There’s not a chance that these wax projectiles will leave the four walls, though I know of at least one cowboy shooter who recently put a wax ball through his Levis. Still folks where I live would prefer you lay down the hammer and saw at night, and don’t take kindly to anything after dark that sounds like either.
Cal’s organization does a nice job, shooting now in more than a dozen states. I’m happy to be a Life Member, number 41 in fact, shooting under the alias of “the Reverend W. W. Ronin.” Given that, you’d think that I’d have done better job.
Simply said, I did better the first time out of the box, at Nationals last year in Boise, Idaho. Ever since then I’ve been trying to figure out how to do it more quickly and more accurately, extending my hand, not extending my hand, rocking my hip forward and so on. I shot my personal best at the Fernley shoot, with a time of .52 seconds, but it didn’t take the pain away of coming in absolutely dead last. And dead is what I was, drawing down along side of another fellow who was aiming at a similarly timed target.
But in Nevada it’s not always the skill that counts. Sometimes it’s the luck of the cards.
And in my case, I had the indignity of drawing against “Buzzard Cooper,” who is an outstanding shooter every day of the week. Not surprisingly he came in first. Drawing next against “Ol’ Possum,” who, given his age, I figured I had half a chance of beating. Not so. He out drew me and out shot me hands down and came in overall second. And finally—and I say finally, because it was what Cowboy Fast Draw shooters call a “3X Elimination” match—I drew against my not yet CFDA registered cowboy friend, “Digger Burns.”
Digger and I have known each other for a long time. He used to date my daughter, though after this weekend I’m kind of glad things didn’t work out.
He and I had spent all morning practicing in his Fernley backyard—he lives out quite a ways, you understand, injuring only the wood of his children’s swing set or tree—until a certain mishap happened that I’ve promised not to talk about. I coached Digger to shoot better and more quickly for an hour or more. “Hit the target,” I said, quoting another well known shooter in the sport named “Chucky,” “and you’ll place in the top 25 percent every time.”
Sure enough, that’s exactly what my Reno Police Department detective friend former boyfriend to my daughter did. He hit the target. And then while attempting to shoot a second time, his revolver jammed. I should say my revolver jammed, because I lent him the piece, the fact of which I immediately regretted when moments later he was able to clear it and “gut shoot” his way to glory.
That’s it. That’s the whole story. I have the kind of wife who loves that I’ll drive eleven hours for such an experience knowing that I’ll still be smiling when I’m driving eleven more hours back home.
The key to getting better at Cowboy Fast Draw shooting, it seems to me, like any other sport or discipline—and perhaps this is true for life in general—is right practice, done regularly, done often.
And that’s just what I’m going to do, starting tomorrow, in my garage. I’m going to clear away the extra furniture, move a couple of boxes of books up out of the way on to some shelves, back out the Alfa Romeo sports car, (she hates to be “dinged” by those wax buggers) and get right back down to business.
Digger incidentally, Fernley resident Scott Shaw, came in 9th.
