Fans of weapons to create new types of shooting sports
Cowboy duel, the firing of muskets, competitions partisans and Makhno — the shooting sports has gone beyond the strict Olympic disciplines, creating new ones, with elements of the game and the show. The results show the participants a comic competitions, sometimes strike the imagination and cause serious disputes.
The gun and the cloak
In the early twentieth century, wealthy patrons in Europe and the U.S. again came into fashion a duel with pistols. However, bloodless — not shooting lead balls, and wax. The new sport was called dueling shooting. Shooters protected long raincoat from the dense matter and a steel mask with a thick glass. Weapons have been capsule dueling pistols (at least the revolvers) with a special shield, reminiscent of the Garda swords. Dueling shooting has become so popular that she even wanted to include in the program of Olympic games 1908. Not included — apparently, the organizers felt that it is not really correlated with the slogan “Oh sports, you are peace.”
Alternative types of shooting sports are always there — thanks to the fans of this or that kind of weapons, shooting techniques, etc. Some eventually evolve into a serious sport, such as practical shooting Confederation (IPSC). Others remain in the format of festivals and shows. The main trend of such events — historical bias. So, the hands of many countries, including Russia, compete in shooting muzzle-loading rifles and muskets. In Canada hosts an annual tournament on shooting from the ancient weapon Shoot Buffalo. The participants, dressed in hunting costumes of the XVIII-XIX centuries, firing of flintlock guns and pistols, on foot and on horseback, collected from old wine barrels, springs and boards. And throwing knives, axes and javelins.
…and Colonel Colt made them equal
In the middle of the last century of Hollywood westerns gave rise in the USA fashion for the Wild West. Part of this craze has become a new discipline small Cowboy Action Shooting (CAS) cowboy shooting, or Cowboy 3-Gun — cowboy eventing. This peculiar symbiosis of shooting sports, historical reenactment and costume show in the style of the Wild West (1861-1890, also known as the American Old West).
Competition cowboy shooting
Photo: Jebb Harris / Zumapress / Globallookpress.com
The arrows compete in three weapons — a revolver, shotgun and rifle. Moreover, both the weapon and ammunition must correspond to the declared historical period, or rather, how he was seen by Hollywood Directors. Most commonly used replica revolvers “Colt” of the late nineteenth century or the modern Ruger Vaquero 45 Colt caliber, made antique. An indispensable condition — the gun must be single action, that is, before each shot the trigger must cock. They still use the lever action rifle (recharged by movement of the trigger guard), the analogues of the famous “Winchester” model 1873, the “rifle that won the West”. And, of course, shotgun or pump action shotguns of retromedia like “Winchester”, 1897. Competition rules require that each time the shooter loaded the gun no more than two rounds, it equalizes the chances of dostalek and pump-action shotguns.
The costumes also corresponds to the fashion of the Wild West or the Victorian era. Sometimes you want complete historical accuracy, and sometimes clothes in the spirit of the time.
Party Cowboy Mounted Shooting with a replica rifle Winchester
Photo: Greg Sorber / Zumapress / Globallookpress.com
Another line of cowboy shooting — Cowboy Mounted Shooting, shooting on horseback. This entertainment was invented in the late twentieth century. At full tilt you have to hit up to 10 targets — balloons mounted on poles. However, here for security purposes, blank ammunition is used — the energy of the powder gases and unburned particles of gunpowder is enough to slam the ball at a distance of several meters. Typically fired from a revolver, but it happens that right at full tilt it should be changed to a rifle or shotgun.
Five shots in a split second
Aerobatics in cowboy style Fast Draw, fast or catching a quick shot. The name speaks for itself: the shooter must pull out of the holster the revolver, a separate movement, like in the movies, cock the trigger and hit the target with a shot from the hip. They say that the founder of the Fast Draw, the famous shooter Di Vul (Dee Woolem) did the trick for 0.12 second. However, documentary evidence. Best modern arrows indicate results less than 0.25 seconds.
50 years of the twentieth century Di the Vul was working the show is shot in an American amusement parks. There were offered retroinfection: take a ride in a vintage train and take part in the show “robbery of mail in the Wild West”. And Di the Vul surprised the audience with the skill of a cowboy “Colt” .45 — shot tossed a coin, struck several targets in one second, etc. Over time, he transformed his tricks in a new sport.
