The first Internet shoot was a word of mouth event that was scheduled for January 2, 2005. To my surprise 39 shooters showed up for my first "virtual" contest. 26 were OFDA International members. I was slightly intimidated since many of them were veteran champion shooters and leaders of the OFDA. Needless to say I did not place very high but I sure had a lot of fun. My favorite memory of the first shoot was that one of the legends of Fast Draw, Red Jordan, honored us by participating in this crazy little experiment of mine.
Each month more and more gunfighters from around the US would join us shooting the events I specified each month and sending their times to me. I would compile the times and rank the shooters based on the results. It was purely an honor system "index contest" and it gave me a sense of competition that I couldn't get any other way. Eventually my Fast Draw friends in Scotland, The Gunslingers, expressed interest in joining the party and for that reason we started shooting balloon targets with shotgun primers at close range to simulate the conditions that the shooters in the UK compete under so we could include them in the monthly gunfight. Soon I had 50+ shooters participating.
Approximately 5 years ago my family and career forced me to discontinue the internet shoot and curtail my participation in Fast Draw. Recently I find myself with free time and, of course, the first thing I think of is shooting Fast Draw again. In discussing it with some of my close gunfighter friends here in North America and Scotland it was suggested that I consider restarting the Internet Shoot.
A quick poll on my Gunfighter Gulch FaceBook page seemed to support the thought so here we go. Attached are the links to the spreadsheet we will use to record your times and Libre Office, a free office suite program that will allow you to use the spreadsheet if you do not own Microsoft Excel.
Internet Score Sheet
Libre Office Suite - versions are available for Windows, Apple and Linux computers
The events will be 3 sets (5 shots per set) of standing blanks. Misses or times over one second will be recorded as 1 second. Use any draw style you want - thumb, fan or twist. Hand on the gun aka lawman's ready or off the gun as in traditional Fast Draw is the shooters choice. If the gun, holster, target and timer is legal in any recognized Fast Draw association anywhere in the world you are welcome to bring it to the line. In North America we will use standard OFDA/WFDA 5" balloon targets and shotgun primer only ammo. UK gunfighters will use their standard balloon targets and blanks. If we have shooters from Japan and Korea interested in participating they should be on even ground using their standard balloon targets. The open window for shooting the events is from Saturday December 13, 2014 to Sunday December 21, 2014 in your practice range or as a group at your club. Again, this is an HONOR SYSTEM contest. Practice all you want between now and December 21 but shoot the contest events only once. Record the times and draw style you used and send the scoresheet back to me any time within the window. Shooters have until midnight of December 21 PST to email the completed score sheet to me at my Gunfighter Gulch email address. Any score sheets received after the deadline will not be counted. I expect to have all the scores tallied and posted on this page by Christmas Day. Early submittals are appreciated since flooding me with all the scoresheets on the 21st will increase the time it takes for me to format the final scores and post the results to Gunfighter Gulch.
If you have any questions do not hesitate to email me or post a comment on my Gunfighter Gulch FaceBook page.
Video Links
North America Gunfighters using shotgun primers and standard OFDA/WFDA type balloon targets
UK Gunfighters using theatrical blank firing guns and standard UK balloon type targets
WFDA Japan Gunfighters using plug fire blanks and WFDA Japan balloon targets.