Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Question about horses

Phil... You don't know which end of the horse the schidt falls out of.

The sport of mounted shooting uses blanks, not live rounds. Blanks are surprisingly quiet. They make a cool *pop* but nothing that comes remotely close to needing ear protection. Some horses don't like the sudden noise and don't get used in the sport because of it. Other horses just don't care.

How do you know that? You ask one?

Yup. Horses talk. You just have to know how to listen.

Here's one of my kids at mounted shooting practice. The blank projects a spray of heated particles that pop the balloon. It's kind of like a mini shotgun (that's how the rider is able to take her eyes off the target just before she shoots so she can start lining up the next target), but the particles burn up and after about 15 feet, there is no danger to bystanders.



That horse never cared a lick about cap guns going off. Wal Mart bags flapping in the wind were another story...

EDITED TO ADD: That horse never really liked going fast; his forte was the Performance events (English and Western Pleasure/Equitation classes). He was also pretty darn good in Dressage. Mounted shooting was just my daughter's "junk food"--a way to goof off while aboard her horse. (Horse kids take breaks from working at riding by goofing off while riding. It can be difficult to get them to do other things!)

Here's a typical gun used--Ruger Vaquero w/ Bird's head grip in .45 Colt.

My Dad, born in 1902 killed many deer from the saddle on any number of horses, but only with a puny 1895 Win. in .30 Army. I guess he didn't know the Grey Ghost.

Makay Sagebrush's daughter does mounted shooting as well.

I sure would rather see kids learning horsemanship and marksmanship than many other things they could be doing.

Yes, Waders is right. Horses communicate.

Some horses will take to gunfire, and some don't.

My old shooting horse enjoyed it as much or more than I did. He would get excited when he knew we were fixing to shoot. That's a fact.

Miss him. Too bad horses and dogs get old too.

It runs in my mind of seeing a tv show where an attractive young lady was doing exactly what I’m asking about. IIRC, she was using an SSA in .45 or maybe a 1911. It was big enough to destroy a melon. Range was maybe 15 or 20 yards.
She was obviously enough of a shooter and horsewomen to accomplish the trick, but in a real gunfight situation, my money would still be put on the guy on foot every time.
I’ve drank enough beer out of a can on a bumpy road to understand the physics involved!
Duke was constantly shooting wild injuns outta the saddle, but like you said, this is the movies.
7mm

Wade, I thought those girls of yours had to be big enough now to start turning heads and getting Dad worried.
How old are they now? Great to see another old timer like you still bumming around here!
Wish we still had a lot of the others!
7mm

Hey! Yeah, we're getting old! The daughter on the horse is my oldest--she's also the bigger kid in my profile pic! She just finished her third year of college, majoring in Biology (with an emphasis in pre-veterinary medicine) and a minor in psychology. She has another 1.5 years left and then the plan is to attend vet school. She wants to be a large animal vet. So far her academic pursuits keep boys on the back burner.

It's amazing how fast it all goes by--it makes me feel old!

As for the old crew here on the 'fire, I miss those days quite a bit. It were a good bunch!

That's more of a Hollyweird fantasy than reality. It can be done, but hitting something is another matter. It would have taken quite a bit of practice to come close to what you are shooting at. Cavalry had pistols and short barreled carbines, but dismounted before doing any shooting from a distance. I'm sure they shot from the saddle in "charges" and raids, ala Quantrill's Raiders, but it would have been a close up affair.

I did find one short video of Kenda Lenseigne shooting live steel targets off a running horse. (I think she beat the guy firing out of a moving vehicle.)

Kenda's pretty good.

I'm gonna go on the authority of Texas Ranger Captain John Salmon RIP Ford, as he relates in RIP Ford's Texas...

https://www.amazon.com/Fords-Texas-Personal-Narratives-West/dp/0292770340

Captain Ford and his men were at the tip of the spear, going out and engaging in the sort of combat very few men cared to; intercepting Comanche War Parties.

Captain Ford said a Comanche, firing from a flat bow rather than aiming down the arrow Euro style, could hit a running horse at 100 yards. He further stated that in mounted combat, the revolver and the bow were equally matched. This implies that a guy on horseback with a Colt revolver could reliably hit a mounted opponent at more than contact distance. To put things in context though, in his account of the Mexican War, Captain Ford states a Walker Colt could throw a ball "with the force of a rifle" at 100 yards. No mention of hitting anything at that range.

