These photos are from a Cowboy Shoot in Texas in 2000. An old buddy who loves guns had joined a Cowboy Shoot group and they would go out with their period guns and garb and have various shooting competitions out in the woods. He invited me along one time to watch and I took a camera with me. My recollection is that there were about a dozen guys plus me. Scanned negatives from my Minolta Alpha 707si.

Looks like fun Henry - the ultimate game of "cowboys and indians"

Reminds me that they showed Rio Bravo on TV at the weekend - I had to watch it again even though I own it on DVD as well. Classic western

This Indian likes the 3rd one best Henry....

Sury

Birma, they took this pretty seriously, I think, but they were having a real good time with it.

Sury, thanks for giving the Indian side.

My recollection is that they told me the "rules" were everyone had to use ammunition that was like the loads used in those days. I am pretty sure all of them were self-loaders so the ammo was not as powerful as what is used these days. I recall watching someone shooting a rifle and if you watched closely and sort of stood behind and a bit off to the side you could actually see the bullet going towards the target.

Here are some more:

Good ones of those ‘gunslingers’ Henry, very authentic looking, I like the coach gun, I had one once in 3” mag. But why they made a 12g short barrel in 3” is anybodies guess. And those old Colts are absolutely terrible to try to shoot accurately with their slow lock time, I had one of those once too, one has to chuckle at those miraculous shots they do in the movies, well nigh impossible in real life but wonderful entertainment just the same.
Greg

I love these shots.

Thanks for that interesting info! I suppose the short barrel is to make it easier to carry and handle on a wagon/stagecoach. It would have a bit of a kick with that short barrel, but the 12g loads weren't as strong as these days.

I wish I could have gotten some better photos, but I was just there as a spectator and I tried not to interfere. I also, sadly, tried to preserve my life by always staying in places where I was not likely to be hit by a flying bullet so I was limited to angles that were not always the best. I recall that the light was very contrasty too with bright sun and deep shadows. My buddy tried to recruit me to join them and it looked sort of fun, but I would have had to buy at least a couple of replica guns (rifle, handgun) plus the cowboy garb. I just didn't have enough interest to do it. I think all of them had 3-4 guns: rifle, 1 or 2 handguns, and shotgun.

I think that was very sensible Henry, keeping out of the way, those old slow bullets are probably more dangerous than modern high velocity ones, the high velocity almost guarantees that the projectile will self destruct or penetrate into the target area and stay there, whereas the much slower ones can ricochet and bounce off things, sometimes even return too the vicinity of the sender.
Another thing about pistols I saw once a long time ago was when a guy demonstrated how much of the propelling blast is lost sideways (there is a tiny gap between the chamber and the barrel to allow it too rotate), by putting a sheet of paper over it and pulling down pinched together with left thumb and finger underneath so it was enclosing the gun but leaving room at the back for the hammer fall. The paper was cut apart on both sides by the amount of side blast so it doesn’t pay to stand too close to the side of anyone firing a pistol, or probably an automatic either as you can get a hot empty case down your shirt.
Greg
Ps. is that a left handed model Peacemaker in the last photo? That’s something I never knew before.

Hmm, now you have me wondering. Maybe that's it or maybe I accidentally scanned the negative with it flipped in the holder or maybe I somehow flipped it in PP. I don't have the negative handy to check. I suspect it is my error though. I should go back and flip the image.

Actually, there was an article in one of the gun mags a few years ago speculating that Col. Colt was a lefty, because of the way he built his revolver. It's more natural for a right handed person to have a revolver like the one shown, and there is a company in Texas that makes them that way.

If you've ever loaded a Peacemaker, or one of that type, you'll see what I mean. Having the loading gate on the left means you can load easily without changing hands or losing your grip.

Dusty

I reckon so Dusty, but it’s probably six of one and half a dozen of the other in a sense, it would be ok if one was reasonably ambidextrous I guess, I didn’t use the extractor ejector very much on mine, the empties seemed to drop out mostly (catching and saving them for reloading) as it had very smooth chamber walls (no rust), but if you had a sticky case at some point one would need to operate the plunger to get that empty case out of the chamber, then you would have to decide which hand you used to operate the extractor plunger, it would just depend on how ‘stuck’ the empty was I suppose. Actually I don’t know if I could even adjust to using my left hand to load a left handed gun as easily as I could with my right, (turning the chamber with my left) I could see myself dropping bullets and making a mess of doing that I think, especially if the chamber revolved in the opposite direction as well, but there again it depends on how one trains oneself. I guess I could have trained myself to load the right handed gun with my left hand for example, that probably wouldn’t have taken much effort.
The gun itself in its day would have been quite an advance over the individually loaded chambers, (time consuming cap and ball style), as quite a few contemporary models were, I guess the only way to gain an advantage, or break even, using one of those would be too have quite a few preloaded spare chambers to swap the empty one out with, if either combatant could still see each other through the clouds of smoke from the black powder that is…kaf kaf.
When I say that those single action Colts and most likely the similarly designed Remington’s were not easy too shoot accurately, I meant for me, I would be happy if most bullets were actually on the page…somewhere. There have been some shooters in the past that could do amazing things though, like Ed McGivern for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_McGivern I expect it probably took half a lifetime of dedicated training too get to that standard.
Greg

I went back and flipped the photo to make it correct.

hi
i love the shots (and photos) impossible in this country without anti terorist police turnimg up, i have never inmy life handled let a lone fired a gun of any sort. i would love to have a go at a lee enfeild rifle like my grandan in 1914/18 war used just once, my dad was issiude with tommy gun in last war. but its the lee enfield i would love to have ago at just once, once again good shooting.
mike hawthorne

Hmm, good to see a couple of cowboys and a sheriff with the real equipment...but I certainly would keep my distance while these men were handling them even with no bullets in those old-fashioned barrels.

Good ones, Henry. From what I read in this thread, I assume the bullets could even be tracked with the naked eye even if not as clear as the Matrix-style.

Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz

I don't own guns, but I have sort of been around them my whole life and have shot a lot of different kinds. My old buddy owns many and when we get together we often go to the range to shoot some of his guns. Of course, in the Marine Corps I used to shoot some too.