Posted on 09/25/2006 11:04:03 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
**** Thurmont -- The ranch house is closed, the bunkhouse is boarded up and cowhands are nowhere to be found.
Listening to the lyrics of that old cowboy's lament might lead you to believe that nobody's at home on the range anymore. Well, partner, that just ain't so! t last count, there are some 70,000 living, breathing, six-gun-toting cowhands countrywide, all of them riders for SASS, the brand of the Single Action Shooting Society. More than 400 of them will be coming up the trail to the Thurmont Conservation and Sportsman's Club Thursday, Sept. 28, through Sunday, Oct. 1, for the Mason Dixon Stampede.--
The Sportsman's Club is the home of the Thurmont Rangers, a SASS affiliate which is host for the event. The Stampede is one of seven regional championship roundups leading to the National Championship of Cowboy Shooting, an event known as the "Winter Range," at Phoenix, Ariz., and to the SASS world championship, the "End of Trail," at Albuquerque, N.M.
Cowboy action shooting is a nostalgic return to a long ago time when the West was wild and a six-gun, a Winchester rifle and a faithful horse were a cowboy's best friends. It's a shooting sport that both celebrates and perpetuates the spirit and lifestyle of the Old West as personified by the cowboy, his clothes and his guns.------
Safe, friendly and family oriented, cowboy shooting is the fastest growing of all the shooting sports and certainly the most unique. For most SASS riders, cowboy shooting is a release from their work-week routine. And while it might be for only a day, these weekend wranglers are really into the cowboy lifestyle -- you can see that by the cut of their clothes and the six-guns on their hips.
Having a good time as well as a safe one are the foremost considerations in cowboy action shooting; winning is secondary. That's a notion the originators of cowboy shooting built into the fabric of the sport. SASS riders call it "The Spirit of the Game." It's what makes cowboy shooting such a great family activity. But don't misunderstand, the Spirit of the Game is a cowboy shooter's golden rule, not a bias against winning.
"It's not about the competition for the majority of the shooters," Bill Whitmore explained. "It's about coming out here to the range, having a safe time enjoying the sport and playing the game of being back in the 1840s. It's a great experience," he said.
Although he claims he is only a "go-for," Mr. Whitmore and his wife Donna, who is the Web master for the sportsman club's Web site, are handling the registration and publicity for the Stampede. Both are members of SASS and the Thurmont Rangers. They shoot in cowboy matches under cowboy names; her alias is Anna Bandana, his is Hank Klickenspurs.
The Stampede program features a main event consisting of 10 different stages or courses of fire. It also includes a posse shoot, a top gun shoot-off, mounted shooting, a variety of side matches and an event called a Three Stage Blast. Stages are shooting scenarios that depict historical events, such as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, episodes from cowboy movies or Western novels, even some that arise from the imagination of the person who writes the scenario.
The main event will be a two-day affair in which the shooters will be assembled into posses. Each posse will shoot all 10 stages in the match, five stages on each of two days, one shooter at a time. Each stage will consist of several targets that must be fired at in the exact sequence and with the type of gun -- pistol, rifle or shotgun -- prescribed by the particular scenario.----
Safety is a primary concern in cowboy shooting. Immediately before the shooters step up to the firing line is the only time they are allowed to load their guns, and then only at a special loading table a few steps away. After firing at all the targets in the stage, shooters immediately take their guns to another table to unload them, making sure all the ammunition, whether spent or live, is removed from the guns.
Cowboy shooters use guns that are the same kind as those that were used in the west in the later years of the 19th century, either an original or a copy. Depending on the scenario, a stage in the main match might call for the use of as many as four of those old- style guns: a pair of single-action pistols, a lever action rifle, which might be in the same caliber as the pistols, and a shotgun.
The shotgun might be either a double barrel coach gun or a pump gun with an exposed hammer.
Scores are a combination of accuracy and time. The special bullets used in cowboy shooting disintegrate on contact with the targets, which are made of armor grade steel. There are no scoring rings like there are on conventional targets, so hits are confirmed by the sound the bullet makes when it strikes the target. The time taken by the shooter to fire at all the targets in a stage is recorded electronically to the nearest one-one hundredth of a second.
"It's instant gratification," Mr. Whitmore said. "You don't have to wait to see the target; you know immediately if you hit it."
A stage in the main event might be something like this: The scenario has the shooter riding shotgun on a stage coach being held up by a gang of masked riders, the bandits represented by a cluster of steel targets, five to the left of the shooter, five to the right and two directly ahead.
At a signal from a hand-held timer, the shooter draws a pistol and fires five shots, one at each of the targets on the left, then holsters the gun. The second pistol is drawn and a shot is fired at each of the targets on the right. That pistol is returned to the holster and the shooter fires a round from a lever action rifle at each of the 10 targets and then finishes off the gang with a shotgun blast at each of the two center targets. The shooting is over in much less time than it took to load the guns.
