| RIDIN' FOR THE BRAND |
I met Buford kinda sudden. He was in a dead run across a pasture with an old bull buffalo on his heals.
He jumped a five strand barbed-wire fence and landed smack in the middle of the bed of my pickup. He
started beating on the roof of the cab shouting, “Go, Go!” That old buffalo just kept on coming like that
barbed wire wasn’t even there.
Buford was one of the good ole boys. Kinda narrow between the ears he stood 6’6”, broad at the
shoulders and narrow at the hips, and occasionally his knuckles would drag the ground. He didn’t know
his own strength and had never known fear until that day that buffalo ran him out of the pasture.
After I managed to put some distance between us and that mad shaggy creature we stopped at a truck
stop. It was time for a cup of coffee and an opportunity to let Buford’s heart rate calm down. Besides, I
wanted to meet this sudden passenger I had acquired. He explained he was new in this part of Texas
and he was a Cowboy Action Shooter. I guess it was only natural for the topic of conversation to go to a
little day-dreaming. Yeah, you guessed it! We were wondering what it would be like to be looking down
the sights of an ole sharps at Mr. Bad Temper. Were the Buffalo hunters of the by-gone era better shots
than we are or were they just a little more patient? I suspect these boys knew what they were doing when
they backed up from a buffalo herd and shot at them from “way back thar”. I strongly suspect the buffalo of
the time didn’t have much more of a sense of humor than the ole bull Buford ran from.
How did they do that? How was it they were able to kill so many of the buffalo and not get chased off that
hill? It must have been that ranging shot. You know, that first two or three shots where you shoot up
amongst them just to see where this thing is shootin’. They were probably far enough away that the
sound of the gun didn’t excite them and they certainly didn’t recognize that puff of dirt from the bullet hitting
the ground or the zing as the bullet ricocheted into the wild blue as presenting any danger. All the hunter
had to do was adjust his sight up a little and shoot again. Once he was on target, the harvest could
begin. This was the harvest the brought an end to the great buffalo herds.
A couple weeks ago we indulged our fantasy and participated in a black powder cartridge “Long Range
Buffalo Match”. The target was a metallic silhouette of a full sized buffalo. There was only one problem.
That thing was 821 long yards from the firing line! The shooters were given 5 ranging shots before
shooting for score. Now as if the distance itself wasn’t enough there was an unexpected anxiety
problem. Between the firing of the rifle and obtaining some feedback from the bullet was a very long 3 ½
seconds. In that length of time your mind goes into hyper drive. Did I miss the whole world? Was my
shot long, was it short, or was it on target? That has to be the longest 3½ seconds in the world! The
shooter’s sanity and composure depended upon his spotter. This was the cowboy looking through the
scope. Buford and I spotted for each other. The spotter could see the bullet strike before the shooter
could hear the sound. If the spotter called the ranging shot either short or long then you knew you had
some more work to do to get on target. If he called it a hit and shortly afterward you heard the clang of
lead striking steel then you knew you were finished with ranging and could start competing in earnest. It
was the ranging shot that helped alleviate the stress and make the competition meaningful.
On the way home from the match Buford asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks. He asked,
“Why do the clubs in this part of Texas refuse to follow the rules when they are SASS affiliated?” He went
on to explain that in the part of the country he came from when a club was SASS affiliated the affiliation
established the expectation for the shooter. It was only reasonable for the shooter to expect target size
and placement to meet the recommendations, for the scenarios to be straight forward and free of
procedural traps. In return, the shooter was expected to acknowledge the common courtesies of being a
posse member, be considerate of your fellow shooters and doing their part in the managing of posse
choirs.
Buford may have been narrow between the eyes but he had this part of the program right. The affiliation
does set the expectation for the shooter. A lot of folks have dedicated a lot of time and effort to promulgate
the rules of this game we play. If you identify ethics as what is right or wrong and morality as what we do,
then it is a violation of ethics for an affiliated club to refuse to follow the established rules. It is also
morally wrong for a club to advertise itself as SASS affiliated and then conduct its matches in a manner
contrary to SASS recommendations. Buford had just fired a ranging shot.
If you consider the pursuit of fun as the root motive for participating in this game you have to put the
enjoyable experience in the position of that far away buffalo target. There are a lot of decisions made
before the first shot is fired. Each decision is a ranging shot. It is the enjoyment of the game that every
cowboy seeks. A good shoot is one where participating was fun. When that enjoyment is threatened we
become concerned for our game. It really doesn’t matter what took the fun from the game, we only know
our joy is gone. When we voice a concern about the diminishing fun and the increasing conflicts, we are
firing ranging shots. The Cowboy Chronicle bears witness to the ranging shots being fired (i.e. March
2008, Letters, Doc Shapiro, SASS 31526). There are a few who are firing ranging shots but no one is
spotting for the shooter. We simply do not know where the shot landed.
Many of our clubs refuse to hear the ranging shots fired in their direction. They either don’t recognize or
don’t care about the danger to our sport that is presented when the verbal shot merely hits the ground
and ricochets off into never-never land. Every cowboy who has gone to the trouble and expense of playing
this game deserves to be heard. A cowboy makes a personal decision for which club he chooses to
support and he votes with his feet. All he has to do to have an impact – is nothing. A shooter may simply
stop shooting at that particular club. That is the least that can happen and that is bad enough. The worst
is that we stand the chance of completely loosing him from the game of cowboy. That is when doing
nothing becomes a tragedy.
The Scriptures record that all the stories recorded in the Old Testament was given to us to serve as
examples. The purpose of the Book of Judges is to show that Israel’s spiritual condition determined its
political and material condition. In the book of Judges is the record of various leaders, called judges.
Some did a good job of leading and the people prospered. Some did a poor job of leading with
disastrous results. In the last verse of the last chapter of the Book of Judges it is recorded that, “In those
days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25 NKJ) I
believe when we read this we are hearing the sound of a ranging shot being fired over the heads of our
sport. If our clubs do not cease in their “kingdom building” and make an ethical commitment to enjoy our
game for the sake of the game, then we are seeing the beginning of the end for our game. There can be
only one set of rules for the game. If we all follow the rules and return the enjoyment of the game to its
priority position there is little doubt that our game will continue to prosper. When individual clubs insist on
creating their own rule, only tyranny and division can result. The individual cowboy and his lady are the
life-blood of our sport. If you loose these you will loose the sport. When we see the rules and
recommendations being pushed aside for the sake of individual preference and we witness the pursuit of
profit replacing the enjoyment of the shooters, we become witnesses to our own demise.
© Carl H. Lenz, 2008
| RANGING SHOT |
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