Blame it on G.E. Lewis. I don't have the date of this ad, but VL&D were the U.S. agents for G.E. Lewis in 1923.



Greener used the term in the 1907 edition of "The Gun"
https://books.google.com/books?id=3HMCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA378&vq

Then there were all the "Long Rangers". Parker "Long Range" in the 1894-95 Montgomery Ward catalog