Jon “Blackjack” Long tells us that details are firming up for the Oregon State championship, “The Gunfight at Trail’s End.”   Co-owner of the Lengendary Idaho Shootists and “ramrod” for the first Oregon State Championship, Blackjack notes that folks in Canyon City are really getting into the CFDA-sanctioned event.  “They have confirmed a Friday night music in the park event for us and a Saturday morning pancake feed.”  Cowboy Fast Draw Association (CFDA) folks like to eat and eating opportunities don’t appear to be lacking for the August 13-15 event.

This first Oregon State Championship is sponsored by three CFDA clubs–the Orygun Gunfighters in Forest Grove, Oregon, the Fort Dalles Defenders in The Dalles, Oregon and the Idaho Shootists in Idaho City, Idaho.  All three clubs are part of the CFDA’s “Northwest Territory.” While we’ve had a few sponsors sign on, there’s still room for more.  Cutoff date for sponsors is June 1st.  If you’d like to have a spot on the goody bag or T-shirt–designs haven’t been finalized–now’s the time to get on board.  Let Blackjack (currenttech@earthlink.net) or Ronin (gregg@greggtownsley.com) know.  They’re quite excited as to how things are beginning to shape up! 

You can sign-up to compete at The Gunfight at Trail’s End by going directly to the Cowboy Fast Draw Association website and clicking on the events list.

John shot the video at the 2009 Cowboy Fast Draw Association (CFDA) World Championship and consequently covers a wide variety of styles and advice. You can order his DVD online.

But fast draw contests in the area were tough to find, and active clubs in the Portland area nonexistent. So I did what anyone else would have done who wanted to shoot, I started one. And I told everyone what I was doing. “I’m shooting cowboy fast draw, isn’t that crazy?” I said to people I hardly knew in local restaurants and businesses. “How about shooting fast draw with me?” I asked friends in the church where I was serving on the interim pastoral staff. And I did the same in my martial arts studios in Sherwood and Hillsboro, not forsaking the Internet forums where I was known as well. Before long, I had people who wanted to shoot with me. Where I come from, “where two or three are gathered together,” as the saying goes, you have a club.

We began organizing in January of 2008, holding meetings in two small restaurants in Forest Grove, Oregon, and “sanctioned” as it was then called, or affiliated as it is now termed with the Cowboy Fast Draw Association (CFDA) in October the same year, at the World Championships in Fallon, Nevada. Seventeen individuals lent their support the first year as “Founding Life Members,” enabling the club to buy its first two targets and timing equipment. Keeping with the CFDA habit of using a shooting alias, I want to recognize the following:

• Gregg “the Rev. W. W. Ronin” Townsley
• Nancy “Generous Kate” Townsley
• Don “the Coho Kid” Brown
• Dan “Orie Gunn” Esteban
• Jon “Doug Graves” Larson
• Tom “Tatonka” Epler
• Lori “Tatonka Rose” Epler
• Jason “the Amity Kid” Waibel
• John “Old West” West
• Richard “Theramore” Epler
• Craig “Kid Kreggar” Pittenger
• Diane “Diana Might” Pittenger
• Dan “Bad Eye Lefty” Arends

As is often the case in the Cowboy Fast Draw Association, members of other CFDA clubs contributed. For instance, two members of the Maine CFDA club also joined as Founding Life Members: William “Last Will” Cotton and his wife Patricia “Polly Esther” Gillway, of the Waldo County Rangers. Additionally, Forest Grove residents Alan and Anne Niven lent financial support to the endeavor despite not being active members of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association nor the club.

A generous loan by two of the club’s members allowed the Orygun Gunfighters to purchase a thirty-foot archery net when a mechanic at the L Bar T Bison Ranch let us know that the side of the barn wasn’t nearly as appropriate as a shooting backstop as everyone originally thought. Ted Blocker Holsters, the L Bar T Bison Ranch, and my own organization—Oregon Fast Draw, LLC—were three of our original corporate sponsors, contributing leather goods for our Townsfolk Alleys, computers, tables and chairs and so on.

