CAS Peaked?

I hope you didn't think I ment I didn't like Single actions or BP revolvers!
Heck, with the exception of 3 Pocket guns, they're all I own!!!
I love Single actions! For some reason my first revolver was a .22 cal. S/A and they just feel best! My "Carry Gun" is a 4 5/8" .357 Ruger Vaquero, It seems to be at home in my hand and I wouldn't fear putting it up against anything to protect house, home, and family! It's just my choice and a "natural" to use.
Now the clothing is a good point. You can go simple or go with custom, period corret suspender pants and shirts without collars. I'm disabled and I get a waiver on shoes due to an old work accident and get to wear my special medical footwear. Yes clothing can get expensive and if that appeals to you why not go for it? I like clothes so I am going to spend more on that than gun leather.
I also shoot BP and have holsters and leather to suit that cause. It's a bit more complex getting BP revolvers running well but not all that hard to do.
I guess if you don't want to compete, you can still dress-up and enjoy the festivities too. You can wear one pistol and dress nice for the dinners and to walk the streets... I've seen many pictures of one-gun cowboys escorting ladies and their buddies around the shoots. I have seen the same at our club.
There is something for everyone in CAS and related clubs!
I think Single Actions get in the blood and once you are hooked, it seems nothing compares to the fit and the aura of the times.
I'd hate to see CASand related Hobbies go away and I don't think they will but the economy is nibbling at everything and this Hobby is no exception.
ZVP
 
Personally, I would not be heartbroken if CAS and SASS stays relatively small or at least hovers at a controlled, consistent [but] not exactly fast growing rate of membership. I've participated in hobbies that have a sudden and sustained high rate of interest and growth, spawning upteen associations, societies, clubs and the like and the resulting rules too numerous, conflicting and convoluted to understand. In addition, every fad seeking wannabe jumps in and further muddys up the water, drives up prices, creates safety issues by the mere quantity of attendees and so-on and so-on.

God save those who preserve the guns, shooting styles, clothing and principles of sportsmenship of our history and pass it to their sons, daughters and friends who hold the value close at heart. For those who are in it for their flavor/toy of the week... I'm happy to purchase gear from them at a discount when they move on to something else.
 
Scooch,
You're probablly right. Things that go up quick have a habit of falling quickly too.
The main thing with CAS is that everyone keeps to the spirit of deplicting the "times" correctly. Nothing worse than seeing Wild Bill with a pair of Peacemakers! I think being able to see the people as they actuallu looked is the most important thing! Getting a feel for the harshness of settling life into a wilderness is an important point. Towns sprung up with frightening speed and putting structure to them and bringing the modernazations of the East quickly was no easy task. Many towns were totally developed in less than 10 years, with formal governments and all!
The organizations have deplicted all this through it's membership.
It seems that besides the Wild West , you had folks stepping of trains and out of wagons and changing everything! It was quite a time and deplicting it is a chore. Factor in the shooting aspect of CAS and you have two jobs at hand!
Structuring both the towns of the Old West and running shooting competitions takes a strong set of bylaws and doing it Nationwide and with such obvious perfection says a hell of alot for the administration of all the different organizations. Just getting along to do it is monumental!
I think that orginization such as this has a concrete foundation and though membership may fluctuate, the basic structure will continue on. Right now everyone is strapped and I truely hope that I can get to participate in my own way and can help keep it going!
ZVP
 
its good to have mentioned accuracy to the time..

no offense intended but..

after the civil war the us government sold off surplus weapons to the settlers going west. the big majority of the people heading out west in those wagon trains only had the ability to take one gun along, that was commonly a shotgun. luckier ones had a rifle two, or just a rifle.

now if they had a division set up for the "cash poor settler" were you only needed 1 pistol, or 1 shotgun, or 1 rifle, NOT ONE OF EACH< JUST ONE FROM THAT GROUP it would be good. then people would be more eager to get started. and if you used actual loading data from the day, then it would be even more fun.
 
