Cowboy Action Shooting
Yet another form of competitive shooting is cowboy action shooting. It is also called western action shooting or single action shooting. In early 1980’s this sport of single action shooting emerged from California, USA. In this game the cowboy action shooters dress up like the people of the Wild West era used to dress up. According to rule all the firearms, equipment, clothes and props being used in single action shooting have to be from the mid nineteenth century to the late nineteenth century. That is the reason why cowboy action shooting is also called western action shooting. People even dress up like movie characters from the Wild West theme based movies the sanctioning body even registers the name and alias used by their shooters and other shooters are not allowed to use those names or even names that sound the same. The area in which the shooting takes place is also like a scene out of the Wild West era with swinging doors and all. The guns used by cowboy shooters have to be ‘single-action’ guns. Being single-action means that the hammer of the gun has to be manually handled before every shot is fired. That is the reason why cowboy action shooting is also called single action shooting. For those shooting enthusiasts who are interested in getting started in single action shooting Single Action Shooting Society (SASS) can be of great help. The Single action shooting society is a sanctioning body that holds the shooting tournaments and overlooks the promotion and rule making of the sport.
|
 |
|
Competing in cowboy style usually makes use of four guns: two pistols or handguns, a shotgun for cowboy action shooting, and a rifle. The action shooting game competition is divided into scenarios or stages. Each stage has ten pistol and rifle rounds and two to eight shotgun rounds. Each stage is different from every other stage. Commonly steel plates are used as taegets but clay targets or reactive targtes are also sometimes used. Cowboy action shooters shoot one at a time unlike trap shooting and are timed agaisnt ther clock. Either the winner is decided by the least time taken or by the smallest rank number that a person gets. Penalties and fouls are also accounted for when deciding who won. The arrangement of guns is like this: the first pistol, rifle, shotgun for cowboy action shooting, and lastly the second pistol. Some times only two types of guns are used and in certain cases even one can be used. After a stage is completed the time of the cowboy shooter is noted and also the target misses and penalties are counted. Cash prizes are not offered to the winning shooter to keep the spirit of the sport alive and to avoid unnecessary tension due to greed for money. Other prizes are howvere given to keep winners motivated.
For the purpose of safety during the sport the shotguns for cowboy action shooting are always kept unloaded. Single action shooting has some very strict safety rules and not just the shotguns for cowboy action shooting but all other firearms are also kept unloaded. These firerams are loaded at the loading table only before the competition starts.
In this game the cowboy action shooters choose every piece of their equipment fashioned in the manner of the Wild West. The holsters and belts for cowboy action shooting are made up of leather and have the flavour of the nineteenth century in them. Cowboy action shooting accessories and cowboy action shooting article are especially inspected by the sancitioning body to be either from the time of mid or late nineteenth century or that it looks like it. By doing so the rule of the game is fullfilled.
