Cowboy Mounted Shooting Competitions

What is cowboy mounted shooting? It is a new contest that combines horsemanship and marksmanship in one event. It is reminiscent of the early Wild West Shows with headliner stars like Calamity Jane, who demonstrated her shooting skills while riding at speed on her cowpony. The contestants of this modern-day contest are even dressed like the showmen and women of those famous circuses. In addition to a fun family oriented sport, mounted shooting is rootin' tootin' fun to watch if you are a spectator.

“Cowboy Mounted Shooting is the Fastest Growing Equestrian Sport in the Nation,” claims The Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association [C.M.S.A] founder Jim Rodgers.

Rules require contestants be dressed in Western garb of the Traditional or Classic Western Cowboy and their horses must be tacked in Western style gear.

Riders are required to shoot with a fixed sight single action Colt 45, one designed prior to 1898, or reproductions of that model. For safety sake they must use CMSA approved mounted shooting blanks that will consistently burst the helium balloon targets from a distance of not less than 10 feet and not more than 20 feet.

Contestants ride a prescribed pattern taken from the rulebook. They must shoot at ten helium balloon targets. Revolvers are used one at a time, loaded with five blanks each. With the first revolver, a competitor engages a random course of fire (the first half of the course). This random course shall be set in a safe manner in compliance with current rules and course design. Upon completing the random course, the competitor shall holster the now empty revolver, draw the second revolver and engage the second half of the course commonly called the “rundown”. Pistols must then be returned to the holsters.

While it is a timed contest, accuracy is a big part of the score. There is a 5 second penalty for each missed balloon, a 5 second penalty for dropping a gun, a 10 second pen­alty for being off course, and a 60 second penalty if the rider falls off the horse.

Cowboy Shooting contests are divided into various classes for different levels of experience, including classes for the youngsters. Any breed of horse or mule, purebred or not, can be used in this sport. Horses are trained to tolerate the sound of the gunshots so ones with even temperaments are desired, as well as being agile in sprinting, stopping and turning, and of course speed. These are qualities appreciated in stock horses that do ranch work and western contesting and stock horses, such as Quarter Horses, Paints, Appaloosas are the most common types of horses used.

CMSC founder, Jim Rodgers writes that mounted shooting contests date back to cavalry training for as long as there have been guns and horses. Mounted shooting exhibitions were popular events in the Wild West Shows like Buffalo Bill Cody’s in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The first organized Cowboy Mounted Shooting Competition was held at Winter Range the second week of February 1992, at Ben Avery Shooting Range north of Phoenix. To learn more about this fast growing equestrian sport visit he Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association website at http://www.cowboymountedshooting.com/