside to face his ex partner it shows him wearing the vest. When he stands up to go outside he has coat on. When he gets outside he's back in the vest.
Strange Town - S3-E5
Revealing mistake: After Micah is badly beaten, he's leaning on a barbed wire fence. The camera pushes in from behind him as the wire grows closer to the camera. Someone off-screen pulls it down out of the shot.
Other mistake: You can see a plane taking off between the leaves of a tree and into the opening as it passes the tree, while Mark and Lucas are talking. (00:22:15)
Closer Than a Brother - S3-E22
Revealing mistake: In the saloon, Micah announces he is resigning as sheriff. He sets two bottles of liquor on the bar and Lucas McCain immediately slaps them away. The bottles are obviously not real because they shatter into hundreds of pieces as soon as Lucas touches them.
Revealing mistake: Two former Civil War officers prepare to make camp in a sandy area surrounded by large rock formations. It is obvious that they are on an indoor set. As one man takes a few steps, the sound of his boots hitting the wooden platform beneath the sand can be heard.
Revealing mistake: Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) spends a night in North Fork while the wheel of a stagecoach he is riding in is being repaired. Clemens is fishing at a lake and Mark McCain says, "You've caught a fish " Clemens tells the boy to reel in the fish. The boy jerks the rod and pulls the fish out of the water. The fish is obviously a fake which a stagehand had attached to the hook. The fish is motionless and is not even wet.
Quiet Night, Deadly Night - S5-E4
Character mistake: Nils is playing checkers with Mark. Nils calls him "Mark" then "John." (00:20:35)
Suggested correction: He says "now", not "John." After he Mark says he remembers it like it was yesterday, Nils says "go on, it's your move now."
Other mistake: At the beginning of the episode, Lucas and Mark are riding their horses and discover a large footprint of a cougar. Near the end of the episode, Lucas is riding in a different area and sees another cougar footprint. The close-up of the footprint is the same one that was shown earlier. (00:01:00 - 00:21:00)
Factual error: Lucas and Mark are traveling on what is said to be the first train to ever reach the town of North Fork. The episode is set in the 1880s and the train shown was part of the M.K. & T. Railroad, which at that time was operating only in Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma. The fictional town of North Fork is located in New Mexico Territory.
Requiem at Mission Springs - S5-E22
Other mistake: After Mark falls from a horse and is paralyzed, Doc Burrage recommends that Mark soak his legs in the Mission Springs mineral spring. Lucas, Mark and Lou drive a wagon to the site. At night they all complain about how cold it is and there is a steady sound of wind blowing but all the trees and bushes are motionless.
Factual error: Ralph Hayden hires Mario Rosati to kill Lucas McCain, who had shot and wounded Hayden many years before. Hayden says McCain previously lived in Enid, Oklahoma. "The Rifleman" is set in the 1880s and Enid did not exist until 1893. (00:01:10)
Continuity mistake: Lucas, Micah and Joe are riding to the home of Old Tony and the sleeves of Lucas' long-sleeved shirt are rolled up. In a long shot, as Tony watches the men approach, Lucas' sleeves are down. In the following close-up, the sleeves are rolled up.