The side matches at the Stampede will be held the day before the main event. They're kind of a warm-up for the 10-stage match. "People arrive here a day early and the side matches give them a day to have some fun shooting the guns that are such a big a part of cowboy history. There are no big awards, maybe just a piece of paper that says, 'You won the speed shotgun event or maybe a derringer or pocket pistol side match.' It's just a great time," Mr. Whitmore said.
The method of scoring is the same, but side matches themselves are not as involved as the stages in the main event. "A derringer or two-shot pistol side match, for example, might start with the shooter sitting or standing behind a table with a loaded derringer laying on it and two steel targets in front of it," Mr. Whitmore explained. "The shooter picks up the gun and fires two shots, one at each target, as rapidly as he can."
There will be side matches for shooters using other types of guns, too -- pocket pistols, single- shot "buffalo" guns, lever-action rifles, even a cowboy clay target side match. Among other events scheduled during the week is the Northeast Regional Mounted Championship, an event in which balloons are the targets and shooters on horseback; their guns are loaded with blanks that when fired at very close range have just enough punch to break the balloons. It's ride-by shooting, cowboy style.------------
The Three Stage Blast will be held the day before the main event. Cowhands competing in that match will shoot three stages similar to those in the main event but they'll do it with two types of guns instead of the usual arsenal. Fees paid to enter the Three Stage Blast will be donated to the SASS Scholarship Fund.
Everyone registered for the Stampede is a SASS member with a one-of-a-kind cowboy name.
And in keeping with the Spirit of the Game, they'll all be wearing cowboy garb reminiscent of the western wear of Victorian times -- long pants for the men, dresses (or jeans) for the ladies, boots, cowboy hats and shirts with long sleeves. For the Stampede banquet on Saturday evening, they'll change to their "go to meetin'" apparel, it's fancier but still Victorian.
"People are coming to the Stampede from every state on the East Coast and from as far away as Nevada and Arizona," Mr. Whitmore said. "We get some really good shooters from all over the country for the Northeast Regional."
The public is invited to visit the Stampede free of charge. Registration is not required but visitors are asked to bring eye and ear protection. It's an opportunity to meet a very friendly group of people and become familiar with cowboy action shooting. Additional information, schedule of events and driving directions are available at www.tcandsc.org; click on the Mason Dixon Stampede in the content column.
Shooter registration for the Stampede is filled, thanks to the work of the Thurmont bunch, Chuck Crooks, the match director, sportsman club members who man the chuck wagon, the scenario writers, the volunteers who built the stage props, the time invested by the Whitmores and all the other Thurmont Rangers helping to put on the event; that's the cowboy's way.
Hey partner, who said don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys?
Nah, in Tijeras, about three miles from the Slim ranch.
The real ranchers in my family all use Blackberries.
What's your opinion of SASS shooters who download ammo to the point of little or no recoil?
Childe Roland from the Dark Tower came . . .
And I thought I was "manly" because I go to Thurmont each year for the Maple Syrup festival.
I used to live relatively close by and would visit there and Antietam battlefield every year. Man I miss that place, especially in the fall.
Hey, now....
Like I said, It sounds like a lot of fun.
Right you are sir. Cowboys are stockmen and work cattle. Gunfighters (who these people are reenactors of) were generally people who gambled, stole horses, or lawmen.
Not only did many (far from all) people pack iron, but many of the settlers and cowboys were Civil War veterans, and had seen combat. One or more men with guns did not scare them that much. They would just form a possee and use the tactics they learned in the war.
I think many of the stories about a whole town gunning down the bad guys were true. I've read about similar incidents in the histories of many towns across the west. It even happened in Oregon at least once, tho I don't remember where at the moment.
Towns have united against outlaws as recently as the 1950's, when the Hell's Angels announced that they were going to take over the town of Florence, Oregon. When they roared up Hwy 101 into town, they discovered that the streets were lined with armed citizens. The motorcycle gang just kept going, and quietly went home.
Ping!
Hi my friend...thank you for the ping :)
Sounds like a fun hobby. I have seen one of these meets on cable TV. What does a replica six shooter go for anyways?
The gamesters try to take over every sport. I'm not fond of someone who skirts the rules for a piece of paper or plastic dust catcher.
What turned me off of cowboy shoots was the multiple guns on a person like that would be so-called real. The downloaded ammo is really disappointing but if they shoot enough stell targets shouldn't be a problem.
Number one complaint I have about cowboy shooting matches is the use of the two handed hold. No way. I defy anyone to show a Remington or Russell painting of a gunslinger using two hands.
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