Cowboy Tales : match notes

August 4, 2001

Y SECOND SHOOT TOOK ME TO ROCKY MOUNT, NC and the fine folks of the Old Hickory Regulators. It was already steamy in the morning, which foretold a hot, sweaty match for us all. The Regulators had promised a BBQ lunch afterwards, and the offer of free grub seems to have flushed a lot of cowboys out of the tumbleweeds. The Cayuga Kid said that the 28 or so shooters was a record for the one-year-old club.

We shot six stages in two spots. There was a set of five falling plate rifle targets that were a whole lot of fun to shoot at — one of which we had to be especially watchful, since it was a little balky and the target had to be hit towards the top to make it drop.

My Mom & Dad came along with Wiz to watch me. It was their first time seeing a Cowboy Action match, and they had a good (if hot) time. I got a chance to talk some with Carolina Leadfoot (SASS #35944) about shooting blackpowder; after only two matches I'm already being tempted by the "Dark Side." I'm going to be giving serious consideration to it (I'll need a shotshell reloader in order to do so), though the thought of having to clean the model 92 Winchester gives me pause...

Carolina Leadfoot makes a big boom when he fires his scattergun loaded with black powder. I'm watching and learning at the right. —photo by Pixelwiz

The lunch was a fine one: hamburgers, hotdogs and all the trimmings, and it was much appreciated.

Deputy Gene (SASS #22954) was the overall match winner with a time of 156.64 seconds (shooting Men's Traditional), so he was about twice as fast as I was. The fastest Duelist shooter was the Reverend Will U. Sinmore (SASS #13159) at 205.84, which was 100 seconds faster than my time. I finished 17th out of 28 overall, so I was solidly in the middle of the pack of shooters. But I was 3rd (out of 4) in my Duelist class, which isn't much to write home about.

Here are my stage results:

Stage No.	Raw Time (in seconds)	Misses (+5 sec.)	Total Time (sec.)	Rank (out of 28)
1	45.09	0	45.09	21
2	45.84	1	51.84	17
3	48.57	1	51.57	20
4	36.03	1	41.03	17
5	48.75	0	48.75	16
6	56.82	1	66.86	22
Time Overall: 305.14 Rank Overall: 17 (out of 28) Rank in Class: 3 (out of 4)

I had a great time with these cowboys and cowgirls, and since Rocky Mount is only about 30 minutes from where we live, it's going to be a place I go back to. The bummer is that the Old North State Posse has changed its shoot date to the same Saturday as the Old Hickory Regulators, and that's going to be a tough choice. The new range in Salisbury is beautiful, and that's bound to have an impact on the attendance in Rocky Mount.