NCOWS & AZ

[Red Rock Shootist]

I've been posting in other elements of this forum regarding a desire to shoot matches which encompass:

Targets further away
Properly charged ammunition
Classes with no short stroke kits allowed

...and I was referred to NCOWS, which appears to fulfill those desires, except that it appears to have no matches in Arizona.

(Odd, as one would think Arizona would be filled with such interests!)

Perhaps I am wrong?

I just feel that shooting these guns as they were designed and having targets out far enough that the sights have a purpose would be a lot more interesting.    Every club I've shot at so far has pistol targets either at the SASS legal minimum or closer, and the rifle targets are maybe 1 or 2 yards further than that.   

Looking for advice, and thank you for your time.

[Grizzle Bear]

You're right, there is no NCOWS Posse in Arizona. (yet)

I would suggest that you round up a few like-minded pards, join NCOWS, and form a posse.

You can contact Books O'Toole here on CAS-City and obtain "The Hoopleheads Guide to Forming an NCOWS Posse."  This will give you all the information to get started.

Grizzle Bear

who would love to go to Arizona for an NCOWS match!

[Books OToole]

Red Rock;

Send me a PM with your adress and I will get you a Hooplehead's Guide.  From there, let me know what I can do to help.

Books

[Rowdy Fulcher]

Red Rock
Welcome , wish you the best of luck on getting a Posse in Arizona . What your looking for is what we offer .

[River City John]

Red Rock Shootist,

Hello again. Glad you dropped by.
Fully 70% of the NCOWS membership do not belong to a posse. Our magazine, The Shootist, is a valuable asset and helps to keep the membership in touch.

The Marshal has provided this NCOWS forum in CAS City here, and it has become a semi-official meeting place. In fact, after joining NCOWS we have access to the members-only child board also available in here.

Visit our web site, www.ncows.org/ to read up about us. Most new posses have taken awhile to get up and running. Finding other Pards who are interested in our philosophy, finding a range to hold shoots, etc.

Perhaps it could be this simple,- if you find enough NCOWS-hopefuls you could shoot together as a squad at the local range you use now, just keep a second set of NCOWS-based scoring and make the effort amongst yourselves to honor a 'Gentlemen's agreement' to police yourselves as far as clothing and non-use of modified firearms for competition. As your little group grows you'll get to a point where you're better prepared to petition for chartering your NCOWS Posse.

There have been two NCOWS posses that operated under unique circumstances. One was purely social, did not hold their own shoots but would travel to other shoots as an NCOWS posse, and for their activities organized trips to museums, movie and a dinner-events, lectures, etc., all with Western theme in mind. Another posse has no range of their own, but schedule their shooting encampments on public wilderness lands (with prior permission, of course). They set up a lot of 'woods walk'-type of shoots. Targets are portable, afterall.

There are many ways to enjoy NCOWS. You've already figured we encourage our membership to step away from the arms race, the "10-10-4 and if you're not shooting quickly you're not having fun" mindset, and perhaps slow down and enjoy the fun of doing it differently.

RCJ



 

[Will Ketchum]

Red Rock, welcome to our forum.  I suggest you go back through about the last 10 pages of this board and look at all the posts started by Cole Bluesteele.  He just was involved in getting a NCOWS posse started in Texas.  By reading these posts you can follow his progress.

The latest is here:  http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,25185.0.html

We are all here to help you.  Most of us are tired of the close ranges and large targets found at the typical match.

Will Ketchum

[Cole Bluesteele]

Red Rock,

Is there sufficient interest in the existing SASS club to host a seperate NCOWS match?  This can be a win-win-win-win situation for those who would like a more challenging NCOWS type match, for those who want only the run& gun SASS match, for those who enjoy both types and the club's treasury!

Here's how.

What we did in Texas just recently was to poll our members to determine if there was an interest in the type of match you describe, an NCOWS match.  Since there were a dozen or more members who were so inclined, we, the officers of the club, applied for NCOWS affiliation in addition to the existiing SASS affiliation.  Now, we host two NCOWS matches a month and two SASS matches a month.  As the insurance requirement for SASS and NCOWS is the same minimum $1,000,000 liability policy.  All it cost the club to file for NCOWS affiliation was the $35 filing fee.  As a benefit to our club since we are hosting 4 instead of the previous 2 matches a month, the income to the club has increased.  Something no one will complain about!

