Outlaw Trail 2007
The SASS Four Corners Regional
August 19, 2007
Sunday
In addition to being first overall at Outlaw Trail, Echo Meadows beat the best male shooter in the shootoff finals.
West Fargo has a scooter because of bad knees. He added a trailer hitch in order to pull his gun cart.
More pictures are in the little Nikon, which is currently locked away in the trailer.
The person-on-person Master Gunfighter shootoff was open to all, divided according to sex until the last match. SEVERAL people were disqualified for such things as: holstering a pistol cocked with a live round under the hammer, leaving a live round in a rifle, not taking down all of the shotgun targets, not making up all of the misses using the shotgun on a dump target, and failure to bribe the scorekeeper. (Okay, I made that one up.)
The awards presentation started late and finished early, a lesson to all other committees at least in that part.
I don't remember most of the winners, of course. Echo Meadows was first overall. Rattler John was first male. Larson E. Pettifogger was first BPC Duelist. Half A Hand Henry won gunfighter. Seven people were injured by falling porcine dung as I won Frontiersman. Larson also won the Plainsman Black Powder side match. Tex was second. I was third. Usually that occurs when there are 3 or less contestants, but there were a bunch. There was a Plainsman Smokeless side match, too, you'll remember.
Three people got white buffalos for a clean match. Two were on our posse, Happy Jack and Blastaway Pablo. Pablo, especially, was impressive, shooting long barreled firearms and full charges. (I won't use the term "Hysterically accurate" to mean full charge anymore, at least here.)
August 18, 2007
Saturday
Since I was shooting clean, I started taking great efforts to continue to shoot clean. It was probably costing me more than risking it as I didn't have a good stage, all just mediocre.
On the second stage I didn't knock over one of the knockdowns and had to make it up with the shotgun. Tex kidded me unmercifully. I said nothing. The next stage had 2 knockdowns, then three targets with each pistol. The sound went like this:
BANG! BANG!
Bang Bang Bang.
BANG! BANG!
Cackle! Cackle! Cackle! (from the gallery--Tex, of course.)
Bang Bang Bang.
"Gamer! Gamer!"
A later stage had one of the new plate racks, with 5 plates one in front of the other, the biggest on the front, each one smaller, the last one pretty small for SASS, where the rule book suggests a 15" square. According to Tex, it sounded like this:
BANG!
BANG!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
II your computer overrides the size of the font you're missing a lot here.
Missed one each of the last 2 stages. Figured I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Free Margaritas!
The Saturday night party started with free Margaritas (but no salted rims!) That's always a good start. The costume contest was limited to best Lawman, Law Lady, Outlaw, and Outlaw Lady.
Larson E. Pettifogger brought out his dog, a Pomeranian, with a complete cowboy outfit, including SASS badge and RO! and RO2 pin. This scared off other lawmen, apparently, afraid of being beaten by a dog.
However several people entered Best Outlaw, Outlaw Lady, and Law Lady.
MEMO TO EVENT COMMITTES:
If you're going to offer free Margaritas, you might want to have the costume contest first. The presentations might be more coherent, and less giggly.
Disregard this if you like giggly, incoherent presentations.
This is not a complaint concerning free Margaritas. I'm all for free Margaritas at EVERY SASS Party.
Irish Jack Clary did a good Robert Leroy Parker as per the Fort Worth picture of the gang (Butch Cassidy), sack suit, derby, mustache. Paul Newman didn't wear a mustache, he emphasized. T. A. Chance, who played Ike Clanton in the 1969 film that's shown at Tombstone, played an appropriately drunk Ike Clanton, or maybe it was the Margaritas. (Note from the next morning: No, he was the same at the shootoff without Margaritas). I entered as John King Fisher (tiger skin chaps).
The lady who played a drunken Calamity Jane won best Outlaw Lady. I didn't catch the name of the best Law Lady, but she wore a very authentic black dress. John King Fisher got the Best Outlaw plaque.
Two guns were given away in a raffle drawing. One person won them both.
August 17, 2007
Friday
The shooters' meeting was at 0830. Our posse was scheduled to shoot at 0945, so I figured I'd get the cooler ready and charge the pistols,etc. between the two.
Wrong! Coyote Calhoun, at the meeting, told us to start at 0900. So I hustled.
That was fun.
