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Why do we do this


Okiepan

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shooten steel fast 

BBQ with the posse after 

I was shooting sporting clays and saw a match being shot

I watched and bought rossi 9 shot on the way home 

now 5 pistols, 3 rifles 

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Getting to play Cowboy on the weekends with some of the best people around.

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Lifetime shooter and tired of practicing "serious" handling. This is FUN!

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Because I met the finest group of people that I could. Closer than my own brothers and sister. They helped me raise my kids and neither they nor I realized it. 

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For me it's like re-living playing Cowboys and Indians as a kid...with a bunch of new, much older, kids. :)

I like the guns.

I love the comradery..

I liked the fun. 

 

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Don’t try to analyze it! Just participate and enjoy!!!

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Why?... Because!!

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Love the hardware!! Love the friendly competition with others of like minds. I always liked cowboy clothes so the “dress up” aspect is fun!

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Physical challenge.  It becomes increasingly difficult to shoot quickly, accurately, as I age. I enjoy figuring out the fastest way for me to shoot a stage, when allowed the freedom to do so.   I enjoy shooting with friends, but I enjoy shooting by myself as well. I enjoy shooting!!

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I grew up on a multi-thousand acre working ranch - cows, horses, hogs, chickens, all the usual stuff. Winchester 94's and Colt single actions were part of daily life, and it just carried on. Today, I still live on a few hundred acres of it and pasture a few cattle, but those days are all but gone now, and when I'm gone, it's finished. No sons, no grandsons, just two daughters and 7 granddaughters with purple & green hair, pieces of metal in their faces, and little interest in the old lifestyle. Until then, COWBOY ON!

 

About the time I was born -

HomesteadBig.jpg

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Because ..... the guns are really neat ... AND ... CAS provides a venue to use and enjoy them.

You have an opportunity to know them better than almost everyone ... even those that lived during the era.

 

Owning them w/o CAS would be silly ... They would only come out for BBQs ...

When you died ... you heirs would find the gun in a dresser draw ... along with 40 of the 50 rounds left in the box of ammo you purchased with it.  

... DUH!! .... 

 

  

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The clothes add something fun, but even other sports have contestants getting all tactical or wearing jerseys with their favorite champion or firearms on them.

 

I do like the description of this sport as "a social gathering interrupted by periodic gunfire."

 

I do like shooting fast and building my skills. I'm not really all that fast, and certainly not yet in this sport.

 

There is a difference in this sport, at least around here. While by and large all venues I shoot at are supportive of new shooters, this sport in my experience has fewer folks driving certain combos of equipment, fewer contestants complaining about how slow a certain shooter is, this sport flat out rocks when it comes to loaning guns to try them out.

 

I do have a different approach in this sport compared to the others I participate in... In the others, I shoot my carry guns, my defensive guns, with ammo having the same felt recoil as my carry/defensive ammo. So I'm not using red dots, scopes, low power factor ammo, thumb braces, none of that. In those sports.

 

In this sport, I do intend to tune my guns to be faster than I am (and hope to get even faster than my guns). I intend to load my own ammo and find the best power factor within the rules for my shooting. I'm also going to make smoke as I think the challenge of "sensing" where the plates are/were is a great skill to have.

 

Having talked with a bunch of folks (in person and here), I also plan to explore the difference between a SxS and a '97. Which one am I faster with? Can I learn to beat that time with the other? And go back the other way even faster?

 

But mainly, I want to hang with a bunch of relaxed folks hanging out and throwing some lead and having fun, and being OK with how seriously (or not) any individual takes actual performance as measured by the clock.

 

I have my reasons for running hot ammo in Steel Challenge and could go faster with lighter ammo in that sport. Also, CQC sights suck compared to red dots in the sport. But Steel Challenge is a great way to run my carry gun and build skill with it.

 

I shoot an AK instead of an AR. I shoot it better than an AR because of how the sights are set up on it (I have old bad eyes). I was recently told (in a 3 gun competition) that I had the "wrong" gun and would never do well until I change to a "real" (???) rifle. As soon as the idiot left, another competitor came over. He shoots an AR. And he wanted to let me know that while he saw I had some trouble with the Texas Star out at 100 yards, and he shot it without a problem, he was shooting with a scope and he doubted he would ever have hit anything at that range with just iron sights. I shoot just iron sights. Well, I do have some plans for an SKS I picked up... But that aside, the supportive dude would enjoy shooting SASS, he was that sort of person.

 

I also shoot a Maverick 88 pump shotgun shoulder bruiser. I bought it for rabid bear (den on my land, I have no desire to shoot the healthy ones). So it it comes to that I'll take the bruised shoulder. I shoot hot loads in competition with it just for the practice, not the best possible times. I do want to get a Mossberg 940, but will still shoot hot loads in competition because of my purpose.

 

So SASS. This is a venue where I want to explore speed without red dots, and without defensive focus. I do want to add smoke in the future just for the challenge. I was going to go with .38 special and there are good reasons and proven results for doing so but I am not out to win anything, I'm just out to improve my times. So I changed calibers for fun even though I will not be as fast as I could be with the obvious choice.

 

My SASS guns are not my primary defensive tools. I would use them if I had to and they were at hand, but they are not on my hip all day long.

 

I'll be loading some brass shotgun shells on one of these snowy days this winter, at least hope to do so.