Some clubs offer a category called "Working Cowboy" where only one sixgun is required, and sometimes even only one long gun; revolver/rifle or revolver/shotgun.
 
Re Cash Poor Settler

Yea, I think that historical accuracy is VERY important!
Not every day was the OK Corral or was every person outfitted with state of the art weapons. The real truth is many carried Cap and Ball revolvers (cheap and plentifull) and naturally a Shotgun, usually a single barrel back door type.
Gunfights weren't the norm but they are the personna that most CAS shooters and many reenactors choose to be. Hence, we have an abundance of this sort of weaponry.
I have gone as far as buying books on the clothing and even one on the slang of the day, to try to sharpen up my yet to be, CAS character. I plan to try and develop and maintain a character with the proper flavor of the era. It's no easy point to try and establish! There are many good books about the dress of the different decades and you must be very carefull not to cross-over to different decades by mistake. For instance, Hats are really hard to pin down for most were Eastern Daily wear not always the quitesential Stetson. To do it right goes far beyond Levis and a holster... Reserch is half the fun and thank goodness there are a number of good books available to study!
ZVP
 
Some people enjoy competing with guns. They find the game that suits them best, and then even though there are going to be some things about the game that they think should be different, they don't let that stop them from getting out and competing and having fun. This is true for SASS, IDPA, USPSA, ICORE or any other shooting competition you want to name.

Some shooters at least go out and try the various competitions to find out what they are really like before deciding which one they like best.

It's funny. As far as cowboy shooting goes, you can tell some people 10 times that all you have to wear is some jeans and a long sleeved works shirt and boots and the next words out of their mouths will be "I don't want to dress up like Roy Rogers or have to wear chaps, spurs, scarves, vests,etc." They choose to completely ignore what the people who actually participate in cowboy shooting tell them and listen to others who profess to know all about it and have really never been involved in cowboy shooting at all.

Then there's that large group that makes their decisions based on their ASSUMPTIONS, usually wrong, about a given sport. Their chosen competition is outdoing each other in finding reasons to not have to get out in front of others and put their commanding shooting skills on display. (Grand master level at avoiding that.) They prefer to think of themselves as experts and great shooters and might find out they don't quite rank where they expected. Luckily, they will never have to find out. Mark (A little better than average shooter, at least compared to those who get out there and give it a go.)
 
I shot CASS twice and got out of it before I got in very deep for two reasons.

1. Money has been too tight so I still don't have my rifle. There are people there who generously offered to loan me a rifle for a while but if I'm going to do it I want to use my own stuff and not be a mooch.

2. I got interested in CAS as a place to shoot my cap and ball guns, but nobody else is shooting cap and ball at my local club and they move too fast for me to do anything but load and shoot all day. Which means while everybody else is socializing I am loading my pistols. If I ever get the money thing worked out so I can afford a decent 1892 and a couple of conversion cylinders I might give it another go, at some point. If I stay ahead of this cancer thing that is kicking my but that is.
 
Delmar, Hang in there on the cancer thing and nobody, nobody regrets loaning their guns.

The cap and ball loading will come with practice. Fingers and I agree that we can load and be ready to take over posse duties in the amount of time it takes two shooters to cycle through.
 
A few questions have come to mind since reading the SASS rules. One is, are there any classes that you only need one pistol in and the other is, if your going to shoot in Long Range matches, do you also have to shoot in all the other categories too or can you just shoot in Long Range only and leave the other guns at home?
 
Slo me...

How do ya do it so fast?
I load with the cylinder on the gun and working fast as is safe, it still takes a while!
Loading Powder and Ball is pretty quick I use Wads over the powder too, but capping always goes slow for me. I pinch all my caps just to be sure.
I know, Pratice, Pratice!
ZVP
 
delmar said:
I got interested in CAS as a place to shoot my cap and ball guns, but nobody else is shooting cap and ball at my local club and they move too fast for me to do anything but load and shoot all day.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about taking all the time you need Delmar. Whan I started shooting a pair of '51 Navies 8 or 9 years ago, it took me a while to recharge cylinders too. No one on your posse will hold it against you, and if they do, find another posse.

