Texas SASS

The Hobo Brasser is Snow-Birding in Texas again. I received this email from him a couple of days ago. The say that" Old Dogs can't learn New Tricks". That may be true, but anybody who's a shooter knows that any excuse to shoot somebody else's guns is a good excuse.

Well last Sunday it was either drive 320 mi round trip to Corpus Christi @ 2.79/gal or shoot Cowboy in McAllen. There is a local small, but very active cowboy group here. I know all of them, because they all shoot speed steel and some shoot IPSC. Three of them offered to let me use their guns. A no brainer huh?

They had four stages and in all it took about the same length of time as an IPSC match. Each stage had 10 rifle, 10 pistol and 2-4 shotgun. The guns I borrowed were a Marlin model 1894, two Ruger Bisleys and a model 94 shotgun with a short barrel. The rifle and pistols were in .38 spl. I supplied my own ammo.

On all stages the course description called for one on each and repeat with the pistols. My very first pistol target, I double tapped for a procedural. Old habits don't die they just surface at inopportune times. Cowboy scores time+ so I had 15 seconds added to my time for this and a miss I had on another stage. I finished 3rd overall out of 14 shooters and was 7 secs behind 2nd place. 27 behind first place.

It was a lot of fun. Cowboy requires you to remember things like how many shots on each target and a sequence to shoot them. I got a shotgun target out of sequence, but was not penalized when several people pointed out that the walkthrough was not specific enough.

I'm not rushing out and buying new guns and lord knows I cannot afford the clothes, but all said, I will be doing this again next month.

Talking to the shooters, all friends from other disciplines, I learned some interesting things about cowboy guns. Most, if not all, cowboy guns do not run smoothly off the shelf. They have to be tuned. Even double barrel shotguns. Uberti rifles are way over priced. Two people have them and said they had to tune and polish and keep working on them. On guys said he will not have another one. The most popular rifles are Marlins and the pistols are 90% Ruger's of one model or another.

Next month I'll wear my cowboy boots and maybe get a cheap hat (I left my good one at home-in Oregon). Ah well, next Sunday is speed steel and at the end of February I will drive to Corpus for the Texas State Carbine Championships which I will shoot with my CX4.

There's more there than I ever wanted to know about SASS, but it appears that the Good Ol' Boys in Texas aren't too proud to let a Dude shoot with him. Suppose he wore his Air Jordans to the match?