WALKED INTO THE DUSTY PAST OF THE AMERICAN WEST when I shot in my first Cowboy Action Shooting™ (CAS) match. I was definitely a "greenhorn" when it came to this game, but the folks at the Carolina Cattlemen's Shooting & Social Society were as nice a group of people as we've ever met and they made me and Pixelwiz (SASS #40209 & my lovely Wife) feel completely welcome. We'd met several of them briefly when we went to watch a match one one day, so we weren't among total strangers. For my first shoot they were kind enough to posse me up with some of the folks I knew.

Now, for those of you who are scratching your heads and saying, "What the Sam Hay is he talking about? Who would want to shoot cowboys?" I'll explain.

SHOOTIN' ARNS
Cowboy Action Shooting is done with firearms like those used in the "Wild West": single-action revolvers, lever-action rifles, and side-by-side double-barreled or old pump-action shotguns. We don't shoot at cowboys (or at each other!), but rather at steel (or occasionally paper) targets. The steel targets are reactionary (they either "ding" when you hit 'em or fall over or otherwise provide instant feedback) and come in many shapes and sizes — silhouettes of bison, cowboys, snakes, playing card suits (heart, diamond, club & spade), squares, circles, etc. They're usually pretty big and placed close (say, 7 to 10 yards for the revolvers, 8 to 16 yards for the shotguns and 13 to 50 yards for the rifles), since this isn't a "precision" shooting sport — it's called "action" shooting! Lest you think that you couldn't possibly miss a target that close, ask anyone who's run through a stage or three. There's no such thing as a target that's too big or too close to miss!

MAKE YER MOVE...
A match is organized in a series of stages, usually six, each with its own "story" or "scenario" and multiple targets arranged to fit that story. A shooter may begin the stage seated on a haybale, at a table with a handful of playing cards, with a rope that needs to be hung up, having to move and mount a wooden "horse" or any number of other things — props play an important part in most stages. Each stage is different and presents a new challenge for the shooter. There are usually 10 to 20 shooters that make up a "posse" on a stage and when a contestant isn't running through the stage, he or she is helping at the loading or unloading table, timing, scoring, spotting for hits & misses, or picking up spent brass and resetting the targets.

The contestant with the fastest total time through all the stages wins. Penalties are assessed for missed targets, procedural errors (e.g., shooting the targets in the wrong order) and in very rare cases a shooter may be disqualified from the stage or match for a safety violation. There's an overall match winner (the contestant with the fastest overall time) and winners for each class of shooting (modern, traditional, ladies, junior, blackpowder, etc.). Actually, there are a lot of clubs and matches where the winner isn't determined by overall fastest time, but rather by "rank points." This is figured as how well a shooter did on a given stage (did he or she finish 1st, 4th, 10th, whatever) and when all those individual stage ranks are added up, the lowest "rank score" wins. It's a little confusing, but this kind of scoring ensures that even if you have a really horrible elapsed time on one stage you aren't completely eliminated from having a chance to win the match.

SNAPPY DUDS, PARD
One of the things that makes Cowboy Action Shooting so unique (and such fun!) is that the contestants are required to wear an appropriate "Old West" costume, which can be as simple or as authentic as you want. You can be an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande in the early 1870's, an 1880's sheriff, a cavalry trooper, banker, saloon girl, gold miner or any other character from the years of the great Western expansion (about 1860 to the turn of the century). You can also adopt a persona from a TV or movie western, like Matt Dillon or Josey Wales.

WAT's YER NAME, STRANGER?
Each shooter has an "alias" for their character that they go by — my own is B.B. Gunn (SASS #40208) — and that alias is registered and unique to each shooter. Otherwise there'd be 300 guys calling themselves "Billy the Kid" or what-have-you; as it is, whoever the guy is who first registered as "Billy the Kid," he's the only one who can use that name in a match. If you decide to adopt a famous western persona (either from history or the movies), don't expect to get the "alias" of any of those folks — they've all been taken. You may want to be "Doc Holliday" and dress like Val Kilmer did in Tombstone, and that's fine... but you won't be registering with SASS as "Doc Holliday" — somebody beat you to it long ago, so think up another name. "Hock Dolliday" is probably taken, too, so think again.

YOU LOOKIN' AT ME?
A CAS match is almost as much fun to watch as it is to 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 bit 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 this area, check out the site for the North Carolina Cowboys.