Abe E.S. Corpus SASS #87667

If you really want sticker shock price some factory black powder ammo. There are some sources for good smokeless cowboy ammunition these days if you don’t “roll your own”. Bullets by Scarlett’s “Cowboy Cartridges” for example.

Another option is to purchase the revolvers from a gunsmith with the action work already done. Longhunter Shooting Supply is one such source. The New Vaqueros are not bad out of the box. Most rifles need action work. The shotguns do for sure. Not as necessary with revolvers.

The scene from “Smokey and the Bandit” comes to mind where Burt says “I’ll need a car to run interference.” [rich guy’s flunky counts out a stack of bills]. ”A fast car.” [flunky counts out more bills into Burt’s hand] ”Faster than that.”

I hope someone can help you.

The Hodgdon Data Center shows a recipe for a 125 grain lead bullet: http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/pistol

There are lots of good clubs in Florida. They are organized by state on the main SASS website. You can download the Handbook but attending matches and talking to folks is a great way to learn the game.

“Shooter’s Choice” strikes again!

I’ve not seen the ATI shotgun at a match. Occasionally new shotguns come on the scene that look like they might be suitable; some work out and some don’t. There are few if any doubles that are ready to go out of the box. Most need a little work. There is only one category, Classic Cowboy, in which a double must have external hammers and they must be real hammers, not external cocking levers. I think I recall reading that the ATI is not legal for Classic. If you use a shotgun with external hammers or cocking levers in a different category you have added a step to every shotgun reload. Not to say that some folks can run a “hammer double” quickly or that some folks just like the looks of a hammer double. The decocking lever adds nothing for a SASS shooter. Decocking a firearm on the firing line will buy you a Stage Disqualification.

Tyrel gave the best advice. Come to a match. Handle some of the guns that people actually use in this game. You will learn more in one match than in years of online research.

Just to be clear, the chambers are not recessed; there is a lip on the rear edge of the cylinder that “hides” the case rims from view. I’ve heard of people having the ridge milled off, but another approach is to mark the cylinder is such a way that the position of the empty chamber can be verified once the revolver is loaded.

I just made up some Wild Bunch ammo using Scarlett’s 230 grain coated bullets. I used 4.0 grains of WST which was the starting load in one of my manuals. It averaged 759 fps from my pistol which more than makes power factor. A fellow WB shooter who does not reload found some factory ammo with coated round nosed lead bullets. He had issues with that ammo. It’s really hard to know until you try a particular load in a particular pistol.

New folks are often confused by the category descriptions in the Handbook; you are not the first to be confused by the Classic Cowboy and Cowboy categories. You referred to Classic Cowboy as an “event”; some readers get the impression that the shooters are somehow segregated into categories when shooting so let’s clarify that point. At a match, all participants shoot the same “stages”. The same targets, same instructions. Depending on the number of shooters at the match and other factors, you will probably be assigned to a group that we call a “posse”. You will stay with that group for the entire match. Shooters in the posse take turns shooting until everyone has completed the stage, then the posse moves to the next stage. A typical stage has ten pistol shots, ten rifle, and four shotgun. The stage instructions provide the details about gun order, shooting positions and target sequence. Most clubs’ monthly matches consist of six stages. The posse will usually have shooters from different categories; we are all mixed up but the results can be sorted by category so that we will have, say, a first place Gunfighter, second place Gunfighter, etc. There are also awards or recognition of the overall top shooters. I hope this is helpful to new folks who are trying to imagine how categories work. One more point. Some shooting sports have “classes” of shooters, some based on equipment but others on a shooter’s skill level. In cowboy we have “categories”; the shooter selects his or her category for the match. As long as the shooter meets the requirements of the category, he or she is eligible. You don’t have to “qualify” by scoring.

The pistol requirements for the Traditional category are more restrictive than those for the Modern category. Adjustable sights are not allowed in Traditional but allowed in Modern. That said, a Traditional pistol need not have teeny tiny sights like those on a WWI-WWII issue pistol. The Remington R1 and Springfield Milspec are examples of Traditional-legal pistols with visible sights. Also a pistol legal for Traditional is fine in Modern, too.

State laws vary but federal law states that “face to face” transfers (between non-FFL holders) are legal only between residents of the same state. Long guns or handguns.

Look here for instructions: http://ns.hodgdon.com/loading.html#