Cowboy Fast Draw National Championships

Here's DAMIPHINO's report from the Cowboy Fast Draw National Championships:

All pictures can be clicked on for a larger view.

The crowd at the safety meeting Friday morning before the start.

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Eight of the ladies, Prickly Pear is number four in the brown hat. All eight lights come on at once but you are actually shooting against one other person in an elimination.

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Yours truly in the number eight spot. I actually took this round with slow times but accurate. Fast is fine but accurate is final. The gun looks to be pointed low but the shot was already fired and the gun is starting to be returned to the holster.

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Another shot by the ladies, each shooter has a judge behind them to watch that the gun doesn't move before the light comes on and also for safety.

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Wanna see my fast draw again? The guy in the brown hat and blue shirt has actually drawn, fired and reholstered before the others have gotten the shot off.

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Getting into the finals, there was a pretty good crowd of people watching.

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Prickly Pear walking down to clean her gun after having won a round.

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Well, the Cowboy Fast Draw National Championship for 2006 is now in the books. It was held at the Sportsmans Warehouse in Meridian, Idaho over the weekend. Quite an event! There were 53 men including yours truly and 21 women including the family boss Prickly Pear. Hey, it isn't real bright to argue with a lady who does fast draw.

For those who haven't seen a fast draw contest, the Cowboy version is done using stock single action pistols, most commonly Colt single action Peacemakers or one of the many clones in 45 Colt. The amunition is wax bullets over about 3.5 grains of black powder substitute and shot at a 2 foot target 21 feet away. Muzzle velocities are in the range of 750 to 800 FPS. Since the rounds are so light they pretty much run out of oomph at 50 or 60 feet.

You have to hit the target to get a time and you are shooting against one other person in an elimitation. For more info and some videos check out

http://cowboyfastdraw.com/

As the field starts to narrow down to the top shooters it starts to get pretty intense with times in the .380 to .48 ranges and that is to draw the gun, cock it, and fire. Not to mention hit the target. Most of the rest of us are in the .6 to .7 times but you can beat even the best if you have a higher hit rate.

In one of the pictures you can see the nearest person looks like he is just starting to draw while the second person has his gun out. Actually that isn't how it really is, the guy in the brown hat and blue shirt has already drawn and fired and is reholstering his pistol. The guy in the maroon shirt fired just after the picture was taken. It is really hard to get a picture when the fast ones are firing. The blue shirt is Ron M. and he took almost all the marbles last year, National, World and several State championships. This year he took fourth.

The last man standing was "Quick Cal", that's his SASS alias, and he has been doing fast draw for 30 plus years.

Neither Prickly Pear or I managed to get into the top places but we both managed to weed down the field a bit before we got weeded ourselves. Regardless we had a heck of a good time and met a bunch of new friends. Both SASS and Cowboy Fast Draw have some of the best folks you could ever hope to meet. I had a problem with one of my pistols and within seconds there were a half dozen people trying to help fix it along with several offers of a spare gun to use.

Next month we jump in the Land Yacht and head for the World contest in Deadwood South Dakota.

DAMIPHINO