I credit that visit to the Cowboy Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City (FABULOUS PLACE!) with my return to Cowboy Action Shooting after a four year hiatus. As I walked wistfully around, my wife finally said "Why in the hell don't you start cowboy shooting again?" i could not give her a good reason. So I said I would.
She bought me my Resistol John Wayne collection hat and vest in the museum store, and told me it was a start. I sold off about $3,500 of modern guns when we got home to California, and bought that much in Cowboy guns and costumes.
I left CAS in about 2013 for several reasons. Partially, I was bored after 20 years and tired of gamers and too many rules. A major factor though, was that I was working a job where I literally had to work every weekend. To go to a match, I had to either trade a day or call in sick! No being self employed as a Realtor, I had no good excuse.
Besides ther is a small club in our town that has matches much more like the matches 20-25 years ago. Clay pigeon s and tin cans at 25 yards for rifle, some 50 and even 75 yard steel rams for rifle sprinkled in. Our pistol targets are farther away than most clubs rifle targets!