My current hobby: Cowboy Action Shooting

[D_Hall]

I haven't been building many canons lately, but I have been having a lot of fun. For the past 6 or so months I've been getting into Cowboy Action Shooting. For those not familiar, it's basically a 3-gun shooting competition where guns are restricted to designs that were available in the year 1899. So yeah, shooting competitions using guns of the Old West. Oh, and you're supposed to wear period garb. It's also been a lot of fun since it's the first thing that my son and I have ever really bonded over. I'm a lifelong shooter. He's a lifelong gamer...but thanks to Red Dead Redemption, he's suddenly into it!

I'm not very good, but I've progressed to the point I'm no longer embarrassing myself.

In all my Old West Nerdy glory....



And my son (who's getting pretty good himself)....



And while I'm not there yet, here's a video that shows just how fast some folks can be....

[Moonbogg]

That looks like a lot of fun! Maybe one day I'll get off my sand bag and start standing up more often when I shoot, lol. I'm not bad at trap shooting though. Sometimes it's fun to do things the way they were done back in the old days to appreciate the skill it takes and the art of the craft.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree great stuff!

Just going to leave this Red Dead Redemption 2 Literal trailer here...

[youtube][/youtube]

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

LeMaudit's heading in a similar direction, here's his beautiful Uberti 1866 Yellowboy:

[georgeneal]

yall look like yall have a ton of fun

[D_Hall]

It's a hell of a lot of fun.

One thing that's pretty cool about it is that you really can't spend THAT much money on the sport. In normal competition shooting you can spend $10k on a single gun and if you don't have the $$$ you probably aren't going to be competitive. In CAS... You can get yourself set up with all four guns for about $2k and while you can spend more you can be competitive and I'm not sure how in the hell you'd ever spend more than $5k without spending money just for the sake of it (custom engraving or whatever). The point being that as competitive shooting goes, it's cheap. Set yourself up a reloading bench and I only spend about $25/day at the range.

[Brian the brain]

I just think shooting cowboys is wrong ..


but seriously..looks like a lot of fun!!

[D_Hall]

Turns out that the same guys who run the Cowboy Shoots also do what they refer to as BAM shoots.... Bolt Action Military. Basically the idea is to use a bolt action military rifle in as-issued condition that dates to 1945 or earlier.

It also turns out that my Mom once bought an 1895 Mauser on a whim. It was a mess after having been packed in cosmoline for about 50 years. Blah blah blah... The gun is 125 years old now and probably hasn't been fired since about 1940. But this past weekend I cleaned it up and have every intention of firing it tomorrow (BAM!). Wish me luck.

I give you the before/after pic. And yes, the wood "looks" better before, but rest assured that if you handled that rifle your hands came away red and sticky.

[Moonbogg]

Sweet! I'm going out Saturday as well to finally do some chrony readings on my cannons. We'll share our stories here I'm sure. That's a fantastic find you got there. Awesome mom!

[D_Hall]

Gun shot great. Had a lot of fun. Was stunned to NOT have the oldest gun at the range. One of the guys was shooting a .40-70 Trapdoor!

For all you folks who don't know old guns (not that I'm an expert)... Custard's men were using Trapdoors at Little Big Horn.

[Moonbogg]

Nice! I too am surprised that there was an older gun at the range than yours. That's really cool that such old weapons are still around and being enjoyed for recreation. Glad you had a good time out at the range. My day went well too. I posted the data in a new thread in the hybrid cannon forum. I was very pleased and quite surprised at the performance the chrony reported. I almost don't believe some of the numbers. I'll be going out again soon to test some more.

[mark.f]

Looks good! My mosin is earlier than 45 (barely), it's about the only gun that old I was willing to eat the cost of.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

I have an ancient Martini-Enfield that I haven't had the opportunity to shoot yet...

[D_Hall]

I realize there are people out there who are much faster than I am, but I was pretty proud of this run.....

[Nita Alexis]

Wow!
Makes me desire greatly for that, so cool!