Cowboy Mounted Shooting

I have been doing Cowboy Mounted Shooting for about 2.5 years. My wife also does it. We actually just started our own club in the area. It is tremendous fun and most horses take to it better than you would think. It is important to hook up with a good club and properly introduce your horse to it.

I did want to respond to the above comment. There is NO projectile involved in mounted shooting. All three organizations - CMSA, SASS and MSA - use basically the same ammo, and none contain projectiles.

The ammo used is a black powder blank. Black power is the "old" style gunpowder that makes a bigger noise and lots of smoke. (As opposed to modern ammunition which uses smokeless gunpowder).

The cartridge casing is filled with gunpowder and then typically crimped to hold the powder in.

When the gun is fired, the black powder ignites. The burning embers of powder ejecting from the barrel are hot and enough to pop the balloon. I guess you could nitpick and call this burning powder "projectiles" but it is not. If you look at pictures on the CMSA website, you can see the flame of the burning powder coming out of the barrel and also the smoke trails of burning powder.

Many people are under the false impression that we use some type of projectile like cornmeal. That is definitely not the case. This sport realizes the potential for danger and has some very strict rules about safety. For example, no live ammo is EVER allowed at a shoot. All shoot ammo must be provided by the club and be purchased from a certified supplier.

As someone mentioned, the burning powder discharge is enough to pop a balloon at about 20 feet. The safety distance from the edge of the arena is calculated with this in mind.

Oh well, I couldn't resist some self promotion. :) Here is a video of me at a recent shoot. I did this stage in under 20 seconds, which is a good time for this course.




Edited to add - sorry if these things are not supposed to be imbedded. I just meant to add a link, not imbed the video.

Very cool. :)

Easier on me when you imbed.
I would love to try it, but it's incredibly hard to find time for trail riding even, right now (4 month old, and 6 year old out of school). I have a .45 peacekeeper that I shoot for fun, and take as a side arm when I go out for chores after dark - I would love to be able to carry when I trail ride. Ah, one day, Im sure.

Devil, thanks for clearing that up. I wasn't sure if it was a type of bird shot or actually just the hot gas from the power.

Nice shooting BTW. There is a club down my way that does CAS and mounted shooting. They share the range with the IDPA guys and when they do the CAS they have mock "towns" that are set up for the stages. One day I'm going to give it a try. If I'm not mistaken, isn't the typical gun for mounted shooting a Ruger sa .45?

I really don't know, but I use mine for cowboy shooting, just thought the transition to mounted would be natural. ;)

I will try not to get into too much trouble... the answer is actually controversial. :)

Yes, the Ruger sa (Vaquero, New Vaquero and Montado - which is actually a New Vaquero made for mounted shooting) is a very popular gun for the sport. However, there is also a group of riders that swear by Colts and Colt clones. I prefer the Ruger.

Either way, 45 colt is the only caliber allowed. That is because the ammo is supplied by the club and only 45 is made for the sport. (Would be impossible for a club to stock and inventory multiple calibers).

There is also a rifle class (and SASS also introduced a shotgun class).

In rifle, you shoot five with your pistol, holster and then shoot 5 with a rifle. There is basically one blank for the rifle, but it can fit into 45 colt, 44-40 and 44 special. My understanding is that the "top" shooters prefer the 44-40 for rifle (there are some good technical reasons for that). Again, that's rifle only. Pistols are limited to 45 colt.

I would love to do this. Don't know if it's around in AUS though!

I know SASS is big in Australia but not sure about CMS, there is not even a club in Kentucky. I doubt if my riding skills are high enough to compete in the sport anyway.
SASS - Affiliated Clubs: Australia

Here's a little technical question for you, is it plausable to do this with a single action like I have or do I need a new gun (hee hee, new guns wooo!!)