Posse Marsha was Laramie Jack. Tex was on it. 23 or so good people. I could tell that right off. Irish Jack Clary was shooting Ruger Old Armies in Frontier Cartridge.. Shakey Shooter was shooting them in Frontiersman. Several people were shooting percussion pistols in Black Powder Cartridge so they could use both hands. With my left arm's ulnar nerve problems I can sure understand. I've had to switch to the .38s and two hands once because of it.
The stages were good. I shot all clean, but #6 was difficult because one gun locked up and took a while to unlock. When I cleaned it I discovered that nipple was 1/2 turn loose.
August 16, 2007
Thursday
Side Match Day
They're experimenting. They had 3 side matches, a long range buffalo hunt in the morning, and a 4 stage Plainsman event run concurrently with a 4 stage Train robbery requiring all main match pistols plus a derringer and a pocket pistol.
The Buffalo Hunt
10 buffalo were spread out between 120 and 275 yards, 9 black ones, and one small white one that was a bonus. I only saw it when it was outlined by smoke from a miss. Coyote Calhoun was a little embarrassed at the invisibility of the 20 second bonus target. The idea was that shooting them all in 199 seconds was impossible, at least for this group with the weapons allowed. The weapons allowed were anything not belt-fed, main match lever action pistol caliber, rifle caliber lever actions, single shots, smokeless, black, grenade launchers (just kidding about those).
The targets, except for the bonus, had to be shot in near-to-far order. Time was the tie breaker among shooters with the same number of hits. I actually hit some with Tex's .30-30 Winchester 94.
Memo to self:
A. Don't put a long range rifle on the top of the want list. You can't see worth a darn.
B. If you ignore A, GET REALLY GOOD SIGHTS and practice at Whittington until you can hit something.
A berm blocked the view of the first target for normal sized people shooting from a sitting position. Tall cross sticks while sitting on Tex's gun cart seemed to be the ticket. Several people tried it standing on their hind legs, which seemed a bit optimistic. I believe 2 guys got 9 targets. No one hit the bonus.
Amazingly I wasn't dead last, just embarrassingly bad.
philosophical interruption:
I believe that bonus targets, like the rest of SASS targets, should be relatively easy to hit, with time being the deciding factor. Really hard targets are just frustrating.
Plainsman Match
They added a smokeless plainsman category so that we had someone to work the posse while we charged our percussion pistols. The smokeless category was centerfire pistols, any shotgun, and single loading your match rifle or using a single shot.
Rifle targets were the same as main match rifle targets, fitting in with the philosophical interruption above. I only missed 2 because Larson E. Pettifogger's otherwise excellent .45-70 Handi-Rifle had a black post front sight, and the targets were freshly painted black, and my poor vision made the sight invisible. I believe one of the pistol knockdowns failed to fall just because I missed it.
Several smoky contestants. I believe Larson won. Beyond that it gets fuzzy. Tex was entertaining as usual. Both Larson and Tex have mastered their Coyote Cap '97 lever shotguns.
More Or Less shot it clean in the smokeless category. Smokeless Plainsman, today's oxymoron.
Though we were offered the chance to shoot the Train Robbery, by the time we finished the Plainsman match we were all done for the day. I talked to someone who shot the Train Robbery, and they were too tired to do the Plainsman match.
The evening's Buffalo Burger/Potluck supper worked out well. Everyone was to bring a dish of choice. The Redhead brought a coconut cream pie she baked from scratch while simultaneously winning a high stakes poker tournament at Route 66 casino.. It went fast
August 15, 2007
Wednesday
What if they gave a Regional and nobody came?
Only 82 contestants are registered for this REGIONAL in the excellent Founders Ranch facilities. No, I have no idea why. They have 20+ mounted contestants next door.
Amazingly I hear that 56 of the contestants are shooting Frontiersman just so they can whip my tail.
Two posses were here for the warm up match. We shot on stages 1-6 but not the same scenario. OUR posse didn't shoot the targets we were told not to, such as the moving vulture. But amazingly, after we all finished, I noticed lots of hits on it. The knockdowns all fell easily to my normal .38 special load. I shot the Evil Roys in lieu of managing 2 percussion pistols for another day. It was a refreshing change. I had so much spare time I could do two or three jobs, bake cookies, clean everyone's guns, and run laps around the facility. Kind of low stress and boring compared to charging percussion pistols.
Claudia Feather was on the posse, but her company, Wild West Mercantile, isn't vending. Very few vendors--appropriate I suppose for the low entry, but I need some things I can't mail order (H & R Handi-Rifle in .38-55 WITH Ejector leads the list).