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Mad River Rangers
| A Brief History The history of our club is best summarized by the first, and still president, Chuck Snowden "aka" Kid Kneestone. Chuck relates the story as follows: I had been reading about a new sport, using western style firearms, called Cowboy Action Shooting. It had began around 1980 in southern California. Some folks there had tired of spending vast sums of money on semi-auto pistols just so they could maybe compete with the factory sponsored shooters. Their thinking was that if everyone went back to the basics of firearms like those used in the "Old West",life and competing would be much simpler. They formed the Single Action Shooting Society, and as of this moment there are 75,000 members and growing. Around 1990, I tried to interest some fellow members of a local gun club in this new shooting sport. I continued to talk about this for several years until a few members of our Humboldt Black Powder Heritage Association became as enthused as I was. We decided to host a Come Out and Try Cowboy Action Shooting Day at the range. Due to a lot of word of mouth advertising and a few strategically placed fliers, we had a good turnout and were able to get folks try the various styles of single action revolvers,lever action rifles and double barrelled shotguns,using metal reactive targets. From that first attempt toward interesting folks in Cowboy Action Shooting our current club has evolved. We held our first annual match in July of 1994. From a modest beginning, the annual match has grown from a 6 hour shoot into a three day event. The Mad River Rangers currently meet on the fourth Saturday of each month at the Simpson Rifle Range on Hwy 299 for a one day event. See map below. "Cowboy Action Shooting" is a registered trademark of the Single Action Shooting Society or SASS. We are an affiliated club and follow the guidelines in the "SASS"handbook. So what is cowboy action shooting? Simply stated, it is a shooting sport that celebrates the "Old West" that is, the period from around 1860 to 1900. Participants are required to dress in period costumes and adopt an "alias"representative of a character or profession from the Old West or the western film genre. The competition centers around the use of single action revolvers,lever action rifles in a pistol caliber and side by side shotguns. Shooters engage different types of targets with each firearm according to a predetermined sequence called a stage. A full Match may have as many as 15 stages shot in two days or a much smaller number shot in one day. Our club, like most affiliated clubs, shoots one match per month. With over 60000 members in several countries, Cowboy Action Shooting is the fastest growing shooting sport in the world! Getting started in this game is actually pretty easy. The best first step is to find a club in your area and contact them to attend a match. Cowboy Action Shooting is a true family game and SASS shooters are always friendly and eager to help a new shooter get started. Just check out our contact page. The Sass website is the best place to find complete information and may be accessed at www.sassnet.com |
Just in case you might want to try a different shooting
experience we also have a monthly black powder shoot
on the second Sunday of every month except September
at the same location. Muzzleloaders, Buffalo guns, long
range lever guns oh my! Come Shoot With Us!
experience we also have a monthly black powder shoot
on the second Sunday of every month except September
at the same location. Muzzleloaders, Buffalo guns, long
range lever guns oh my! Come Shoot With Us!