We get accounts that Jack Hays was very good with his pair of Colt Patersons, shooting the head off a chicken across the street etc etc. but he was a wealthy man and could a) afford a brace of Patersons and b) afford to practice. We do know that, once he was able to get Patersons from the Republic of Texas, enough to equip at least 15 men, he drilled his men in a style of shooting similar to cowboy action except using melons IIRC. Also, in his initial mounted combat with Yellow Wolf's Comanches along the Pedernales River in 1844, the famous but somewhat less-than-reliable Texas Historian TR Fehrenbach tells us that Hays instructed his men to "Powder burn 'em!" ie. fire from near contact distance.

It is also of note that Jack Hays, by one of his men's own account, lost about half his force in combat in the space of a year. In fact it has been suggested that Hays was notoriously reticent in his reports so that he didn't have to list casualty figures.

RIP Ford, who did not lose many men, fought most of his many combat actions against mounted Comanches using rifles, revolvers still being in short supply in the early 1850's and even odds against a bow weren't very good odds to begin with if you was planning on a career. In fact the deadliest opponent he faced, someone riding with the Comanches, was a skilled marksman armed with a "Swiss rifle", likely an Indian.

The most effective way to fight on the Plains was with rifles; you rode within rifle range of the other guy, dismounted, took careful aim, and shot him off his horse. Reserving your fire if there were a group of you so that someone always had a loaded rifle, which was an effective deterrent against attack. Hence the famous tactic of guys like the Cheyenne Roman Nose (copied at the beginning Dance With Wolves) of riding across the front of your rifle-armed enemies to try and induce them to empty their rifles by shooting at you.

Of course this only worked well against muzzle loaders.

In Walter Prescott Webb's classic "The Texas Rangers" IIRC there are few accounts of going against mounted Indians, and in the one I'm recalling against Apaches, the Rangers rode all night to catch up and when they got within range of the fleeing mounted Indians, dismounted and used their Winchester rifles.

Anyhow, prob'ly many more accounts of mounted combat with revolvers can be found in cavalry actions during the War of Secession, IIRC Custer wrote somewhere of shooting a fleeing Confederate Officer in a mounted chase involving jumping a wall, dunno the range.

I used horses for 35 years for field trials. Horses acclimate very quickly to gunfire. I can only think of
one friend that had a horse that would get fidgety when a shotgun or pistol was brought out.

Way horses is shot in old westerns every time they get a little gimp, or the cowboy needs ta hide behind em during a indian attack, ya can't blame em for bein a little spooked by a gunshot.

1895 in .30 Army! Good medicine!!!

Retired Mounted Border Patrol Agent in El Paso, Texas(actually Anapra, NM)..Shot off horse back a few times...returning fire from train burglars....our horses went out to the range with us for quarterly qualifications. Stood tied behind the firing line... after the first few volleys it was no big deal to them. Al least as amazing about our ponies was how quickly they figured out the job...a group of aliens, all from the same town, would be traveling North. We would be working the sandhills West of El Paso, at night. Horses trailered...when a sensor hit went off, we would trailer to the "catch area" and get mounted...other riders would get in behind the group...the aliens had been on the road for days so they smelled pretty ripe...Just let the horse "have his head" and like a bloodhound. you could walk right up on them...occasionally they would scatter...and one by one the horses would sniff them out...way easier to spot them with your eyes 9-10 feet off the ground too ! Shot a pretty good Mule Deer using the saddle as a rest...with a single round from a ...I'll stop here before I incriminate myself...

rockinBBar, this is one badazz photo. Love all feet off the ground.

60 years ago two early teen boys were out riding their horses-and packing .22 rifles. Checking brier patches and brush piles to see if they could bring a rabbit or two home.

A fox flushed out of a pile and the race was on. Full speed, shooting at the fox who was running for his life.

It didn't work out so well though. Yep, Old Blue took a 40 grain .22 slug to the top of his head at full gallop, killed him DRT.

The fox got away.

We take a few clients on horses usually for deer, invariably one of 'em will ask "Can I shoot off this horse?". My boss tells 'em "You sure can...once!"

The thing to remember is hollywood can get 20 shots out of a 6 shooter. Everything else is easy.