Winter Range shooting competition
OK first let me start out by saying I know very little about Cowboy action shooting but Bawanna ask me to share the experience with the forum so I decided to give it a shot…I mean try. So here goes;
Just remember I'm not a writer, I usually send this trip information to family members who are very forgiving.
2/21/17 We spent most of the day at the "Winter Range" shooting competition. We watched some of the participants warm up for the days events and then we hit the midway. Of course since this is a western shooting match there were lots of cowboy items for sale 6 shooters, lever action rifles, shot guns, and 1911's, holsters, belts, and various gun cleaning products, gun smiths, black smiths, photographers, and I can't forget the food venders….some vender even had wild game meals.
Another unique facet to this competition is that well over 90% of the folks wear cowboy/cowgirl outfits or early 1900 style clothing, it's really colorful. And, because of this the midway vendors sale every imaginable clothing that the competitors could want!
Next we watched the "Wild Bunch" competition. In this contest they shoot 1911 handguns that are replicas of the ones made prior to WWII (I may have my dates off, but they
definitely are an older version of that iconic handgun), Winchester lever action carbines, and shot guns. Even though the men and women are mixed together during the shoot
their scores are kept separate, i.e. men against men, and women against women. During the competition various people who are familiar with this sport would come over and explain what exactly was going on. It was a lot of fun even though often times our view was obscured, sometimes by people and sometimes by the building facades. These
facades look like building fronts from the old west i.e. saloons, forts, banks, general stores…..
2/22/17 We spent a good portion of the day at the range shooting.
When we got back to the camper we met a couple of neighbors who had some great dogs. One was an Australian shepherd, and the other was a seventeen year old Alaskan sled dog. Come to find out the 71 year old woman has run the iditorod sled dog race!! She's race off and on all her life and ran the iditorod as a rookie when she was 54 (I think). I believe she continued to run this race into her early 60's! That's absolutely amazing. It's a tough race for a young person, let alone someone over 50…we were soooo
impressed! By the way, the 17 year old sled dog that we met is her last remaining lead dog from her competitive days. I can't imagine how tough it will be when she passes.
Here is a link with more information about her. It was an honor to shake her hand.
http://juneauempire.com/stories/0211...l#.WK8lTEuwhyM
We ended the day watching a fly over (of the competition area) by some old war planes….how cool!
2/23/17 - 2/26/17 During these 4 days we took advantage of a the range (for a few hours) twice and spent the rest of the time at Winter Range. We watched a number of Cowboy action shooting stages.
Again These were very hard to see because of the facades and other competitors blocking the view, but it was still fun. Of course there were plenty of friendly folks explaining thing to us. The guns used in this part of the competition were single action revolvers, lever action rifles (normally in 38 special, but some use 45ACP and even 357) and shot guns.
I can't think of a better place to have a Cowboy action National Championship. Obviously the range is great, but it is also surrounded by moderately high dessert mountains that have many Saguaro Cacti! These are the typical Cactus that you see in Cowboy movies, they are tall and have arms. In fact some of them are very expressive, for example, they may seem to be pointing the way or waving to you, etc.
On Friday 90% of the people were wearing red shirts, or other red clothing in honor of American Veterans. Hubby and I didn't have any red shirts but we did have ball caps that indicated that we had served. Several folks noticed the hats and came over to ask some questions. One guy wasn't drafted during Vietnam (his lottery number was never called) and he felt guilty. He wouldn't let us leave without a hug. Right before the competition started they played the National Anthem….guess what…everyone stood!
Later in the afternoon we went to the "Cowboy Shooter Supply" tent. We needed some brake cleaner for our firearms and didn't feel like leaving the area. Well, I'll tell you what, the guy (sorry I can't remember his name) didn't have any on display for sale but sold us one from his own tool bag at cost, that's how nice these folks are!! We hung around a little longer and his wife, Martha, educated us on the single action Ruger Cowboy six shooter. She competes and is very tiny (5 foot tall, and about 100 pounds) but when she shook our hands…holy smoke…what a grip. In order to train for competition, and fun, she and her husband shoot 50,000 rounds a year!
We also spent part of two days watching the mounted shooting. How FUN!!! The riders guide their horses through a course marked with traffic cones. These cones have a stick about five feet tall coming out of the cone with a balloon attached to the end. The object is to zig zag through the course as fast as you can and shoot 5 red and 5 blue balloons.
The riders have two six shooters loaded with 5 blanks each. They use blanks because they are constantly changing direction and it wouldn't be safe to use live ammo. Of course this also means they have to get close enough to each balloon so the hot gases from the blank will pop the balloon and for each one they miss they add 5 seconds to their time.
As they begin their run they have the first gun drawn and after 5 shots they must holster it and draw the second gun to complete the course. The costumes, belts, and holsters are works of art! The actual holsters face the same direction, one is strong side and the other is cross draw and they are worn fairly high so they can easily draw and holster while blazing around on their horse…….WOW!!
They have all kinds of divisions based on sex and age, but they had one lady that came within 3 tenths of a second slower than the world record, at least that was what a former rider told us. He was sitting in the stands and answering everyone's questions.
What a week we had….wish you all could have been there!
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Originally Posted by berettabone
