They don't write stages like this any more but, COOL to watch.

[Hardcase Hardin]

 

[Eyesa Horg]

Pretty neat, Thanks

[Dantankerous]

THAT looks like fun. 

 

Very insightful. 

 

[Cheyenne Ranger, 48747L]

Wow!

where can I found that kind of action dressed as a cowboy?

 

wait--I already do much of that at a much slower pace

 

cheyenne

[Grizzly Adams 3674]

Fun stuff!  That is the kind of action that grew this sport.  Too bad we don't play that way anymore.....

[Utah Bob #35998]

That’s why I started. Good time long gone. 

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

Yup... that's how I learned.  

 

DANG that was fun!  

[Springfield Slim SASS #24733]

But now we are all too old for that sort of nonsense. At least that's what I hear every time I or someone else writes a stage that isn't 10-10-4. "You can't be competitive with that sort of stuff".  The older guys can't move like they used to". " Too easy to get a procedural with those stages". "Somebody might fall if they move too much". "Those targets are too far away".  Ah, the heck with them, I still shoot Classic Cowboy the way it should be, with real BP in 44-40. I'm still having fun, and now my daughter is shooting 44-40 BP right alongside me. Now to convert my son! Dang smokeless gamer!

[Rye Miles #13621]

Awesome!!

[Sedalia Dave]

8 hours ago, Springfield Slim SASS #24733 said:

But now we are all too old for that sort of nonsense. At least that's what I hear every time I or someone else writes a stage that isn't 10-10-4. "You can't be competitive with that sort of stuff".  The older guys can't move like they used to". " Too easy to get a procedural with those stages". "Somebody might fall if they move too much". "Those targets are too far away".  Ah, the heck with them, I still shoot Classic Cowboy the way it should be, with real BP in 44-40. I'm still having fun, and now my daughter is shooting 44-40 BP right alongside me. Now to convert my son! Dang smokeless gamer!

 

In addition to SASS I also shoot with an NCOWS club.  More movement, More interesting targets, and every stage is definitely not 10-10-4.

[zzyzx 357]

Hardcase  -=- is RIGHT!   This is what sass used to be. Then it was the single action shooting society . Now it is the single action speed shooters . Still sass but nothing like it used to be.   I`v got quite a folder of stages from back then.  All that is wanted now is 5-5-9 and 4.   I`m 90 years old but if anyone around here put on one of the real shoots I damned well would try to make it!

[Painted Mohawk SASS 77785]

Top stuff..loved it..thanks for posting.

Are the CVV still the  largest club ?

[Noz]

10 hours ago, zzyzx 357 said:

Hardcase  -=- is RIGHT!   This is what sass used to be. Then it was the single action shooting society . Now it is the single action speed shooters . Still sass but nothing like it used to be.   I`v got quite a folder of stages from back then.  All that is wanted now is 5-5-9 and 4.   I`m 90 years old but if anyone around here put on one of the real shoots I damned well would try to make it!

I'm near 80 and I'll be there to shoot it with you.

[Hardcase Hardin]

21 hours ago, Springfield Slim SASS #24733 said:

But now we are all too old for that sort of nonsense. At least that's what I hear every time I or someone else writes a stage that isn't 10-10-4. "You can't be competitive with that sort of stuff".  The older guys can't move like they used to". " Too easy to get a procedural with those stages". "Somebody might fall if they move too much". "Those targets are too far away".  Ah, the heck with them, I still shoot Classic Cowboy the way it should be, with real BP in 44-40. I'm still having fun, and now my daughter is shooting 44-40 BP right alongside me. Now to convert my son! Dang smokeless gamer!

 

OooRah!

 

Gonna be ordering a bunch of .454 balls (?) soon Pard.

 

[Hardcase Hardin]

With all the responses, maybe we should look at gettin a fun side match set up sometime.

 

I'm 60 and even tho I'm slower n molasses in January, I'd still get after it.

[Blue Wolf , SASS# 29424L]

I know some of them in video. Haven't watched it in a long time. Thanks for posting.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

So... if age and "decrepit-ness" is the overriding reason for not doing this stuff... why is it that only younger (that being a relative term!) shooters resent it?

 

I remember a match I wrote. One stage began with the shooter grabbing a branding iron (which I had made) from hot coals, "slapping a brand" on a wooden plate until the first puff of smoke, then parking the iron back on the coals and "commence firing."  And they got to keep the wooden plate, bearing a brand with the club's initials.

 

Some folk only waited for that very first puff... others actually burned a good, clear brand to later hang on their gun cart.  Meant more to 'em than just speed!   

