Volume 1, Issue No. 3                                           (Web Edition)                                                     May 2003

Page 1

May Shoot:  Light Turnout, But Fun For Those Who Did

     It rained all around the area on Saturday.  Shucks, for a few minutes it even rained at the range, before the shoot began…but only for a few minutes.  Then, it stopped and the 38 shooters who ventured out had a great…well, a very good shoot.  And that ain’t bad, considering all the competition for shooters’ attentions.  First, Mother Nature made it look like it would rain all day, but it didn’t.  Then several local schools had graduation ceremonies.  And the Knoxville cowboys had some kind of special event going on, and only a few journeyed south to shoot with us.     

     Ain’t that a sad story?  But what the heck, Marshal Too Tall and Tri started the day with a bang.  They won the Buffalo Shoot: Tri in the Open Sight and Marshal Too Tall in the Peep Sight categories.  Then Pleasant, Tarheel and Double Eagle each proceeded to shoot 5 stages without missing any targets.

     Pleasant won the honors as Top Gun.  But, two other cowboys made definite impressions on the range.  Deadfoot showed up wearing a Mexican sombrero that would put the Cisco Kid to shame.  And Tennessee Hoss made his return shooting black powder with brass shotgun shells plum full of black powder.  Every time he fired, he made so much smoke that cowfolk on other stages thought something big was on fire.  His shells were so hot, that when he fired his shotgun, the primers were burned out.  He was overheard asking a couple of other cowboys how much powder was enough.  The answer they gave him was…”less than you’re shooting”.

SHOOT RESULTS

Traditional

Duelist

Ocoee Red

Horseshoe John

Dustin Clays

Dutch Al

Whiskey River Nelson

Tri

Modern

Black Powder

Limp Along Charlie

T-Bone Angus

Tarheel

The Catoosa Kid

Sundance McNeyman

Coffee Joe

Junior

Senior

Chickamauga Clint

Tobasco Jot

Gunfighter

Buffalo Shoot

Pleasant

(Peep Sight)  Marshal Too Tall 

(Open Sight)  Tri

     Shadrack Jones was the only entry in the Classic Category and can’t be officially recognized as a category winner.  However, he epitomized the Classic Cowboy look and performance.  Ol’ Shadrack was dressed in high top Buffalo Bill horseman’s boots, a buckskin jacket, white hat, slim Jim holsters, and he shot a Henry rifle, a Spencer rifle, a brace of conversion colts, and his shotgun.  He was a perfect example of a classy cowboy shootin’ Classic Cowboy.

OCOEE RANGERS SASS AFILLIATED

     It’s official!  The Ocoee Rangers are now SASS affiliated.  That means our monthly shoot will be listed in the Cowboy Chronicle and on the SASS website, we can put the SASS logo back on our Shooters’ Certificates, and we’re officially back in the SASS Cowboy Action Shooting family.

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Volume 1, Issue No. 3                                           (Web Edition)                                                     May 2003

Page 2

The reel West, the real West and the West of our imagination

     Dale Robertson was a B-Movie cowboy actor back in the ‘50’s.  Sometimes he played a good guy, sometimes a sleezy gambler, and sometimes he was just sorta part of the crowd.  Then in the heyday of TV westerns, he became a household name, at least if you liked cowboy movies.  Now if you say, shucks, I didn’t, shame on you.  Anyway, Dale rose to our attention as Jim Hardie, Wells Fargo agent and trouble shooter in Tales of Wells Fargo.  When the series started, he

Jim Hardie aka Dale Robertson

looked after stagecoaches.  Then as the series continued, he spent more and more time with railroad troubles. He became,

if you will, a railroad cowboy.  A left handed one at that. Ol’ Jim was fast on the draw, rode a nifty looking horse, corralled all the bad guys, and he and his alter ego, Dale Robertson, were a bit outspoken.  Once when talking about cowboys, guns, holsters and such, ol’ Dale commented that Tom Tryon, who played “Texas” John Slaughter in the Walt Disney movies, would be dead in a heartbeat if he really tried to draw on somebody using the cross draw that he carried.  And he was convinced of his opinion. Now in real life, the real “Texas” John Slaughter carried his white handled Colt in a, you guessed it, cross draw holster.  And the ol’ boy lived until a ripe old age doing so.  So much for one man’s opinion.

     As all good things eventually do, the Tales of Wells Fargo series ended, and before long, back was ol’ Dale.  But this time he was a railroad owner who rode his rails and seemed to get into as much trouble as when he was a lowly trouble-shooter on someone else’s railroad.  That series was in color, an hour long, and wasn’t near as good as the 30 minute shoot’em up.

     Now in modern times, cowboys still come in contact with trains, and rails, and such.  Limp Along Charlie is such a feller. Just like Jim Hardie, aka Dale Robertson, he hitched his star to an iron horse, and he’s become a railroad cowboy.  Limp Along Charlie’s been cowboy shootin’ for about 2 ½ years.  A member of the Cleveland Hunting Rifle & Pistol Club, he went out to the range one day to shoot skeet, and he saw Pleasant, Tri, and several other fellers cowboy shootin’.  So, he went 

over towatch.  They offered to let him use their guns to shoot, 

Limp Along Charlie

but he declined. But it looked like fun.  After seeing the cowboy shooting, Charlie went home and dug out his Ruger Black Hawk, in .45 Colt.  Not long thereafter, he traded his deer rifle for a Ruger Vaquero, also in .45 Colt.  Next he bought a ’94 Winchester and a shotgun.  But he was still working weekends.  Then one day he was closing a boxcar door at work, and the door fell on him and broke his hip.  Five surgeries later, he had a limp.  So when he looked for a SASS alias, he selected Limp Along Charlie.  Making contact with a work acquaintance, and another railroad cowboy, C Rider, Limp Along got C Rider into reloading and C Rider got him into Cowboy Shooting. And the rest is history. And that is the story of Limp Along Charlie, Ocoee Ranger and railroad cowboy.

 THE REAL WEST

     Now I know what you’re thinkin’. What the heck did Tom Horn have to do with trains.  And that would be a valid question. There’s a valid answer, but before we give the answer, let’s consider ol’ Tom. In his day.  Tom Horn lived an exciting life.  He was an army scout in the Apache Indian wars in Arizona Territory.  He was a prospector, but he obviously didn’t get rich.  He was a cowboy, a mule packer, a champion rodeo competitor, and a hunter of men, rustlers & thieves.  And apparently, he bagged his share of rustlers.

Tom Horn

Unfortunately, he just couldn’t keep his mouth shut.  The 

RANGE SETUP – THANKS HORSESHOE JOHN & WADDIES

Till next month…happy trails.

Newletter Editors:  Deadman & Mesquite Millie                  Website Editor:  Tennessee Justice

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