The Cowboy Mounted Shooting Assn. Eastern Nationals

You need firepower in every shooting sport, but we only know one discipline that requires horsepower, as in real horsepower, on the hoof. Cowboy Mounted Shooting is a thrill-a-minute sport. Sometimes even a couple of thrills. The challenge is firing a single-action six-gun, and hitting your targets from the saddle of a galloping horse. It is without a doubt the fastest shooting sport on four hooves. Cowboys on horseback, six-guns a blazin’. It looks like a scene from the Wild West, but there were no red balloons in Dodge City or cheering spectators.

This is the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association’s Eastern National Championship. One of the biggest yearly shooting matches in a high-speed, breakneck, heart-stopping sport. 

We know what you are thinking. How can you shoot a six-gun in an arena with spectators and horses? You’ll see, when we slow down the action, the shooters are firing black powder blanks. Hot embers burst the targets, but won’t reach past 20 feet.

Shooters compete at six different levels of skill, with juniors making a strong showing in what has become a family sport.

The challenges are timed runs through different patterns of 10 balloons as targets. The time thorough the course is the score, measured in hundredths of a second. Missing balloons adds penalty seconds. So like all action shooting sports, be fast and accurate to win. But this run-and-gun shooting is from the back of your favorite shooting partner… your horse. 

Related Links

CMSA National Website

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