By virtue of this month having 5 weekends, the South Carolina Old West Shootists (SCOWS) was able to hold one of our occasional “5th Saturday” matches on October 29, 2022, in the Cooper Pistol Bays at the Mid-Carolina Rifle Club. Given the timing of the scheduled match, which aligned closely with Oct. 26th date on which a famous Old West gunfight occurred, this match was designated as our “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Anniversary” match, and consisted of 4 main stages based on events that occurred in Tombstone, Arizona Territory area involving the conflict between the Earp brothers & their friends and the rival group known as the Cowboys. There was also a bonus stage which challenged shooters’ quick-shooting accuracy with their pistols on a set of widely spaced knock-down targets.
Nine (9) people showed up to participate in our cowboy action match, including 2 juniors, but 2 of the shooters, the father-daughter duo of Hollywood and Baja Kid, decided that the Project Appleseed event that was taking part in another section of the Mid-Carolina Rifle Club was a better opportunity for Baja Kid to work on developing her shooting skills, and, as proud Papa Hollywood displayed the “all bulls-eyes” results of Baja Kid’s target sheets, everyone was impressed with the results.
For the first time in a long time, more that 2 categories had multiple participants, and the friendly competition between cowboys made for some exciting and close results. In the 3-gun Lawman category (1 Rifle, 1 Shotgun, 1 Pistol), Moonshine just barely beat Youghiogheny Kid, by less than 2.6 seconds overall, to win the category, and in the 2-gun Deputy Sheriff category (2 Pistols), J.P. Hara took the top spot over Big Iron.
There was one clean shooter for the match — congrats (once again) to Sgt. Henry.
Here are the match results, by category:
Lawman
Moonshine, 1st Place 165.56
Youghiogheny Kid, 2nd Place 168.13
Sgt. R. Henry, 3rd Place 218.65
Junior 4 Gun Smokeless Shootist
California, 1st Place 458.73
4 Gun Smokeless Double Duelist (Outlaw)
Doc WHO, 1st Place 489.72
Deputy Sheriff
J.P. Hara, 1st Place 189.31
Big Iron, 2nd Place 319.33
Congratulations to all, and thanks to everyone for a great match.
REMINDERS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The next SCOWS event will be the 2022 American Frontier & Wild West Days Festival (aka Wild West Fest), which will be held at the Battle of Aiken Park, 1210 Powell Pond Road, Aiken, SC on November 5 & 6, 2022. The South Carolina Old West Shootists will have a presentation table for both days of the event, and it is highly likely that more than a few members of our posse will be participating in the hourly shoot-out reenactments and may be making a presentation on the main stage on Saturday. Hope y’all can make it out for all of the fun and history.
There will be no NCOWS monthly match for November. The Cooper Pistol Bays will be in use for the Annual Thompson-Daugherty Toys for Tots Charity match. The next scheduled SCOWS match will be on Sunday, December 11, 2022. Hope to see y’all there.