Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Cowboy Action Shooting Is Cowboy Action Dying?

Carbon County Utah built this multi purpose range 8-9 yrs ago...

To the tune of $5M including property purchase

I believe they still offer CAS matches

https://www.carbonutah.com/amenity/north-springs-shooting-range/

At the range I shoot at, CAS has declined somewhat over the last 10 years or so. But they still have regular monthly matches.

CAS has quite a following in Eastern Europe. I will be visiting there this summer to visit my wife's relatives in Slovakia. I am hoping to at least visit the venue. It would be awesome if some friendly sort would actually let me shoot. Range safety language is probably universal, otherwise normal conversation will definitely be a problem.
https://www.sass-slovakia.eu/indexEN.html
Lou M

Seems there are usually one or two that do most of the work to keep a club going. If those get tired or become unable to keep it going, it doesn’t take much for a club to wither away.

And most CAS shooters are seasoned citizens. A few young one, but not enough evidently.

DF

That's a nice way to put it.

Yeah, it does sound better than Old Farts....

Gotta be sensitive these days....

DF

the Covid scare thing hurt all shooting groups , clubs , including archery , many seasoned seniors probably died too , seems to me not many young people want to help any more at clubs either . at my age of 70 with health problems i still help at one club with trap and i have noticed its us old seasoned seniors still doing most of the work but we get it done much slower now than we did in the past. good luck seasoned seniors and be safe ,Pete53

I have found that to be the case with a lot of things though. DU/Snowmobile clubs/Motocross clubs etc - it's a small core of die hards with few satellite people that show. Nothing's growing and most everything has shrunk to it's minimum viable size.

Twenty years ago it was going hot n heavy around here in wild west NV. I haven't seen any notices for events for about 6-7 years.

I wonder if the disposable income of average folks is a factor? CAS always seemed pricey, although I have never been.
Twenty years ago the fur trade re-enactment rendezvous was huge around here. Entire families would attend, enjoy themselves because it is truly a family experience, and in short order you would see them participating regularly. It offered a wide variety of activities, crafts, cooking, outdoor skills, shooting, camping...something for every age and sex. And then.... it just faded away. Was it money?

I would agree that almost certainly plays some part. Less than half of Americans have $1000 in the bank, according to quite a few surveys over the last several years. People are broke 🤷‍♂️

Considering you need a couple handguns, a rifle, a shotgun, and then your other gear for CAS, that's a fairly high entry bar these days. Then throw in ammo and gas on top of the gear... it adds up.

One thing I may have benefited from...seems to me quite a few classic vintage rifles and revolvers of a Western flavor started appearing on the market in the last few years. Not raging bargains, but good solid guns with excellent bores at prices I could justify. 15 years ago, when CAS was booming, honest shooter grade classics were rarely found at prices I was comfortable with.

It's unfortunate that it's dying, but due to the age group that attended, it's understandable.

I was pretty active in the mid 90's while I was stationed in WA. Still have a couple Colts, 1897, and an 1894 Marlin that I had slicked up,. Also have a couple "costumes". Got to the point I bought a Sharpes just to shoot in the side matches during the state shoots. Then I got hooked on the BPCR long range stuff; buff matches, then silhouette. Unfortunately they also catered to a more "seasoned" crowd and are now headed (went?) the same way. When I competed in Silhouette I was one of the younger shooters doing it at 34. So now I've got 3 BPCRs and a .22LR (1885 Low-Wall) that also sit unused.



In the CAS heyday, you couldn't find a decent 1897 that wasn't going for stupid prices.

SASS probably contributed as much to the demise as anything. Somehow, feeling empowered to regulate, SASS became the organization that set standards that they thought were best and many people followed.

When Cowboy Action first started, they had power factors that had a maximum and minimum rating to make things safe, yet keep with the tradition of old west guns. The minimum made the gun, whether rifle or pistol, shoot a powerful enough round to knock over a target, not just ring it. The maximum was so that a guy with a 30-30 or similar cartridge, could still shoot, but with cast bullets at a reduced load to keep it safe.

There was also a part of the game that required good shooting. They wanted you to dress in the traditional style of the 1880’s and look the part.

SASS steps in and makes it more about dressing up than the importance of the old west guns. They dropped power factors, allowed modifications to firearms to make them slick and quick, and then it started to attract “gamers” and speed shooting large targets at close distances.

It’s too bad that any competitive sport morphs into what CAS has, but it is the same in any shooting discipline, as someone has to get an advantage, then someone else has to regulate it and the original intent is lost to modifications…

CAS is still happening at the range I shoot at, but there are considerably fewer shooters that 10-15 years ago. I never shot CAS and compete in more modern events like IDPA, USPSA and 3 Gun. It's too bad to see the decline in CAS, but times change and there seem to be fewer people interested in cowboy related activities.

Precisely what happened around here. Initially we had the entire family shooting, but it got to expensive to outfit all of them.

Thread resurrection. It was pretty strong here in NE Nevada, and I got into it for a couple of years, back in 2008-2010. There is nothing here now.

I posted earlier in this thread that it is still alive and well in the area in Florida where I live. I am going to be spending more time in Missouri so I checked into the Cowboy Action shooting clubs there. It seems it is alive and well there too, two different clubs that shoot every weekend. They also shoot a couple of days through the week and have a pretty good turn out of shooters. If I drive south there are 5 clubs that shoot both days every weekend.

Back when SASS was in it's hayday I can see where some clubs may have been costume nazis but today they realize they need shooters so the rules have relaxed a little at least at monthly shoots, still no ball caps, short sleeve shirts, tennis shoes or lug sold combat boots. At larger matches costumes are still required to meet SASS rules.

Some of you may not be aware that SASS very recently changed the rules for Wild Bunch shooting to include any SASS legal rifle and shotgun and removed the power factor on the rifle requirement. They also changed some rules on the 1911 pistol requirements. They are trying to make it more appealing to people.

Gamers and covid.

Lotta bp shooting sports have experienced downward trends. Cost of equipment, components, travel , food , lodging and etc.. an entry level Shiloh or C. Sharps 74 about 3000 another 700 for sights. No factory.ammo on this stuff gotta make your own dang little of its cheap. Spotting scope and range stuff. For some it is disheartening to watch the gamerfugs kick your ass. Most of us do it because we like working up loads and shooting lr steel. Not inexpensive at all and anything run by the nra is fugged. Your depth of involvement can get expensive or you can keep it cheap
In the summer I shoot once a month at a local shoot maybe 30 bucks ammo and gas to get there. It's up to you on how much or how little
Mb