Find a club near you using the SASS website. Their website will probably have a map and/or instructions. Both Texas Historical Shootists Society and Tejas Pistoleros in the Houston area, for example, have good website instructions/maps.

Gunsmoke, Texas, a permanent Cowboy Action Shooting facility outside of Columbus, Texas, is a good place to start.

The club will probably have a contact phone number. You might call him. He'll probably tell you to come on out whether you have all of your equipment or not. If you have everything, no problem. If you're short a pistol or a rifle or a shotgun ask if you can borrow one. Any club I've been involved with encouraged beginners, so loaner guns are always available. I've loaned guns myself.

Get your gear together the night before. Make sure everything is in the car. Name shooters have gotten to matches and realized they forgot their guns. I once went back in the garage for something and found my pistols on the floor.

Arrive early. Beat the crowd, yes, but the real reason is new shooters have more paperwork to do than repeats, and you may have to qualify. Qualification isn't difficult. You just have to shoot the pistol, rifle, and shotgun to demonstrate safe handling. Misses are allowed. Take your time. You won't impress anyone there if you hurry and screw up.

Buck Creek, Home of the Comanche Valley Vigilantes, central Texas

Listen up at the shooters meeting. Posses will be assigned then if they haven't already. A posse is just a group of shooters that will shoot together all day. Each posse will start at a different stage so that several stages can be shot simultaneously.

Don't be surprised when there's a pledge of allegiance to the American Flag (and, at THSS, the Texas Flag), and an opening prayer. This is not a meeting of the ACLU, and there's no CAS club at Berkeley.

Shooters meeting at Tejas Pistoleros

Each posse will have a posse marshal. Tell him you're a newcomer. He will probably assign someone to help/watch/mentor you.

Shooters listen (well, most of them) to posse marshal at posse meeting prior to first stage.

When it's your turn to get in line, put the required amount of ammunition on your body. I put rifle rounds in a small leather pouch on my belt and pistol rounds when I shoot cartridge pistols. "Loading Strips", leather strips that hold 10 rounds on a side are popular and a good idea. If you load it properly, you will have the right number of rounds.My shotshell belt holds 12 pistol/rifle rounds, too. (Many a contestant has realized he didn't refill his shotshell belt when he reached for shells only to find the belt empty). Others use loading blocks or ammo boxes. Carry the exact number you need, and you won't put in too many. This is a no-no. Shotgun ammunition, of course, goes in your shotgun loops. Extras are okay. You'll drop some.

Then carefully take your long guns from your gun cart. Don't sweep anyone. Move the muzzles to vertical as expeditiously as possible. (Better yet, start with a vertical carry gun cart.)

Go to the loading table. Lay the guns down facing down range, pistols, too. In this instance, Capt. Baylor is acting as loading table monitor for the shooter ahead and monitoring the loading of his pistol. Normally a worker is assigned to this job. In this instance, we covered each other.

Lay the ammunition needed for the rifle down. Count the rounds. Now you see the value of the loading strip.

Then load the pistol(s) with 5 rounds (each). With Colts and clones it's open loading gate, load one, skip one, load 4, close loading gate. Hammer to full cock then down carefully on an empty chamber. Let the loading table monitor see what you're doing. With a Ruger you can load 5 and make sure an empty chamber is under the hammer.

Check visually to make sure the empty chamber is under the hammer. Show the loading table monitor and get his/her okay.

Relax. Visualize the stage. Remember the order. "Rifle first, 3 targets, sweep left to right three times. Ground rifle on hay bale. Pistol one, 5 rounds on 5 pistol targets left to right. Reholster. Pistol two, 5 rounds on 5 pistol targets right to left. Reholster. Shotgun. Sweep 2 swingers left right twice."

Starting positions vary. At this stage at Winter Range 2001, it was facing uprange with a cup of coffee in both hands. At the start signal, drop coffee, turn...

In this stage at a Tejas Pistoleros monthly match we started at Cowboy Port Arms and engaged rifle targets first, three targets, swept left to right three times, then safely grounded rifle on the wall by the door, action open...

Ground rifle safely--if a weapon falls down it's a stage DQ. If it's loaded it's a match DQ. Take an extra half second to make sure. A name competitor in trophy position had a shotgun fall on his last stage at Winter Range 2001. A former World Champion knocked a pistol out of its holster--loaded--at End of Trail 2003--match DQ—on the first day! Embarrassing and dangerous at a local match. Embarrassing, dangerous, and expensive at the World Championship.

... move to left window to engage falling plates, draw first pistol (from crossdraw holster).

If you use a crossdraw holster, do the crossdraw dance to make sure you're not sweeping anyone. Be aware of the angles. Exaggerate the cross draw dance to make sure the people watching see you do it.

Ideally it's Bang-Clink

Bang-Clink

Bang-Clink

Bang-Clink

Bang-Clink

Now reholster safely. The second pistol engages another set of targets, usually in a prescribed order. Then reholster safely. DON'T SWEEP ANYONE WHILE REHOLSTERING!

Retrieve shotgun and engage swingers 1 & 2 left to right three times. That is black powder smoke.

Then shotguns. Shotguns start empty and end empty. If the shotgun isn't the last weapon fired (and it should be for timer activation purposes), emptying the chambers is required before leaving it.

"Muzzles up. Proceed to unloading table," should be the command from the timer operator. Time to get out of the fog of battle and concentrate on safely unloading the weapons.

When finished, STOP. The timer isn't running. You can do things at normal speed now. Don't get DQed now. MUZZLE UP if you have a long gun in hand. Pick up your other long gun if needed. Move to the unloading table. Sometimes workers will pick up your grounded long guns. They may be a long way from where you ended up.

DO NOT pick up brass. If brass is picked up, and it is in all but big matches, other contestants will do that for you. You should clear the shooting area and go to the unloading table in a timely manner.

Place the long guns on the unloading table, muzzles down range.

(Note the crossdraw is at a legal 45°, not pointing excessively close to horizontal.)

Rack the action on the rifle several times and look down the chamber and in the loading gate to make sure it's really unloaded. If you're using a '97 shotgun, do the same with it. With a double just look at the open chambers and show them to the unloading table monitor.

At the unloading table carefully show that every weapon is unloaded to the unloading table monitor (usually the previous shooter. You'll become the unloading table monitor for one shooter).

Don't take this lightly. Several accidental/negligent discharges I've known about could have been avoided at the unloading table.

Unload both pistols and show clear. If you only shot one pistol, you have to show both clear.

If you carried a Derringer for "Style" points, you'll have to show it clear. If you dropped it, you would get a stage DQ just as if it was a main match gun, a reason not to wear one.

Some contestants spin the cylinder quickly when finished. This is useless as the person watching can't see if there's a round in there or not. Clicking through 6 empty chambers slow enough for the unloading table monitor to see is best. Don't just pay lip service to the unloading process. Take it seriously. Zero tolerance is appropriate with firearms that can kill people.

If it's your turn to be unloading table monitor, now's the time to switch modes and take over.