 

I'm not out to win, I'm out to improve. I'm going to take every low-tech advantage I can to do so with these guns with polishing and springs and ammo recipes. And I'm going to practice. And y'all are supportive of me doing so. I'm glad you don't expect me to win, you support me wanting to improve, and you really just want me to have fun.

 

The other sports I shoot in have a training/defensive focus, this one does not. I feel more relaxed exploring my skills and abilities and the technology limits of these "old" guns in this sport, and I'm also told I look pretty good in my hat.

 

 

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In 1876 one of my great, great grandparents left Petersburg, Va (allegedly after running afoul of reconstructionists) and moved 125 SE to a mill town.  Much of the stories that I come across have similarly relocating people who went west.  Part of my motivation is wondering how my family would have been affected if that relative had kept going west, like so many others.

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I found myself nodding as I read the other answers. Not much was written I would disagree with. For myself, I would add I grew up reading Louis L'Amour westerns and watching westerns. Did I play "cowboys and Indians?" Of course I did. Fast forward to my adult years, and I spent years shooting trap competitively, starting in college. Along with that was shooting with a purpose for the Army. Once my father-in-law passed, I didn't enjoy trap near as much. Often it is a melancholy experience for me when I do shoot trap. As I closed in on retirement from the Army, the less I wanted to shoot with the idea of needing to "put it to use."

 

All of this led me to finding an interest in CAS. I met the people, and that made all the difference. Despite what people often think of attorneys, military NCOs and the like, I'm an introvert. Cowboy shooters are the few people I find myself looking forward to being with socially. I still often find myself quiet and reserved, but I enjoy the company, regardless.  I want to shoot as well as possible, but I realize I am not likely to win much anytime soon. It doesn't matter, though. If I were only wanting to win trophies and awards, I'd still be shooting trap, regardless.

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:ph34r:   Echoing the above replies.......it's the FOLKS, the FUN, the GUNS, and the physical challenge against which I measure myself.  Al in all, it's a great diversion from the tedium of the daily grind.  Lots more reasons, but these'll do.

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its all fun - i love all the great folks and as pete said above ...... i love the guns 

 

"Because ..... the guns are really neat ... AND ... CAS provides a venue to use and enjoy them." 

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

For me it's like re-living playing Cowboys and Indians as a kid...with a bunch of new, much older, kids. :)

I like the guns.

I love the comradery..

I liked the fun. 

 

I thought yesterday you didn't love us anymore.  Oh well welcome back Cowboy!

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

Read very closely. 
 

 

should have put a:D

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When I was a kid growing up in Iowa, I loved playing cowboy with a cowboy hat, cap pistols and riding a stick horse with the vinyl horse head. 

My father always wanted to live out in the west and be a cowboy, (his name was Harold but no one knew him by his given name, he was always known as "Tex"), but he raised a family of 5 children while my mother stayed home,  so he never got to live his dream.

So there are 2 reasons why I do this.

I get to play cowboy again, but this time with real guns.

The main reason I do this is for my father, (now deceased) I'm doing this for you Dad, I'm living your dream.

 

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Some people look at SASS and ask why?

I look at SASS and ask, why not?

;)

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10 minutes ago, Arizona Gunfighter said:

When I was a kid growing up in Iowa, I loved playing cowboy with a cowboy hat, cap pistols and riding a stick horse with the vinyl horse head. 

My father always wanted to live out in the west and be a cowboy, (his name was Harold but no one knew him by his given name, he was always known as "Tex"), but he raised a family of 5 children while my mother stayed home,  so he never got to live his dream.

So there are 2 reasons why I do this.

I get to play cowboy again, but this time with real guns.

The main reason I do this is for my father, (now deceased) I'm doing this for you Dad, I'm living your dream.

 

My dad would have loved this game. He was a levergun guy from Michigan and he surely would have loved the people. I wear a kepi he bought at Gettysburg when I shoot. Wish it was him wearing it.

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Dressing up in Old West clothes, while shooting Old West guns, with 16-18 other part time or retired, sarcastic, cynical, insult swappers ........only sporadically interrupted by gunfire. Put me down for that........several times a month.

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For the joy, for the fellowship, for the nostalgia, for the beauty of the firearms, for the fun of the game away from the daily pressures and worries of life.

 

Why we fall out of love, the loss of newness, focusing on the rules instead of the spirit, allowing those who focus on the rules and gamesmanship rather than the spirit of the game to steal our joy. The rules are necessary to organize the society, but when the rules become the focus rather than a necessary evil they destroy the spirit of the game and take away from the real purpose of sharing with one another the joy of history and stories and legend. 

 

With anything one can fall out of love but one can also fall back in love if they want to. It takes a determination to rediscover the joy and the spirit of the game and to eschew the negatives and negative people that we have allowed to take away our joy.

 

I think of it akin to a church - our joy in church isn't found in a building or an organization but in our fellowship with our Lord and our peers. Our faith is the heart of our joy. As Paul said the law is death only through the spirit is there life. Some poor souls in a church focus on the law and the rules and find fault and judgement with everyone and everything. They mistake the rules for the heart or the purpose of the church. They are like a dog whose master points at beautiful waterfall and the dog stares and focuses at the masters finger pointing the way and never sees the waterfall. And we all have failed at one time or another in our way. 

 

The answer for some is to leave the church and seek a new church that is alive in the spirit and not moribund with rules and bleeding deacons. But old churches can be renewed and we can be a part of that renewal starting in ourselves. Rediscovering the joy and growing stronger in the spirit and sharing it with others. 

 

JMHO - YMMV.

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