SASS folks ?

[Marshal Deadwood]

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How many of you shoot with winning as your primary goal ? (Gamers)

Now, I have nothing against gamers....my good friend is faster asleep than I am awake. But,,I enjoy it, I think , just as much as he does,,,and I feel ,,while I'm slower,,that I'm lots more accurate. I shoot most rounds 'clean',,and I have a hoot.

Just curious what the 'game' kinda means to everyone,,,from your various slants.

Deadwood

[Pettifogger]

Personally, I never do anything with the intent of doing it poorly.  If that makes me a "gamer" so be it.

[Sacramento Johnson]

Howdy!
 
Winning is not my primary goal. 
I have other goals which are much more important to me when I shoot. 

[bowiemaker]

I only really compete against myself. I don't want to get into race guns and $$ vs $$ competition.  I am shooting for fun.

[RickB]

I only really compete against myself. I don't want to get into race guns and $$ vs $$ competition.  I am shooting for fun.

Totally agree. I don't shoot to compete,  I shoot to have fun and improve my skills. I will never mod my guns to make them race guns. They are perfect just the way thy are.  Besides,  I'm trying to improve myself so how would it be improving my skills if I have to make the gun do most of the work for me?  Part of the fun of shooting is mastering the gun,  not cutting corners to get to the finish line.

[Forty Rod]

Plinking in funny clothes.  I've been competitive most of my life at one thing or another.  Now it's all for fun.  If I shoot well (and I seldom do) it's a bonus and feels great for about five minutes.  After that it's back to the companionship and fun.

[Pay Dirt Norvelle]

I shoot to have fun and be with friends.  If I shot to win I would be in BIIIIG trouble. 

[Cliff Fendley]

I would still do it if they didn't keep time or score, been there done that, truck pulled for years, lots of dollars and hard work with winning top priority. I try to shoot good but it's all for fun.

[Trailrider]

After 20+ years in the game, I have concluded I probably will never prove to be competition for Evil Roy, et al, and I don't intend to have a geologist timing me (costs too much to hire one, and they don't make "hour" glasses big enough, either...  ).  When I can get out, I just do it for fun!

[Major 2]

FUN

[Jefro]

FUN

I agree. That's exactly what most competitive shooters (gamers) do it for, is FUN. While my idea of fun may be shooting a stage with real BP clean, most of my competitive (gamer) friends have just as much FUN shooting the same stage in 19 seconds. We do use a timer, nothing wrong with trying to do your best. I don't think any one group has a lock on FUN, at the end of the stage the big ole' smile is still the same for all. Good Luck

Jefro Relax-Enjoy

[Danny Bear Claw]

I started off just collecting cowboy guns.  Single action revolvers in particular...  later, lever action rifles.  Wanted a venue where I could shoot both.  The range I used to go to made me rent a pistol lane and a rifle lane to do it.  Did a lot of informal shooting in the woods at that time but living in a big city meant a bit of a drive to shoot.  Then I found SASS.  I bought a cheap SXS and was in buisness.  I work most weekends so don't get to matches as often as I like but have always shot just for FUN!
 

[Bugscuffle]

I'm not good enough and never will be to worry too much about winning. I'm too old and I got started in this sport too late to ever be competetiveon a high level. i just have funplaying cowboy and shooting my guns.

[Pettifogger]

http://youtu.be/mpLfeRJMzUM

[Silent Joe]

It is for the fun, dressed up like a cowboy or C.W. General or mountainman and shoot. That is my goal. I'm not fast or 100% accurate but mostly in the middle and that is good enough for me. I love my guns the way they are without any modifications.

[LoneRider]

When someone calls me a "Gamer"  I say "Thanks" !!!

[Marshal Deadwood]

I'm so slow,,I'm afraid the 'Second Coming' will occur during my turn.

Deadwood  * cold molasses posse   

[cpt dan blodgett]

Wore out 3 hour glasses Sunday at ben avery but shot clean!!!!!!

[Clemsum]

I shoot for the fun and fellowship of it and I am usually in the lower half of the field at the end of the day.

However I have slicked my guns myself. I have put SBH hammers in my Ruger's and changed the sights on my rifles.

PART of the fun FOR ME is reloading, working on my guns and knowing that wherever I finish (a clean stage makes me smile) is based on me doing my best and using equipment I have prepared.

Clemsum

[Cash Creek]

 I am shooting for fun and companionship..but I would like to beat Texas Jack once..CC

[Camille Eonich]

Besides,  I'm trying to improve myself so how would it be improving my skills if I have to make the gun do most of the work for me?  

How can an inanimate object do half the work for you?

Part of the fun of shooting is mastering the gun,  not cutting corners to get to the finish line.

