Wax bullets are common for this. Based on the description, it probably would still hurt like hell.
WTF, 2 pages and the Master hasn’t spoken yet? Let’s get with it Dopers
I think I’d have to see that to believe it
I believe you.
A “galloping” horse is fairly smooth (shooting from a horse in canter, or much worse in a trot lots harder to do). Shooting from a gallop is actually kinda easy.
The hardest part of your story, is training the horse to not be gunshy (albeit easy if you know how to do it)…
…and of course the basic ole shooting a running jackrabbit/i.e. shooting a moving target.
I see no reason to think this is that hard to do. It may “sound” like some feat that is hard to do, and I know you must enjoy bragging about it, but actually, what she did really is not that big of a deal.
Yeah, but it sure sounds good the way I say it. LOL
What is actually impressive to me was the fact that she was a very proper young lady and that she could con her parents into letting her do this stuff.
Now Hazel of the blue poker chip, she was just scary fast and good.
When my little brother & I were in out late teens, I was practicing all the time. I mean, really working at shooting. He never did but would come out sometimes. He was like a machine. I could never interest him in doing more, Just not interesting or fun for him. I would have done most anything to be able to shoot like he could. Guns, airplanes and boats were not novel for us and I always wondered what he could have done had he been into it.
The Big Guy took a shot at this a few years ago.
OK…Tom
I had a post which appears to have vanished, in which I point out that a Beretta or an M1911 is a totally different (and easier) gun to quick-draw than something like a Colt New Service or a Webley Mk VI revolver, which have 6" of protruding barrel, as opposed to the self-loaders where the barrel is generally encased within the frame of the gun for the most part.
It’s certainly been my experience in timed competitions starting with the gun holstered that it’s “easier” and a bit faster to draw and fire a semi-auto than it is to draw and fire a 6" barrel revolver.
We seem to have drifted a way from the original question.
For most people in the West, life was a hard grind for daily existence. They didn’t have a lot of leisure time or disposable income, both of which are necessary to practise these sort of shooting skills.
My grandfather (I’m old so he was alive in the 1800s) used to get all angry in the 50s when I used to watch television westerns. “It was never like that!”
He used to tell of the only shootout he saw. In a Montana ranching community, a drunk young man who had bragged about his quick draw ability called a local peace officer out for a shoot out. While the young man was waiting in the middle of the street. The deputy poked his Winchester out his window and shot the man in the leg thus ending the contest. “They weren’t paid to be stupid,” my grandfather used to claim.
I’m watching a show on The History Channel, and it just said that across the West the average rate of death by gun in cow towns was 1.5 per cattle season.
But it’s The History Channel, so take it for what you will.
Most Wild West gunfights took place inside bars and lasted normally around 10-30 seconds
But then, about a year later, the zombies came back and shot you.
Regards,
Shodan
I doubt it. There were definitely times and places where violent lawbreaking was bad enough that citizens formed vigilance committees in response to non-existent or ineffectual law enforcement, the most famous being the one in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. Their success led to many of SF’s criminals drifting south to L.A., where the crime situation remained pretty rough up to the 1870s, but was especially bad in the 1850s. During that decade, when law enforcement was provided by the Sheriff’s Department, the department went through several sheriffs whose lives ended violently in the course of their work.
See for example here, p205.
gun magazines estimate that cowboys and shooters back then can draw and fire theur .44s and .45s accurately at “bar range” in .5 seconds. modern practitioners with modified equipment have brought that down to .25 or less.
one notable write-up i read was the death of bass outlaw (his last name.) he fired his six-shot indescriminately once while drunk. two lawmen ran up to him, asking why he fired. he simply aimed at the first, hitting the man in the head. he put another bullet on his back as he was falling down. the second lawman drew just as outlaw also fired at his face. the second lawman was blinded by the blast but he shot instinctively, hitting outlaw in the chest. outlaw then was weakened but managed to shoot the second man twice more (knee and thigh.) he then ran away being out of ammo and died in a whore’s bed. the second lawman survived. his name was john selman.
I’m glad this one has reanimated - I have heard some Western tall tales in my time, but nothing to top GusnSpot’s windy about his granny getting a house to gallop. (I know them old cowpokes could ride anything, but even so…)