Interview _ Chief Run-A-Muck a.k.a. Barry Rachal

Two friends of mine, Quick Cal, out of Fallon, NV, and Chief Run-A-Muck out of Shreveport, LA, talking about Cowboy Fast Draw.  Run-A-Muck won Texas State last month, turning in a stellar performance.

Top Gunn

 Today, the Cross Branded Peacemakers met for the final time this year.  It's our annual awards banquet, where we award our top club shooters for the year.

The Peacemakers have ten (10) monthly matches.  Placement in each match is awarded top gun points, and the folks who have the most points at the end of the year are recognized.

First, the Ladies

L-R 1st, Two Step Cookie
2nd - Blue Eyed Belle
3rd - Squirrel Girl

Next, the Men

L-R 1st, Bailey Boy
2nd - Big Bill
3rd - Vovo

And, Finally, our Fastest Time Award.  This is for the man and woman who records the fastest time during a club match during the competition season.   We don't care what you did in practice.  It has to be a recorded score from a monthly match.

Fastest Time
Men - Bullet Bob, 0.335
Ladies - Two Step Cookie, 0.681

That wraps the competition season for the Cross Branded Peacemakers.  We'll start over in January 2023.

Louisiana State 2022

It's in the record books.  We had 88 shooters from 12 states, in ages ranging from 8 to 82.  Below is a video of the finals.  We start our finals by letting the kids shoot.  Girls, boys, then step up to the ladies, then to the men.

My media team fell down, mainly because I am the media team.  I don't know anything about color balance, or audio inputs.  Turn your sound down, it's loud.  The little girls start at the beginning, the boys start at about the 12:00 mark.  The ladies begin somewhere around the 32:00 mark, and the men about 1:06:00.

We trach our kids gun safety By the time many of them have been shooting for a little while, they are experts with the single-action revolver.  

Louisiana State is in the record books.  It's time to unpack the van and unload the trailer and make sure that I'm ready to host a club match in August.

Learning About Video

During a practice session this morning, we started playing around with camera angles, taking baby steps to learning what we need to know to have a live-feed at our state shoot in July.

After several false starts, we got a camera angle we liked and produced a short video that we could look at and critique. For a bunch of rednecks with a cheap webccam, a ladder, and a roll of duct tape, I think it turned out okay.  We''ll learn from it.

Tumbling Brass

 I have an old Dillon brass tumbler that a reader sent to me a decade o more ago.  It's processed a lot of brass, and it's still going strong.  For a CFDA championship match, the host club provides the ammunition.  When I put on a championship, I like to start with 10,000 rounds of ammo, loaded and ready to go. That suffices for a three-day shoot.

That is the old Dillon, with 400 pieces of .45 Colt (LC) brass.  It's loaded and I prefer to do 300 pieces at a tie.  I feel like 300 pieces gives me a better brass/media ratio and the brass comes out a bit cleaner.  I use walnut media, and I don't use a polish.  I'm looking for clean, not shiny.

When it's time to separate the brass fro the media, I find that one of these Frankfort Arsenal devices works as good as anything.  It's less than $10, and it fits over a five gallon bucket.

Forgive my sloth, but I have forgotten the reader who sent me this tumble so many years ago.  It's still running strong and processes about 20,000 pieces of brass each year.  It's still running strong, as a matter of fact, there are 300 pieces tumbling as I type this.  I will turn it off in an hour or so, and dredge the brass out for loading tomorrow.

Monday Planning

 We're planning a big shooting competition in Pineville in late July. Planning is the key word today, because these things take a lot of coordination from a lot of folks. Caterers, vendors, sanctioning organizations, building registration forms, a myriad of tasks that have to be performed before the event is even close to kicking off.  Promoting it.  Did I mention that?

Making lists, double-checking  Arranging for prizes.  It's a lot of work.

We do it because we love it, but it is a lot of work.  It's a good thing I'm retired.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

Texas State Update

 We're home, got in about midnight last night.  Safe and sound.  I'll spend the rest of the day sorting dunnage, simply because at some point during a return home venture, we're simply throwing stuff into the car.

Belle did well, as she generally does.  By Saturday afternoon late, we realized that she had qualified for the finals match.  She carried one loss util the 7th round where she got her 2nd loss.  By that time the scoring system had eliminated enough shooters that they could arrive at a finals match and Belle was in it.

On Sunday, Belle shot the finals match and took home 7th place at the Texas State Championship of Cowboy Fast Draw.

I, on the other had, did not distinguish myself in any way.  I had a lot of fun, and talked with a bunch of old friends.

Our match was marred by tragedy.  We lost a shooter, a well respected guy known as Everett Hitch.  I talked with Hitch on Friday, had a nice conversation about an event that he was helping to plan.  He seemed excited about it.  On Saturday morning, he wasn't a the shooters meeting, and folks started calling around.  Hitch was found in his hotel room, where evidently, he expired in his sleep.

Everett Hitch is survived by a wife, and children, and grandchildren.  We offer our prayers and condolences to them.  He was a (very) few years older than I am.  His death reminds us that we never know the place or the time, and we should live each day to its fullest.