After reading posts like this I always find myself wondering why some people feel the need to attempt to deride the people who finish ahead of them in this sport.  Knowing many of the top shooters in SASS I know that they do not cut any corners at all.  In fact they practice constantly both dry firing and with live ammo at the range.  They make up scenarios and shoot them time after time after time in until the can execute it flawlessly.  The video them self shooting stages so that they can watch them and see where they did anything wrong and where they can improve. 

Those people truly do master not only their weapons but their interactions with those weapons.  It's like watching poetry in motion to watch them shoot, usually.  Yes. all of them have bad days ever now and then and are all thumbs at the range.  Almost all of them have days where they push them self and shoot faster than they have trained to shoot and have several misses on a stage.  But they know how to laugh at them self too.


I think that many people mistake want to be winners with the real winners.  We shouldn't deride the people that finish at the top in this game.  We should recognize that they put a ton of hard work into excelling at it.  Far more than I have the inclination to put into it.



Now having said all of that I go to have fun and I certainly don't go to lose.  I usually finish somewhere near the top of the middle of the pack or the bottom of the top of the pack.  Given what it would take for me to improve my scoring, read above, I'm happy with that.  Practice just seems too much like work for me.

[PJ Hardtack]

Well said, Camille!

You get out of the sport what you put into it. Practice does pay off. We all have different standards of 'excellence', depending upon our needs, resources and egos.

I shot my way into IPSC 'A' class twice - once with a brace of 9mms, the second time with 1911s. That was back in the days when it actually had a claim of practicality. When I got bored with that, I went to a 4" .357 and shot into the top of 'B' class with magnum loads.
I was constantly practicing, dry firing and burning up several hundred rounds a week, shooting from 7 to 50 yards. I paid my dues and after a while, you get good .... ;>)
When IPSC became 'impractical', I was happy to switch to CAS when it was one gun - usually a .45 or .44 with real Cowboy loads. You were regarded as 'light in your Lamas' if you shot a .38/.357 and I took a lot of ribbing for my Marlin .357 carbine. I soon acquired a .44 B-92!
My wife got into CAS with .38/.357s and now has stepped up to .44 with a pair of Ruger Blackhawk Flat Tops, her own B-92 and a .44 Remington cap & ball.
We are fortunate in that our group doesn't have any 'speed merchants', no one has a short stroke or tricked out revolvers and we hold an annual BP/cap& ball match.
We regard 'winning' as shooting a clean stage and the most coveted award is "Spirit of the Game".

[Stu Kettle]

My primary goal is to have fun, but it is a competition, and it's more fun when you do well.  I know I would be faster if I had "race guns' in a puny caliber shooting puny loads, but that wouldn't be as much fun.  Part of the fun is the "bang & clang."

[bowiemaker]

I have no problem with people who want to practice and shoot as fast as they can. If it were a level playing field with unmodified guns that would be one thing. But the fact is that a lot of guns in SASS are modified race guns with short strokes, etc. People have chosen to buy and edge and it becomes $$ vs. $$. That's where I lose interest.

Even if the guns weren't modified, some of us do not have the time or resources to shoot "several hundred rounds a week" and thus would never be on par with those who do.

The other big difference between NCOWS and SASS (besides NCOWS being more historically accurate in firearms and dress) is the distance of the targets. From the SASS matches that I have observed, the rifle targets were about where we would put our pistol targets for a NCOWS match. The SASS pistol targets were so large and so close that one hardly had to aim the gun. Hitting the target was not much of an issue, it was all about speed. At the last SASS match I attended EVERYONE near the firing line was getting sprayed with lead. That's too close. Personally, I like the challenge of having to aim the gun to hit a target at some distance with an unmodified period correct gun.

I have no problem with SASS or the people who do want to shoot for speed. SASS is a larger organization than NCOWS so it is obvious that a lot of shooters prefer it. I am just glad that there is an alternative with NCOWS and it suits me better.

[Camille Eonich]

People have chosen to buy and edge and it becomes $$ vs. $$. That's where I lose interest.

All this is really off topic but I feel it needs to be addressed. Really the only edge that is acquired through the gun modifications is reliability.  A gun that isn't short stoked won't slow these people down more than a fraction of a second.  Malfunctions unless completely jammed don't slow them down the amount of time that it takes an average person to reload a rifle round that has been ejected.


Also off topic but since part of this fantasy game that we play is the acting out of being in gun fights, why would you not prepare yourself as best as you can and go into that fight with the most reliable equipment that you can get?  If I knew that someone was coming gunning for me I would look every area that I moved into over and look for any advantage that I could get.  I wouldn't take my old gun in that I knew that I sometimes short stroked or that sometimes stove piped a round.  If that's all that I had I would be getting it fixed.

Of course if someone were gunning for me now I would have a much higher capacity weapon that my cowboy guns out of the gun safe and by my side too.