 

 

[Sedalia Dave]

I do find it odd, where over on the wire a month or so ago a retro match was discussed as the theme for a big match and the overall opinion was that shooters wouldn't attend.

[Marshal Dan Troop 70448]

That's what got me started and enjoying the game. But, alas, things changed. For me, I don't enjoy the shooting part as much as I do the company before, during, and after a match is more fun. Over the past 2 years I have seen storylines disappear, lines are sometimes as simple as "Shooters Ready". Were a small rule book with a dozen pages thought then to cover every situation and also common sense, has been enlarged to the size of a dictionary and being added to continually because common sense is no longer binding.

I've seen a few clubs try to keep some fun in stages, keep story lines, but complaints by shooters to not read the stories, or shooters forgetting their lines, doing fun stuff on the clock, or targets to small and to far out, have let them to adjust to stay viable to attract shooters. Now its to many stand and deliver stages, movement adds to time and many want to see how fast they can shoot a stage.

One thing I always see and believe that the majority of shooters that support this game, do it for the fun, shooting, and company. Many will never win the Cadillac, or be recognized during award ceremonies. Yet I see these shooters having the most fun from these matches.

I don't go to as many monthlies as I use to, (as many as 4 a month), or travel the out of states as much, (more then 30 a year). I use to get everything ready days before, now wait till day before.

Can, or could I still do many of these type stages? Probable not, but would sure try.  MT

One thing that I have seen creep in our game is shooters that get upset at calls, and penalties more and more. Shooters that leave a match in the middle because they disagreed with a call, rather then stay and help with posse duties, and people that are taking the game to serious. Seeing it more and more.

[Hardcase Hardin]

15 minutes ago, Sedalia Dave said:

I do find it odd, where over on the wire a month or so ago a retro match was discussed as the theme for a big match and the overall opinion was that shooters wouldn't attend.

 

That's exactly what I had in mind when I stumbled into this video and just HAD to post it.  

 

No reason at all we can't have a stage to two in a match like some of these.  With all the categories to shoot and total time determines the winner, why not add some fun?

 

[Pat Riot]

That video is EXACTLY why I came into this. AND that is the way it was...

 

I mentioned this at a match last summer and commented on the lack of movement, the close targets and the 10-10-4. I was told that no one wants to shoot the way it used to be.

 

Well I do!

[Utah Bob #35998]

Most of us old timers love that stuff and are wiling to give it a try despite our many infirmities. Western movies we enjoyed as kids sure weren’t stand and deliver, except for the final gunfight.

But now we have a lot of people know who never grew up on that stuff and aren’t really interested in the old west mystique at all. They view this strictly as a competitive shooting sport, and that competition is mostly speed. Sliced up guns, minimal costuming, and a whole different mindset. Their idea of fun and mine is a bit different I reckon.

Nowdays, if you’re the match director and you carefully craft great stages like this with a lot of variety and fun, you will get complaints. And who, being an unpaid dedicated volunteer who busts their butt to put on a fun match, wants to hear complaints? So the standard 10-10-4, close targets, no story, no props, boring stages rule.

Except for a few places, that’s the way it is these days. And it’s too bad.

[SASS# 23321 Canelo Kid]

I used to write stages like that. I can't move through them like I used to but I still like them. It's what got us into this great sport almost 20 years ago.

 

I gave up writing stages completely when I was flat out told  "No one wants to shoot stages like that anymore. Stop doing that."

 

Well, some still do like them.  

[Pat Riot]

I propose a new SASS category...We'll can call it COWBOY ACTION Shoo...Oh, wait!...

[Pat Riot]

WHAT I am about to say will probably make someone mad, but I have been wanting to say this for some time now, so here it goes...

 

When I started in CAS there was some running, loping or speedy walking for others. There was crouching down or kneeling. There was some kind of activity, like lassoing a wooden horse, throwing sticks of dynamite, casting a fishing pole...some little funny action that related to the stage or theme of the match. Folks that physically couldn’t do certain things got a pass. If you had bad knees and couldn’t kneel you were allowed to stand. Or if you couldn’t run you walked, on the clock and off. Depended on where the running part came in.

 

Folks also shot real cowboy loads in their ammo. Some still do. I do. Anyone shooting .38 Spl “gamer” loads or “wimp” loads wasn’t banished or harrassed but did take some ribbing. Ladies got a pass in many things including the use of “gamer” loads as it is “chivalrous” or “gentlemanly” to allow such things as they are “Ladies”.

 

Somewhere in the early 2000’s I noticed a change...and not for the better.