Hitch was an innovator in our sport, constantly looking for better ways to train and to conduct matches.  He coned the phrase: "We Don't Practice Missing" in the sport.  He will be sorely missed.

Packing

 We're packing suitcases today.  Tomorrow, Belle and I shove off for Burnet, TX, where we will attend the Texas State Championship of Cowboy Fast Draw.  We're looking forward to it.  We have't been out of town since October, wen we made the Reno trip.

We have someone watching the house.  Grandson Zach will feed the cat and eat my groceries while we are gone.

I'm checking lists and making sure that all the stuff we need for a major shoot is in the van. A club member has the keys to the range, and will open up for our Saturday practice meeting.

We'l be back Sunday night, late.

Cutting Metal

 The square tubing came in for the new range, and I just finished cutting the lengths.  This will become a lightweight, portable range for CFDA events, one that se can set up or take down in an hour or so.

Now, I have to de-burr everything and set up a time with club members so that we can weld it together.

I figure to de-burr tomorrow and Friday, then set up the welding for next seek, as long as God is willing and the creek don't rise.

Shooting in Slisbee

 There is a club in Silsbee, TX, the Big Thicket Bushwackers who is a powerhouse club in the Cowboy Fast Draw Association.  Yesterday, they held a Mardi Gras shoot, and several of us traveled to Silsbee to shoot with them.  We had a ball.  Good humor, lots of joshing, and plenty of shooting for everyone was the order of the day.

Belle and I had a very good day.  We were both hitting extremely well, and the camaraderie was fantastic.   We dressed in Mardi Gras attire

I managed to hit a 0.472, which for me is a fantastic time, because I am generally a slower shooting, in the 6/10ths range.

They made me pose in front of the timer display to commemorate the event.

Brackets

 We shot brackets this morning.  Brackets are based on the 2nd fastest time that a shooter posts in the main match, and they distribute the shooters into brackets based on that speed.  The brackets are Master Gunfighter, Gunfighter, Sheriff, and Deputy.  Best three winning shots wins a match.  If you lose two matches, you are out, done, finsished.

Grandson Zach was in the Gunfighter. These guys all shoot in under half of a second, generally from 0.400 to somewhere about 0.500. Zach is known all across the nation as a friendly kid with a quick draw and during his second match, Zach drew Ol' Bucker, a shooter from California.  He and Zach were joshing on the line, and Zach got one hit on him.  On the next light, Zach hit a 0.401.  Ol' Bucker told Zach that his next shot shouldn't count unless Zach could pull a "three".  On the next shot, Zach pulled and hit a 0.394.  Zach put Ol' Bucker out of the match with his second elimination.

In the next bout, Zach drew Gentleman George, another nationally known shooter with many trophies and accolades.  Five shots later, Zach had put George our of the match. Go clean your gun, George, you are done.

Zach got put out himself in the next round.  But, he showed good sportsmanship, a friendly demeanor, and accepted the loss with grace.  It was a very good match, and has nothing to be ashamed of.  He was simply outrun.

It's been a great weekend, and we catch a plane early tomorrow morning for home.

Filling Out Forms

 I'm filling out entry forms for Fastest Gun Alive, the World's Championship of Cowboy Fast Draw.  Zach, and Belle and I decided that we want to go.  We've made airline and hotel reservations, so I thought it might be a good idea to tell CFDA that we're coming.

Zach and Belle both have "free rides" to FGA.  Zach is the resident champion from the 2020 Southern Territorials, and Belle is the resident champion from the 2021 Louisiana State.  Resident Champions get their entry fees waived by the association.  Pore ol' PawPaw ain't won nothing, so he had to pay the full entry fee.

Fastest Gun Alive is held the first weekend of each October in Fallon, NV.  It's outside of Reno, and it's been three decades since I've been to Reno.  Belle and Zach have never been.  It should be a good vacation.

Moving Target

We have a shooter who surprised me today with a new target for the wax bullet range.  This thing should be a lot of fun at our matches, as a side-match, or a fun match.

It doesn't move fast, but we have enough trouble hitting targets that stand still.

That First Shot

 I didn't do as well as I wanted to in Kansas last week.  I'm not blaming anyone but myself.  It was a good match, run by good people.  I simply didn't hit the target enough to stay in the win column.  The CFDA uses an elimination system where if you win, you get a W in the scoring column, and if you lose you get an X in the scoring column.Generally, a sanctioned match will be a 4X match.  When you lose four matches, you are through.

The standard target these days is a 17-3/16th inch target at 15 feet.  The center of the target is 47 inches above the ground.  We shoot from 15 feet. The target is electrically powered, with both a start light and a hit sensor.  When the light comes on, the shooter draws, cocks and fires the revolver   If the wax bullet hits the target, it trips the sensor and give yo a time. Individual shots are normally in the half-second range. Three winning hits determines a match.

It's fast.  It's real fast, and the shooting is done from muscle memory. Sights are seldom used.