BrittB said:
are there any classes that you only need one pistol in
Click to expand...
There are no SASS categories that only require 1 pistol. NCOWS has a category called Working Cowboy that only uses one pistol and pistol caliber rifls. No shotgun. There is also a Range Detective category used by some CAS clubs that uses two pistols and the rifle - again, no shotgun. Some SASS clubs allow more than the normal SASS categories at their monthly matches. You'd have to check with individual clubs to see if they allow non-standard categoriesMy local club allows a military category using Span Am weapons (Krag & double action revolver) as well as Wild Bunch (.45 Auto) and a variation of Working Cowboy (1 pistol, rifle and shotgun).

BrittB said:
if your going to shoot in Long Range matches, do you also have to shoot in all the other categories too or can you just shoot in Long Range only and leave the other guns at home?
Click to expand...

Long range rifle is generally just a side match, as part of a larger match. You would have to be registered for the main match in order to be able to shoot the long range side match.

You would pick a category to shoot in and shoot in that category for the entire match.

ZVP said:
I know, Pratice, Pratice!
Click to expand...

Or shoot a lot of matches.
 
I've never shot CAS. The 3 gun requirement slows me down. I shoot 3 gun, but I alrady own tacticool rifles. The gamers kill the sport too I think. At least in USPSA there are divisions where you can compete for $500. There are power factors to make box ammo viable. The shooting does not seem very challenging either. Some may cuss, but I like seing a 30yd US popper (half size) and 25 yd head shots at an USPSA match.
 
Delmar,
I (almost) exclusively shoot C&Bs (since 1993) in CAS. After a short while you develop a routine. I charge my pistols at the unloading table and get to do posse duties and meet other shooters while I'm loading and they are unloading. I am pretty anal (laying out 10 balls, 10 wads, grease syringe, nipple pick, etc. on the open lid of my ammo/shoot box). So I don't dry ball a chamber I visually inspect each chamber for powder before wadding. I occasionally am handed the timer as well as doing a lot of spotting. If you are unavailable to do posse duties due to loading, it's no big deal. People cut the C&Bers a lot of slack. I think there is a big sympathy factor. After a while you will develop a technique that will make the perCUSSIN' revolvers sing.
 
I have seen a drop off in attendence in our Muzzleloading Shoots. Both on
a local level and National. Use to back in the early to mid 70's we would
get 50 people to our monthy shoots. Now we get mebby 15. At our 3-day
shoots we would get 70-90 shooters. Now mebby 30. Nationaly we used to
have about 24,000 members. Now it's about 17,000. Those 7,000 have gone
somewhere. Lots have died. Every month in the "Muzzle Blast" magizine I see
about six who have died in the past month. This is every month! We are not
getting six to replace them. I really hate
to see what this sport will be in say 20
years. I probably won't be around much longer myself. I'm over 68 now. I don't want to admit it but I think we are in a dieing hobby. I think I have seen
the best of Muzzleloading. I was in it back in the late 60's on. I wouldn't trade
it for anything. I'm in for the long haul. We go to the Nationals each year at
Friendship Indiana, and will continue to do so as long as my wife and I can
drive. Got a 13 year old daughter who will have her license in three years.
Mebby she can drive a couple of old folks. God Bless
Phil
 
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Yo, kwhi43@kc.rr.com, I agree, the volume of participant's has descreased dramatically in the last 10 years, however, I DO see an increase of young folks taking up the sport here in Idaho. I think it's because there is a Muzzleloading season for deer and elk so they're aware of the process. These youngin's, (me bein' the ancient age of 62), have discoverded that there are clubs that shoot ML's exclusively and because of that are being introduced to the history of the gun's, (plus they get to shoot often and it's not too expensive), instead of just looking for another way to extend the hunting season, they are using period correct guns and contributing to the sport by doing the grunt work and I think we may be seeing a resurgence of interest in the sport, at least locally. Keep the faith, it may work it's way over to your neck of the woods faster than you think!!
 
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