That was when the whining began. It was just a little at first but “squeaky wheels get the oil”. It was subtle but it was there. Little resentments that someone thought lassoing ponies was silly. Or folks that got butt hurt because “so and so” got to stand when everyone else had to crouch. Then came the day that some dude that always shot .45s was shooting 32-20 rounds, not because he had a wrist problem but because he was faster. Sure he was a gamer, he let everyone know he was a gamer,  but that’s not the part that got me. Another fella, that did shoot 32’s because his wrists were all stove up got all offended at the razzing the other guy was getting and was “Profoundly personally offended that people were making fun of (the “gamer”) to get back at me for shooting light loads” (I’ll bet ya didn’t know that SASS actually has folks involved that think everything is about them...Yeah, surprise!) Anyway, that next match we all got a little lecture on razzing "Gamers" and such for shooting “wimp loads” and for showing displeasure when folks didn't want to "play" Cowboy.

 

Things are different now. Some of the fun is gone. Someone took the "action" out of Cowboy Action Shooting. In some ways, it's now "Cowboy Speed Shooting" to me. Oh, I still have fun and I know that you speed demons have fun too, but CAS has changed...and I do not think that all that has changed has changed for the better.

 

That is my opinion. Like it or not, it's mine and I will stick by it.

 

 

 

 

[Marshal Dan Troop 70448]

5 hours ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

WHAT I am about to say will probably make someone mad, but I have been wanting to say this for some time now, so here it goes...

 

When I started in CAS there was some running, loping or speedy walking for others. There was crouching down or kneeling. There was some kind of activity, like lassoing a wooden horse, throwing sticks of dynamite, casting a fishing pole...some little funny action that related to the stage or theme of the match. Folks that physically couldn’t do certain things got a pass. If you had bad knees and couldn’t kneel you were allowed to stand. Or if you couldn’t run you walked, on the clock and off. Depended on where the running part came in.

 

Folks also shot real cowboy loads in their ammo. Some still do. I do. Anyone shooting .38 Spl “gamer” loads or “wimp” loads wasn’t banished or harrassed but did take some ribbing. Ladies got a pass in many things including the use of “gamer” loads as it is “chivalrous” or “gentlemanly” to allow such things as they are “Ladies”.

 

Somewhere in the early 2000’s I noticed a change...and not for the better.

That was when the whining began. It was just a little at first but “squeaky wheels get the oil”. It was subtle but it was there. Little resentments that someone thought lassoing ponies was silly. Or folks that got butt hurt because “so and so” got to stand when everyone else had to crouch. Then came the day that some dude that always shot .45s was shooting 32-20 rounds, not because he had a wrist problem but because he was faster. Sure he was a gamer, he let everyone know he was a gamer,  but that’s not the part that got me. Another fella, that did shoot 32’s because his wrists were all stove up got all offended at the razzing the other guy was getting and was “Profoundly personally offended that people were making fun of (the “gamer”) to get back at me for shooting light loads” (I’ll bet ya didn’t know that SASS actually has folks involved that think everything is about them...Yeah, surprise!) Anyway, that next match we all got a little lecture on razzing "Gamers" and such for shooting “wimp loads” and for showing displeasure when folks didn't want to "play" Cowboy.

 

Things are different now. Some of the fun is gone. Someone took the "action" out of Cowboy Action Shooting. In some ways, it's now "Cowboy Speed Shooting" to me. Oh, I still have fun and I know that you speed demons have fun too, but CAS has changed...and I do not think that all that has changed has changed for the better.

 

That is my opinion. Like it or not, it's mine and I will stick by it.

 

 

 

 

I hear you, was going to answer, but you and many others have made some great posts. Things won't change back, but I see a day coming when the only thing Cowboy will be the guns.  MT

[Cowtown Scout, SASS #53540 L]

On 1/30/2018 at 6:40 AM, Hardcase Hardin said:

 

 

WOW we're did you find that! I joined CVV and SASS in 2003 and have never seen this video before. Very cool and a lot of memories of that place. Many a Southwest Regional was put on at that facility.  CVV has long since moved from that location in Glen Rose and now shares a range at the Ormsby Ranch in Cleburne with the Lone Star Frontier Shooting Club (which moved there from Chico where it started). I'm still a member of both clubs.  And to answer someone's question about still being the second largest club, no we are not. When I started there was a very large membership and slowly members started new clubs closer to where they lived so they did not have to travel as far to shoot creating many more clubs without the giant membership that CVV once had when there were fewer clubs.

Scout

[Hardcase Hardin]

Glad you enjoyed the memories sir.  TBH it just showed up in my YT feed one day and I had to share it due to a recent thread about them good old days of fun stages.