Yesyerday I shot my first cowboy action match - it was the most stressful shooting I've done yet. Granted, it's not "OMG, I'm gonna die!" stress, and the targets are big & close. So take this as you will...
With my pistols (1860 Army cap and ball clones), I shot some stages with sights and some just by instinctive point-shooting. For example, one stage had two moving paper plates at about 15 feet. I wasn't confident in my sights (they're 8 or 10 inches low by 50 feet), so I simply shot "by feel" as fast as I could cock the hammer and pull the gun down from recoil. I successfully got all ten shots on target (actually, I got 11 hits with 10 shots...we think one of my wads hit the target, as well as the 10 balls ).
Still, from watching some of the really good shooters, it seems like with enough practice, you can use the sights just as fast as you could point-n-shoot (though unless you have night-sights, non-point-shooters will be at a disadvantage in the dark).
With my pistols (1860 Army cap and ball clones), I shot some stages with sights and some just by instinctive point-shooting. For example, one stage had two moving paper plates at about 15 feet. I wasn't confident in my sights (they're 8 or 10 inches low by 50 feet), so I simply shot "by feel" as fast as I could cock the hammer and pull the gun down from recoil. I successfully got all ten shots on target (actually, I got 11 hits with 10 shots...we think one of my wads hit the target, as well as the 10 balls ).
Still, from watching some of the really good shooters, it seems like with enough practice, you can use the sights just as fast as you could point-n-shoot (though unless you have night-sights, non-point-shooters will be at a disadvantage in the dark).