It is said that you cannot miss fast enough to win n the game, ad I proved that this weekend,

The first shot is vitally important, because it shows that you have set up properly on the target.  On the long drive home, I started thinking about that first shot in every match, and was intrigued enough to get our some old match score-sheets and do some digging.  When I got home this week, I took out the Monthly Match sheets from the last two club shoot, and the first two rounds from the Louisiana State Championship we conducted in April.

I asked the question, "If a shooter hits the target with his first shot, how often will that hit translate into winning the match?" The results were fairly compelling.  I learns that if a shooter hits the target with the first shot, in 63% of those matches, that first hit translates into a W in the win column.

There a number of things that might affect the outcome of an individual match,  Hitting the target with the first shot is not absolutely predictive, but I think that my limited analysis shows that if you hit the target on the first shot, ou are well on your way to winning the match.

Kansas - Day 2

 Saturday dawned bright and pleasant in Wichita, KS.  However, the heat soon began to build and we were fortunate to have shade and an occasional breeze.  

I didn't realize until after I snapped the picture, but both gals in that photo have the same last name.  The lady in the hat is the inimitable Texas Rose.  She is the better half of Gentleman George, my first cousin.

Belle and I had a good time yesterday, but didn't shoot as well as we would have liked.  We both went out in the 6th round, and took that as karma to seek more hospitable temperatures.  We finished the day in a craft brewery.  Me with a French dip sandwich, and she with a big bowl of chip-and-dip.

We'll start home in another hour or so.  The car has A/C and Belle has to be at work tomorrow.  We're ten hours from home, and having all day to make the drive should be okay.

Day 1

 Today was Day 1 of Kansas State, under a hot, breezy sky.  We had shade, and plenty of cool water.  But it was hot, in the low triple digits.

Really, a beautiful venue.

I managed to find a spot in the shade to put Belle's chair, and shortly afterwards, the shooting began.

After the shooting was over, we went to find a rib joint.  We're back in the hotel now, soaking up the AC and getting ready for tomorrow.

May Monthly Match

 The Cross Branded Peacemkers hosted their May Monthly Match at the home range.

1st, Squirrel Girl - 2nd Two Step Cookie - 3rd Blue Eyed Belle

1st Major D - 2nd Big Bill - 3rd Vovo

It was a good  time.  Shooting with friends and family, and everyone enjoyed Saturday at the range.

Primers

 I've been loading shotshells for decades.  I started in the '70s when I was shooting competition skeet, and continued as I raised four children, all of whom shoot shotguns.  I started buying primes by the brick of 1000, then graduated to the brick of 5000, but each time, the primers were packed in little sleeves of 100.

This weekend, I saw something new.  We shoot a lot of shotgun primers in our sport, and with the recent shortages, the availability of primers has become acute.  I buy primers in bulk to support the club, and recently the supplies have dried up.

One of the shooters this weekend mentioned that he had some primers for sale.  And, he wasn't scalping.  I think that I got a good deal, considering the times, for a brick of 10,000.  We made the deal, shook hands, and I took possession.  These are Nobel Sport primers, made in Italy, and one of the favorites of our sport.  I thought a brick of 10,000 was a bit odd, but beggars can't be choosers.

Today when I got home I decided to open them to look.

The front of the box.  Nobel Sport, pretty standard

The back of the box.  10,000?  That's interesting.

So, I took our my pocket knife and cut the tape.  What a surprise.

Yeah... that's a sleeve of 1000 primers.  I have bought a lot of primers in my day, from a lot of places, but I've never seen anything like that.  All I can figure is that this is the way Nobel packages them for other manufacturers.  But, no worries.  I have them now, and I'll save them for a big shoot.  Still, I thought you guys might have some insight.  Isn't that odd?

Celebrating Freedom

 Belle and I are in Sapulpa, OK, attending the Oklahoma State Championships of Cowboy Fast Draw.  We were here last year when we found out that many states were shutting down, and we entered the Covid era.

Oklahoma State normally draws 80-ish shooters, and we blew through that today.  I was talking with the Match Director today and he expects upwards of 120 shooters tomorrow.  This will stress range capacity, but they've had today to sake out the bugs, and things should go smoothly.  No one really cares, because it's been a year with no major matches, and everyone is willing to go-along-to-get-along.  It's going to be fine.  CFDA is a family, and this is like being at a family reunion with people you like.

I got into a couple of really interesting matches today, but didn't cover myself in glory.  Belle, on the other hand, won third place in her category, so we'll be bringing home at least one trophy.  And honestly, that's the way it normally works out.  I travel around the country, getting into gun fights,  and my lady is the one who brings home the trophies.  She is a nationally known competitor, a Range Master, and an expert with a single-action revolver.

Is it any wonder why I try to treat her as well as possible?

Testing ELectronics

 It's aggravating to get to a venue, and learn that some of your electronics don't work.  Problems always happen, but if you spend the time on the bench, your problems at the venue are minimized.

Louisiana State is the 2nd weekend in April, and we're getting ready.