July 18, 2001

WASN'T COMPLETELY PREPARED as I showed up for my very first Cowboy Action Shooting™ match with the Carolina Cattlemen's Shooting & Social Society. The holsters I'd ordered hadn't shown up yet, but I'd been promised a "loaner" for my left side (I had a cheap leather holster for the right side already). I figured that it didn't matter if my rig matched or fit the guns (the holsters were for 8-inch barrels and my revolvers are 4 3/4"), it wasn't like I was going to be the fastest hombre on the range anyway.

The rest of my gear was good to go, though — I had my pair of pistols, the old Winchester rifle and a double-barreled shotgun to shoot, the great guncart my Dad made for me, the cowboy clothes that Mom made me and The Wife (Pixelwiz, SASS #40209) along to keep me company.

Rev. Will U. Sinnmore was good enough to put me in a posse with several of the other folks I'd met previously at a match I watched, so B.B. Gunn, newly minted SASS member #40208, joined up with his pards and prepared to run through his very first Cowboy Action stage.

It was a beautiful summer day. We ran through six different stages over the course of a few hours and I had a wonderful time. I did well with the Winchester and okay with the shotgun, though I did miss a target or two with it. You might wonder "How the heck can you miss with a shotgun?!" Well, you can, and it's not too hard to do. At short range, the shot still hasn't spread out much and if you're trying to go too fast and/or not aimed right on the target it can miss or partially miss — and the knock-down targets won't fall if you hit them with just a few pellets.

The pistols were a bit of a problem for me. I don't mean that there was any trouble with the guns themselves — they're nice and smooth — but I'm not used to them yet (they sure don't handle like my automatics!). I'm not new to shooting, but I'm new to this kind of shooting. It showed, too; I have no idea what my overall elapsed time was or how many targets I missed, but at the end of the match I wasn't surprised (or even disappointed) to learn that I came in last. Upon reflection, it was certainly the missed targets that really did me in — there's a 5-second penalty for each miss, and I had a bunch of 'em. The last two stages in particular were rough; I think I had three or four misses with my revolvers on each of those final stages and that adds up fast. I'm still not certain what my exact problem (or, more likely, problems) was — it's quite likely I was trying to go too fast. I'll have to slow down and concentrate on hitting the targets; I don't shoot fast enough to afford any misses!

The overall match winner was a guy named Stinky Jim. He and I were in the same posse and boy, is he ever fast. I learned a lot just watching these cowboys and cowgirls shoot and got several tips on how to do some things faster or better. I'm hoping I do better in my next match with what I learned during this one. This time out, I was really concentrating on safety and the mechanics of the match — getting past the "newness" of the whole thing to me.

A CAS match is almost as much fun to watch as it is to actually shoot, and if you're thinking about getting into the sport I highly recommend going to a local match to watch and talk to the guys & gals there. I learned a lot by doing that — the folks were more than happy to talk to me, answer my questions, and even let me shoot a few rounds with their guns. One of the best known CAS organizations is the Single Action Shooting Society, or SASS. If you're interested in the rules and mechanics of the game, they have their Shooter's Handbook online. You can also find a local Cowboy club (or maybe several of 'em) at their website. If you happen to be in the area, check out the site for the North Carolina Cowboys.