I'm been shooting cowboy matches for a long time. Fortunately, cowboy shooting is a big tent and there's room for everybody. I will grant that if you want to be national champion in any given category, you will be handicapped shooting a heavy load in a .45. Most of the top shooters shoot .38 spl. with a 125 gr bullet at something like 650 fps and that is a wimp load for sure.
But most of us know we will never be champions and we shoot what we enjoy shooting. Unlike most I prefer to shoot black powder with as much powder as I can get into the case. And I shoot with one hand because that is how it was done way back when. I have a blast. And I shoot BP in my rifle and shotgun. I come home smiling. But each shooter can pretty much do it his own way and find that he has plenty of company.
As far as the cowboy alias goes, I too thought it was silly when I started. Then the wisdom of the concept began to dawn on me. When you are at a match you are just another cowboy, no better and no worse than the next guy. If in your other life you are Mortimer J. Vanderbilt, billionaire industrialist, the rest of us won't know or care. You may shoot with Joe Blistept, garbage collector, and you are equals. Nobody asks what you do in the real world, nobody cares. I know literally hundreds and hundreds of cowboy shooters across the country. I don't know the real names of more than 25 or 30. And, after awhile, you sort of truly become your alias. In most cases "he" becomes an improved version of yourself however virtuous you may be. I know that sounds weird but it is true.
For example, I know of no other shooting sport where everybody feels comfortable leaving his or her guns unsecured and unwatched at one end of the range and go off to lunch or to check out vendors at the other end of the range. And I've never heard of a gun being stolen, anywhere.
I'm an old man and over the years I have competed in virtually every shooting game. I've enjoyed them all. But in no other game is there the camaraderie that there is in cowboy shooting. The socializing becomes just as important as the shooting, more so in many cases.
For the vast majority of participants cowboy shooting is more about having fun than it is about winning the match. Yet if you are driven to compete, there is all the competition you can handle. There are some fantastic shooters under the tent.
The only down side to the cowboy game is that it does require two SA revolvers, a rifle and a shotgun of an approved type. The upside is that I as well as half the shooters in any club in the country, have loaner guns that we are happy for other people to use until they can afford to get all of their guns together. I've let people use revolvers for as long as a year. Same with shotguns. But that's why I keep the guns.
Don't take John Taffin's word for it, and don't take my word either. Go out to a match. Watch and talk to some of the participants, then make your mind up. I've got an idea that if you try it, you will like it.
