Sunday, August 9, 2009

Ode to the Ol' West!

As many of you know, I love guns. Well as much as I love guns, I love the old west. Well I found this association that lets us combine both! Its called Cowboy Action Shooting (SASS - single action shooting society) and I am hooked. So yesterday was the third time I got to go shoot it, and the first time I was able to shoot all my own guns and not borrow any. I must add that Amber is great about it! She laughs when I dress up, just shakes her head when I tell her I wanna be called Nova Kane (everyone must have an alias), smiles when I get home, and listening patiently while I give her shot by shot details. Yesterday was an all day thing and Amber was a trooper and stayed here and watched the boys all day so I could go play cowboy. Thank you Amber!!! I love you!
So the first time I ever shot this I got the Jailer award, ie dead last! Last month was the second time and I got fourth. This month I worked hard on the friendly tips the other competitors gave me and got the US Marshall award or FIRST PLACE!!!! Yeee-haw! So here for your entertainment are two of the six stages. I actually didn't get my best stage on film (no misses and a fast time). In this sport you are timed (the little blue box he holds by my ear, it actually records each shot) and penalized for every miss or procedural error (shooting something out of order or too many times, etc.) You must have a time period hat on at all times and go by your alias. I am Nova Kane (I have also been Mus B. Greene (when I got last), and Tinker Made- I am always tinkering and making things). Each stage consists of some combination of three or four guns, two single action revolvers, a rifle of pistol caliber, and a shotgun (all time period correct). The the stage is set to shoot one or the other first in a specific order. For example in the first video I started with the shotgun in hand (usually its on the table or leaning against something unloaded) and shoot a diamond and then the clay pigeon (I missed the clay pigeon). Then had to draw pistol number one and shoot the knock-out circle twice (black and then white) and then each of the three diamond targets once, holster that gun (these pistol holds six but traditionally the cowboys only loaded five for safety reasons - hammer down on an empty chamber). Draw pistol number two and shoot the five knock-downs (I missed the third one). Then pick up the rifle and Nevada sweep the five squares on the hillside (Nevada sweep means go left to right 1,2,3,4,5 then back to 4,3,2,1 and then in this case end on the buffalo, ten shots total). And that ends the stage, I finished it with two misses (5 seconds penalty for each). The other stage was more complicated with the numbers and shots on each target (watch for the clay birdie at the end). Anyway its fun, we laugh and goad and tell jokes and help each other out. I am really hooked! Any questions?


1 comment:

  1. first- yea for Doug and his wild wild westerly self :)
    second- how are you doing? I worry about you and pray for you.
    third- Jason is in Ross Medical school in Dominica (an island in the Carribean) Ross is actually based out of New Jersey but Jason does his dicdatic (book)work here in the Carribean- then we do all of his rotations in the US. So we are here for a year and a half (we come home Aug 2010- love you and your cute boys! when is baby #3 due and he's a boy right? name?

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