Weapon Fast Draw replica old “Colt”. Sometimes the rules allow shooters to modify their weapons to turn it into a racing shell is to install more comfortable with the trigger mechanism, steel trunks to replace aluminum. This is possible because the athletes are shooting blanks or bullets from a special wax — it doesn’t melt through the barrel. Idle beat air balls in a steel frame, and wax bullets at steel targets in the shape of a rectangle, disk, or human silhouette. The distance to a target from two to seven meters.
The order is as follows: the shooters stand at the ready in front of the target, hand at the hilt of revolver, but not for her. By-light, “cowboys” pull out your gun, cock your free hand and shoot. Special timers record the time between signal and shot/hit the target with accuracy to hundredths of a second.
Duel modern cowboys
Photo: Andy Clark / Reuters
Competing in Fast Draw is very high, and the achievements of athletes sometimes cause some heated discussions. One of the most famous shooters Bob Munden (Bob Munden) in the documentary series History channel’s “Stan Lee’s Supermen” (Stan Lee’s Superhumans) pulls a revolver and two shots every time when cocking the trigger, striking two balls at a distance of two meters from each other. If you believe the authors of the film, the time between two shots — hundredths of a second, and they sound as one. In 1980, Manden was introduced in the Guinness Book of records as “the fastest shooter in the world”. Subsequently, however, the entry was removed — a record shot of Mandena in 0,15 seconds has no reliable confirmation. In the world Fast Draw Mandana the many critics who consider his records questionable.
Achieve other shooters are as impressive: the 18-time champion of the West Darby Howard (Howard Darby) can snatch a revolver from the hip and hit five targets in less than a second, when cocking the trigger before each shot.
Makhno’s men in the city
This is already happening in Russia: the sailor of the red fleet in a baggy suit-the suit of inciting a British tank Mark I trench gun from Rosenberg, then awkwardly runs, grabs futuristic gun and firing through the observation slit “armored”. It looks like an exercise in match on “Makhno-peasant and guerilla shooting” (IPSC). This domestic version of the recreational shooting that can be considered our response to the Cowboy Action Shooting. By the way, the ITUC acronym still stands for “international Confederation of practical shooting” (IPSC), which hints at the sporting preferences of the organizers.
In 2006, the shooters group of Moscow enthusiasts organized and conducted the country’s first fancy dress match with a historical bias — its called guerrilla. The experiment was successful, and the matches became regular. In the domestic version of “historic fire” plays out the early to mid-twentieth century. This results in numerous images: revolutionary sailors, their fists, white officers and red Commissars, the Makhno guerrillas and soldiers of the two world wars and gangsters and cowboys. Comic character matches often emphasizes the grotesque atmosphere branchy cranberry with sandals, a hat, reprints of advertisements and posters of those years.
The shooter and the referee, the match on “Makhno-peasant and guerilla shooting”
Photo: Irina Marieval page in Facebook
Weapons are selected according to the age, but taking into account peculiarities of the Russian legislation and arms market. Basically, it’s a shotgun — they have almost every arrow-athlete, and “polovky” (smooth-bore gun, converted from rifles Mosin), short TOZ-106 — because of his resemblance with a sawn-off shotgun, dubbed the “death chair”, pump action shotguns archaic design. And the cowboy rule shooting is charged in the shotgun no more than two cartridges remained in Russia.
With guns more difficult. “To own guns, citizens cannot, therefore, use the fact that you can rent in the clubs, on the basis of which the competitions are held, explains one of the organizers of the partisan games Yuri Poltavets. — Choice for our small tasks, but the situation from year to year improves. If you use revolvers, shooting them is conducted only after pre-cocking the trigger. No samutpada, as in “cowboy shooting””.
.
Restrictions on the choice of weapons impose, and the possibility of rented shooting ranges. Not everywhere you can use the weapon of rifle calibers, so trehlineyki only in projects. But rifled carbines are pistol cartridge is “ograzhdenie” the PCA, a modern replica of Winchester (as a rule, the Brazilian Rossi) are present.
The problems with weapon selection are compensated by the imagination of designers of exercises. Here is a description of one of them, called “With a grenade in his hands.” Before starting the exercises give an arrow in the arm “grenade” and pulled the pin out. At a starting signal, he strikes several targets with a revolver, throws a grenade into the barn, then changes the gun at the Winchester shoots in with three penalties — one of them includes “cable car”, which drives up the arrow pot with small-shot ammunition. With a shotgun you have to hit the target in the “cleared” grenade barn.
Because the authors of guerrilla games practice arrows, targets, basic rules and safety requirements is taken from this sport.
