-Side Matches-
Side Matches, or fun shoots, are a great way to add a little spice to a Cowboy Shoot. Be creative, but please remember SAFETY FIRST! Its easy, in your haste to design a fun stage, not to think about keeping it safe. After you design the stage, ask a few other club members to look over your design for any possible safety considerations, and ways it might go bad.The following are a few good ideas, supplied by our pards on the SASS Wire:
I came up with this one and I like. It is fun. I call it pistol poker. Take a deck of cards and tape or staple them face down on a sheet of plywood. Shooter gets five shots with their pistol. Whatever cards they hit are theirs. Pull em off and hand them to the shooter. Best poker hand wins. If it is a fundraiser you could always charge an extra fee if someone wanted to discard some of their cards and "draw" some more. It is real fun. Takes some skill because you have to hit the cards and some luck because you don't know what cards you are hitting.
J.D. Stawker
.22 rifle:
More .22 rifle:
Pistol:
More Poker:
Make photocopies of a deck of playing cards face up so ya can see the values of the cards - keep 'em well shuffled so that you have to shoot a pretty wide spread to get straights, flushes, or 3 of a kind etc. Hang the target(s) up. Target = as many copied sheets as it takes to have the whole deck displayed for each shooter.
Charge a few bucks per "hand". Pistol shooters have to shoot the highest hand they can with 5 shots. Nothing wild, ace-high straight flush is the highest. Maybe have a duplicate match with rifle at longer distance. Maybe you time it and separate ties with time. Instead, separate high hands with a shoot-off. Make the prize a 50/50 of the ante.
Hole in the Boot Gang
Dueling Tree:
Have a four plate dueling tree set up with single elimination tournament. You can get a tree fer about $100. If all the plates are on your side and nuthin moving the other way - well you lost.
No timer needed. Written scores aint really needed. Two pistols from a table; tree's 5-7 yds off. Plates are about 4x8 inches. A draw eliminates both. You do have to step downrange to reset each time, but its pretty fast.
Halfhitch
Elmer Keith:
Elmer keith style shootin dingin steel at a hunnert yards with yer pistols oughta be fun. Fer the cowboyin I'd say ya could shoot anyway ya likes so folks can shoot the way they is most comfertable. Kinda like a silhouette match just with pistols.
West Creek Charlie
Four from O.D. Refire:
Pocket pistol or derringer:
Start with pistol in a sandwich bag and shoot at a balloon about 4 yards away. 1st shot blows away the bag! REALLY cool with guys that have the 45 LC pocket rockets.
Time and count how many shots to saw a 1"X1" piece of wood in half. set at 7 yds. Done in 27secs with 13 shots (Rossi '62).
Hang a clothesline out with cheap plastic poker chips hanging on clothespin. Have enough tension on the line so when someone shatters the chip, it jiggles the rest of the line.
Use ketchup packets stapled onto cardboard and hang at 7 yds. See how many "flies" you can splat!
The Logging Show:
We have done a post shoot before; you stand an 8-foot long 4 X 4 post up vertically in a holder kind of like a Christmas tree holder.
We use a five-man team, 2 with pistols, 2 with rifles, and one with a shotgun.
At the buzzer everybody starts shooting, and when the post gets cut off at the mark, the time is recorded by the last shot.
We have had times recorded as low as five or six seconds.
August
Varmint Shoot:
Setup a series of cheap plastic carbonated soda pop bottles, on the ground, and out to a few hundred-yards. Invite anyone, members or not, to bring any scoped rifle to the shoot. Charge a few dollars to run the stage. This is a great way to add a few dollars to your kitty, and introduce prospective new members to your club. Maybe make this a special shoot day, (not one of your regular shoots), advertise at your local gun stores, etc. Have two or three cowboy stages setup and shot by a few of your members, to show the visitors how the cowboy game is played. Shoot the cowboy stages before, in the middle, and after the varmint shoot, as a demonstration.
Mayby contact the local newspaper or TV news.