Now you see why I said it was a win-win-win-win situation!

So canvas your fellow shooters, I would not be surprised if you found some kindred spirits.  PM me through this forum if you have any questions or if I can help in any way.  

Cole

[Cole Bluesteele]

One other thing I forgot to mention.  Do NOT wait on NCOWS affiliation to start holding matches in a NCOWS format.  We did not and were pleasantly surprised by who showed up to try it out.  Most got hooked!  So maybe you could start by just asking the SASS club you shoot with if they would be willing to try something a little different.  This requires no committment from the club other than a day to shoot and use of the range facilities.  Plus it'll put additional money in the club's treasury.

You may be surprised at how many are willing to try something other than 10-10-4.  If you need stage descriptions, I can email you some we have used.  I bet others here would do likewise.  Just post a new topic asking for NCOWS stages.

Cole

[Tascosa Joe]

To add to what Cole said about the win-win-win-win for the exsisting club, when Texas Ten Horns started shooting NCOWS the overall membership of the club increased.  They are some guys out their (me) who had either stopped shooting SASS or went to a club a little closer to home.  The new NCOWS posse rejuvinated my attitude and gave me a new venue to shoot.  Also join NCOWS, the shootist is worth the price of dues.  I was a member of NCOWS a long time before I was able to shoot on a regular basis.

Tascosa Joe

[Rowdy Fulcher]

Howdy
Red Rock what do you think ,  have we answered your questions .

[Red Rock Shootist]

I apologize for the delayed reply, I also shoot High Power competition and was away from home this weekend at a EiC match.

This does indeed answer my questions and I will start poking around at my favorite local club to see if there's interest.

I know of one other, for sure, whom is interested, but obviously we need more than 2 people!

I like the idea that NCOWS can essentially "fit in" to the regular club and that a specialized posse can run their stages NCOWS style without necessarily effecting the other shooters.

What do the NCOWS posses running this way normally do, move the targets for their posse and then move them back to the point blank positions for the other posses afterwards?

I will also see if there's room to fit in an extra day for a special "NCOWS style" shoot as described...

[River City John]

To continually stop the action so the range could go cold while you moved downrange to switch targets would probably not make your experiment popular.

If shooting as a squad at a regular match, shoot their scenarios at their distances but keep another score using NCOWS' rules. There won't be that much difference, 10 seconds per miss as opposed to five(?) seconds in SASS, I believe. Agree amongst your squad to not use reduced loads, etc. As your hosting club gets comfortable with you experimenting with NCOWS, ask if you could contribute one stage description a shoot that might use farther distances on the targets, and maybe a little unusual pistol count, maybe with reload, etc., just something to make it interesting.
You could, if your club doesn't already offer something like Working Cowboy, ask if it's ok to have your squad just take second pistol and the shotgun as misses on their scoring so you could get a feel for WC. Just decide that the final NCOWS scoring is the one that matters to your squad.
In time, maybe the club will let you plan a couple of side matches for everyone to get a taste for NCOWS rules. How about a side match that allows double-actions? Bet there are a lot of Pards who are itching to get those Cowboy irons out of the safe and sending lead downrange! Especially if you provided the double-action as a loaner or it was staged for all.  This would be where you can control target placement and distance. It will also give you some valuable face time with those interested.

At the point where you've grown enough you'll start to think about submitting your proposal for charter into NCOWS.
For now I guess the idea is NCOWS is just another way to add enjoyment to your clubs' activities.
On the NCOWS website there's a brochure you can download. Keep a few in your guncart to hand out when parties show interest.
Others will have some ideas.
And make the commitment yourself to join now. You'll leave a much stronger impression when people know you took the plunge.
RCJ

[Red Rock Shootist]

Honestly, my biggest heartburn is with the light loads and ridiculously close targets.

[Cole Bluesteele]

Red

I know how you feel.  If the current trend of "bigger and closer" continues, we'll be shooting airsoft pellets at the elephants behind us!

Cole