Our first town scene was constructed and painted by “the Amity Kid,” who in return received a beautiful Taurus Gaucho revolver and a free Founding Life Membership. We’ve appreciated his efforts in constructing these important pieces of the club’s equipment and look forward to his continued participation in making our range, in time, one of the most attractive ranges in the Cowboy Fast Draw Association.

The Orygun Gunfighters maintain separate summer and winter ranges, shooting at Ted Blocker Holsters in Tigard, Oregon during the cold winter months—amidst leather goods, sewing machines and carving tables—and the L Bar T Bison Ranch in Forest Grove, Oregon during the warmer summer months, with split rail fences and real bison looking on. It’s a unique opportunity for modern wannabe cowboys (and cowgirls) to experience some of America’s great western adventure. For more than a few of us, it’s turned into something more than an enjoyable hobby but a passionate pursuit as well.

We’re a small club and sometimes I’m concerned about that, as I’d discovered in nearly thirty years of church ministry that there are certain problems implicit to small groups that larger groups somehow escape. But in time we’ll grow. And the club’s efforts—to spread the CFDA style of fast draw shooting, starting similar clubs throughout Oregon—will pay off. I’m looking forward to seeing an annual Oregon school of the fast draw come out of the club’s efforts, two of us having benefited from a similar school in Montana early in our fast draw shooting experience. And a reenacting group would be nice as well. But for the meantime, we’re going to continue pushing the fast draw envelope here at home. No club member has shot faster than .400 of a second in a match as of yet. But there’s real pleasure in watching individual members approach that barrier each and every time we meet.

RONIN
The Rev. W. W. Ronin
aka Gregg Townsley
CFDA Life Member #41
Orygun Gunfighters Founding Life Member #1

After a look-see around the Internet, I decided to run our points system the same as the Great Basic Gunhawks in Fernley, Nevada, shooters receiving 1 point for attending and 1 point for every shooter they place above in each contest. 

But opinions ran contrary at our February match, and the wisdom is simply this: first place will receive 6 points, second will receive 5 points, third place will receive 4 points and so on, down through sixth place.  That way each match will be worth the same, smaller ones during the winter and larger ones in the summer or as they occur.

Let’s hope that solves it.

“Orie Gunn” took the club’s first annual Shootist award
after a three-way tie was broken in January

The CFDA Marshals took up the issue of their own annual award at the recent gathering in Fernley, Nevada.  And a new point system was recently suggested and adopted.  While the decision had a few detractors, at its core smaller clubs such as ours were helped by making all state and regional championships of equal value, no matter what the size or location.

Our club marshal, W. W. Ronin is suggesting that we begin using the state championship values at our February shoot, computing the values once a year.  30 points will be awarded first place, 27 to second, 25 to third, 23 to fourth, 21 to fifth and 20 to sixth.  But he’d like some input from those more mathematically inclined.

The point values will encourage club members to shoot more often (and accurately!) and promote the opportunity of just about every shooter in our club, who is shooting well and regularly, to take the annual prize.  The point system, as adopted by the CFDA marshalls, can be seen in the November 2008 Gunslingers Gazette online.

So mid-November, the Amity Kid loaded up the paint and wood into Ronin’s truck and headed to the town called Amity.  (There is one.  If you don’t know, it’s right past McMinnville, about 45 minutes from the range we’re building in Forest Grove.)  And there, in the heated living room of the Amity Kid, the club’s town props are being finished.

The Amity Kid and Bad Eye Lefty eyeing the back of one of the club’s
new props, prior to their leaving the L Bar T barn in November

We’re not showing the finished project yet, but things are shaping up.  And the Amity Kid tells us that they were finished for our shoot in January.  Given the winter range’s current problems–Tom is working through an arduous and expensive permit process to repair damage caused by the winter snows–we hope to set them up and enjoy them for the first time in April or May.

The Kid sends a picture of a few of the buildings in progress!

We’re right proud of the Kid for taking hold of this project.  And for everyone else that have helped!  Tatonka has picked up a bunch of barrels for us and we hear tell of a saddle or two.  With a little help from an electrician–we’re thinking we could do with a couple of more lights–we’re going to have a great new look to our shooting beginning this spring!