April 20, 2002

AVING SPENT NEARLY EVERY WEEKEND in March shooting in the Iron Gun Tournament, I wasn't too upset about not being able to make my usual two matches at the beginning of April. I needed to shoot at least once, though, so I wouldn't completely lose out on the progress I'd made shooting six matches in a month. So 'Wiz and I cruised down to Fayetteville to spend a day with the Cross Creek Cowboys.

It was a hot one (humid, too), not at all typical weather for April, and there weren't a lot of guys at this match. At least the day was sunny and not raining and my Dad had built me a couple of brackets to hold a nice canvas umbrella on my guncart, so we had portable shade. This was also "End of Trail" time, which may have contributed to the low turnout. In any case, we formed one very relaxed posse and had a good time. Surprisingly enough, half of the cowboys were shooting blackpowder, which added a lot to the fun. Carolina Jack, Grizzly Greg, Royal Barnes and Carolina Leadfoot were all shooting Frontier Cartridge. There were a couple other guys that I hadn't met before (and now, of course, I don't remember their names), one of whom shot a pair of cap-and-ball '51 Navies and the other guy shot a Remington New Model Army cap-and-ball revolver in addition to his cartridge Colt. So it was a rather smoky match.

The shotgun targets were a lot of fun — they were silhouette pistol targets: pigs and turkeys, which when hit with a shotgun would fly off their little stands most satisfactorily. We shot six stages in three berms, thusly:

Stage One
I began behind a barrel on the left side of the stage and at the beep had to duck down, then pop up and say, "You no good, low-down liberals!" Both pistols were shot from this position: three targets, at least one shot on each target. I managed to miss once with each revolver and no longer had the pressure of a "clean match" to worry about. Holstering my gun, I moved to the center, picked up the shotgun and blasted the four little piggies off their stands. The rifle was staged to the far right and after firing a nine-round Nevada Sweep across five targets, I was done.

Stage Two
Unlike the previous stage, there was no movement here; everything was shot from the center. I double-tapped 5 rifle targets, then knocked off the three little pigs with my scattergun. Turning my attention to the three pistol targets, I began on the left target with the left revolver and shot 2-2-1. Drawing the right handgun, I made the return trip across the targets, 1-2-2 and done with no misses. A good stage for me!

Stage Three
"This is for my Sweet Patootie's honor!" was the opening line on this stage. "Sweet Patootie" bore a remarkable resemblence to one of the monsters in the classic kids' book Where the Wild Things Are, and we had to keep her with us at all times. After saying the line, I put ten rifle rounds into the big "mutant buffalo" target downrange, then picked up "Patootie" and moved to the right, where I shot an unusual sweep with my left pistol (T3, T2, T1, T3 & T2) then reversed that order with the right gun. Finished off with two shotgun blasts and no misses!

Stage Four
"Stampede!" was this stage's theme. I began seated on a bench with all weapons placed on the table a few feet in front of me. At the beep, I rushed forward, grabbed the rifle and put four rounds into the "mutant buffalo" and two more rounds into each of the other two rifle targets (8 rounds total). Shot both pistols onto three targets (2-1-2), then took out a mix of pigs and turkeys with four shotgun shells. I missed once with my right revolver, dang it!

Stage Five
A "thinking" stage, this one was a little strange. I began on the left side with my shotgun in hand. At the beep, I took out two targets with the scattergun, secured it drew my left revolver to sweep through three targets. I holstered that gun, picked up the shotgun and moved to the center, where I sent two more little targets flying. Putting down the double-barrel, I moved to the right and triple-tapped three rifle targets then finished with a three-target sweep using my right-side pistol. The left hand was my bane here, giving me two missed shots.

Stage Six
The wheels came off for me on this stage, and for others, too, though they did it on purpose. I guess the sun's heat and humidity (plus the fact that I was doing the "Cowboy-Must-Pee Dance" from all the liquids I'd been drinking) contributed to my miserable performance here. The setup was easy enough: I held a bag of "money" in my right hand and at the beep I attempted to throw the bag into a bucket for a five-second bonus. I missed the bucket, which should have told me something about how my shooting would go (to be fair, I think only two other guys actually got the bonus — it wasn't as easy as it sounds). I drew my left pistol to fire five shots into one target — and missed twice. I holstered that gun and pulled out my right-side revolver to shoot five more rounds into a target — and missed three more times! I couldn't believe it! After my first miss, I was trying to pay close attention to my sighting and trigger technique, all to no avail. I grabbed the Winchester and swept three rifle targets with three rounds each, then finished this display of poor shooting with two shotgun blasts. Bleah.

It was amusing to watch Carolina Leadfoot and Grizzly Greg try and shoot the little turkey targets. The birds were placed sideways on the stands, so there was just the 1/4-inch thickness of the steel as a target for their shotguns. The scatterguns belched out fire and smoke, but wouldn't drop those sideways birds. They each took a step to the right after each miss, until they had an angle to put enough pellets on-target and knock the steel birds off their perches. I think it took them each eight or ten rounds to do it — Royal Barnes saved Greg at one point by running up with a few spare shells, since Grizz had used all he had on his belt and hadn't knocked the targets down. They could have used sundials as timers for them on that stage!

Here are the numbers:

The scores weren't posted online for this match and I didn't take meticulous notes on the others. I do know that Carolina Jack won the overall match shooting in the Frontier Cartridge class (that's blackpowder, folks!), Hole-in-the-Head Kid came in 2nd and won the Modern class and I won the Duelist class and came in 3rd overall. Obviously, it wasn't a "normal" match. It was the most relaxed, laid-back match I've been to. We were there to just shoot and have fun, and we certainly did.