All About Cowboy Action Shooting
Chapter One " Our Cowboys Have Always Been Heros"

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SASS Founding Father Harper "Judge Roy Bean" Creigh .

To those whose love of our Western Heritage is so deep and strong, it compels more than just the study of books, movies and TV. Since childhood, we've yearned to recreate as closely as possible the thrill of ridin' and shootin', battling evil and injustice or gathering a herd and trailing it north to Dodge, fightin' off the rustlers 'n hostiles. The Frontier is gone, buried beneath subdivisions, shopping centers and parking lost; but still it lives on in our hearts and imaginations. We're not happy unless we're wearing the clothes, using the equipment and shooting the guns of the Old West. In our dedicated, if humorous pursuit of a nostalgic past, we hope that re-enacting the history of our heritage will help keep it alive. Thus the phenomena of Cowboy Actioneering has come to pass-a combination of activities and events calculated to emulate life in both the historical and mythical Old West.

The symbols of the cowboy, of course, include his horse and gun, without which he would be unemployed, defenseless and worse. A man without a horse is afoot, and unarmed person is, well, unarmed. Our symbolic cowboy-whether a Vaquero or Texican, a Californio or Montana ranch hand-is armed and mounted, a horseman of the plains, riding into the sunset of the American frontier. It is this legendary cowboy, with his Peacemaker, rifle and shotgun, who is so central to the sports, games and lifestyles of Cowboy Action Shooting, Cowboy Mounted Shooting and Cowboy Re-enaction. In Cowboy Actioneering, our 100-year love affair with the Old West finds full flower. At events that are part shootin' match, part reenactment and part Wild West Show, folks of all ages, genders and walks of life come together from all over the world to celebrate the heroes and heroines of America's real and imaginary Old West.

JUDGE ROY BEAN 'N THE BOYS

The shooter picked off the bad men expertly but casually, like it was almost too easy. First with his single action revolver and then with an 1866 Winchester Yellowboy Carbine, he drew fine beads on the obnoxious outlaws through three Saturday afternoon TV Western movies. From the comfort and safety of his living room, Southern California businessman Harper Creigh kept the bad guys off Roy Rogers' back, saved the heroes of a mountain man movie and battled banditos alongside The Wild Bunch. This was back in 1981, when Creigh owned an architectural model-making firm. Firearms, shooting and Western movies offered relief from his tedious, demanding profession. Afternoons spent on these rigorous sight acquisition exercises rendered Creigh an epiphany of sorts. He envisioned action shooting matches much like the popular International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) style of shooting enjoyed by many wild west aficionados, complete with the guns of the Old West and dressed in cowboy gear.

"All my shootin' buddies had these old guns around, we just never shot 'em much anymore", says Creigh. 'It seemed like a fun idea for a shootin' match." Like Owen Wister, he couldn't have know what he was starting, but he was about to learn. The time had come for his "fun idea" to become reality. He telephoned fellow shooter and Western History enthusiast Gordon Davis about his ideas for a shooting match. Davis, an internationally known holster and saddle maker, was excited about the match and helped Creigh decide upon some basic rules of engagement. The most important of these was the stipulation that all firearms used must have been generally available to the cowboys and frontier fold during the last half of the 19th century. It was further ordained that all shooters must wear Old West outfits of the period and shoot lead ammunition at steel reactive targets using legal firearms. These included single action revolvers, Derringers, single-shot or lever-action rifles and appropriate shotguns. No "race guns", laser sights, running shoes, T-shirts or baseball caps were allowed.

Creigh and Davis gathered a dozen or so pals for a weekend shoot, but were rained out. Their enthusiasm wasn't dampened, however, and they retired to nearby Coto de Caze (CA) to slake their thirst and make plans for another match. So it was that the world's first Cowboy Action Match was held there in the fall of 1981. Creigh, Davis and the other men-all destined to become famous for their new sport-were joined by 20 or so other shooters. They blazed away all day and had such a good time that nobody can recall who won. "Most of us were in Levis and snap button shirts," Creigh remembers, "but a couple of folks showed up in chaps n' spurs n' full cowboy gear! We all just shot whatever we brought-.38's, .30-.30s, .44s, everything old time. Boy, was it fun!"

The seed of Harper Creigh's idea was nourished occasionally by similar cowboy matches until March 1982, when he was seized by yet another stroke of genius. Creigh had just attended his first Mountain Man, or Buckskinner Rendezvous, and had come away completely charmed. "There were clubs for Civil War re-enactors, muzzle-loader clubs for students of the early 19th century and, of course, many kinds of modern firearms and target shooting organization," he recalls. "The Society for Creative Anachronism re-enacts the medieval period, but there was nothing for us American cowboys who wanted to shoot for fun with a frontier gun. So right then, I decided to start one."

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