Rain and overcast skies didn't extend much of a welcome to the troupe that assembled in Sedona to film Gunfighters on Sept. 9, 1946. Ten days later, lingering bad weather had cost the production more than 20 hours of downtime; figuring the picture's cost averaged slightly less than $2,000 an hour, its veteran producer Harry Joe Brown estimated the rain had washed away some $38,000 from his budget.

Gunfighters was based on the Zane Grey novel Twin Sombreros, unpublished until 1941, three years after the author's death. It was the second of four films featuring Randolph Scott that used Sedona backgrounds (preceded by 1940's Virginia City, and followed by Albuquerque and Coroner Creek, both 1948).