Cowboy Action Shooting: Competition Guns

Series Summary

Though the days of the "Old West" are over, we can pretend that they aren't; and many people do. Cowboy Action Shooting is a popular hobby that places you in the scene of the Old West with the guns, boots, leather chaps, leather holsters, and leather belts. Each competitor gets to choose an alias such as Pedro El Pistolero and creates his or her own image and costume. Additionally each Cowboy Action Shooter chooses the types of guns to shoot and the type of shooting style he or she may want. With a lot of practice competitors learn to shoot quicker and more accurately than western movie heroes. If you would like to learn more about Cowboy Action Shooting, you can learn for free from one of our experts.

In this free how-to video series, learn all about Cowboy Action Shooting from 49er Cowboy Action Shooting Champion Bob Wolf. Bob "Wolf Wind-Walker" will teach you tips and techniques for competing in Cowboy Action Shooting competitions. Wolf Wind-Walker and his partners William Waddy and Dixie Avenger will demonstrate how to prepare for Cowboy Action Shooting, how to load a cap and ball black powder pistol, how to shoot and score in Cowboy Action Shooting, how to shoot a pistol in Cowboy Action Shooting, how to shoot a lever-action rifle in Cowboy Action Shooting competitions, how to shoot a shotgun in Cowboy Action Shooting competitions, and how to shoot gunfighter style in Cowboy Action Shooting.

Video Transcript

"Hi. This is Bob Wolf again for Expert Village.com with cowboy action shooting. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the guns we use in the sport. Most of them are around the late 1800's. They need to be paired correct, they can be originals or they can be replicas. We have a small example of some of the guns that we use here. I will just go over them briefly for you. This is cap and ball type revolver, some of you may be familiar with that. Next one we have a Remington, next we have a pair of Rutgers in different configurations, and these are thirty-twos. We have the old standby street sweeper, the double-barreled shotgun, which has been cut-off, very popular in the old west. This model 97 pump and this gun are still in use today. It was used back in the 1800's and it is still in use today. This is a typical model 73 which is the one affiliated with James Stewarts western Winchester 73. These are your birdie copies made in Italy. This is a 66, same action only with a brass frame, based on the same John Browning design. This is a model 92 Winchester, a little bit different design on this one, a little lighter, a little smaller gun. This is a Marlin, Marlin goes way back to but this is a modern version of a Marlin lever action rifle. These are typical of some of the guns we use in cowboy action shooting. There's a whole variety of categories that you can shoot in, age based, gun based and costume based also. So under the cowboy action shooting umbrella, there's all kinds of different ways you can play cowboy. Also, when we do the main matches, the calibers that we use in these guns, our main match caliber is 32 - 45. That covers a lot of different bullet sizes, 32, 32, 20, 38, 44, 44 magnums, 40, a lot of the cap and ball guns are used. The guys really like that, they like to see that flame shooting out the end of the barrel. So these are typical of the guns we use and there are pump action rifles and there?s a lever action shotgun also. We don't have samples of this right here. But there is more and more guns coming into play in our sport because so many people are doing it. That the gun manufacturers are responding and making more and more period correct guns for us, which gives us a lot more toys to play with."