Wow, it has been a very long time since I have posted anything on the blog. Last January I was doing an internet search on “The Old Pueblo” and the web site for the Old Pueblo Gunfighters came up in the search. It was unrelated to what I was looking for but hey, it was about guns so I clicked on it. That is how I found out about the sport of Cowboy Fast Draw. I went out to Old Tucson to watch a competition and that’s all she wrote. I was hooked.
Kris had bought me a Ruger Vaquero years ago and always gave me a hard time because I never shot it. Not that I rarely shot it, that I had never put ammo in it and pulled the trigger. Well, that was going to be the most expensive part of getting into this sport and I already had it. I went to work making myself a holster and gun belt. By February I was ready and went to a “town alley” shoot that the club was holding at Old Tucson, right in front of the High Chaparral movie set. What a great place to start out in this sport. Kris went with me and was soon hooked as badly as I. We have since outfitted ourselves with the required 1800s style clothing and two new stainless “New Vaquero” guns. It seems like no matter how little you think a sport is going to cost you, there is always something else to buy. There are clothes, boots, hats, guns, shooting boxes, shooting bags, brass, primers, wax bullets, trigger jobs, custom grips, and that doesn’t include travel to competitions you may want to shoot in.
Along with dressing in period clothing and using period guns or replicas, we also assume aliases. My first alias was Locoweed. I liked it, but silly me, I just thought of the weed that makes cows and other animals sick. It didn’t take long for me to realize that everyone was associating the name with marijuana. Well, I didn’t like that association so had to change the name. My Granddad’s nickname was “Hank” and I dearly miss that great man so I came up with Hankerin’ Hank as my new alias. I’m often asked what I’m hankerin’ for and the answer always depends on my mood at the time. Kris became Gold Dust. It actually comes from the formal name of our horse “ Gold Dust Review”.
Krystal accompanied us to a practice last weekend for the first time and I think she is getting hooked also. We have done a little practicing at the house and last night she even wanted to learn how to clean my gun. It just happened to still be dirty from the jackpot shoot last weekend, so we broke that sucker out and cleaned it together.
We shoot at 24” targets that are 21ft away. You compete against the shooter next to you. Whoever hits the target the fastest 3 out of five times is the winner. When I first started, I was shooting over a second and although my accuracy was good, it wasn’t great. I purchased a laser to practice at home and my accuracy is now great and I hit the target around 0.7-0.8 of a second, with an occasional shot down into the 6 tenths of a second range. I want to get down into the .4-.5 range consistently, while still keeping the accuracy. It will come with time and practice.
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