Just DO it!
Yup, all good advice, at least as far as my own experience out here on the coast.
I've been shooting with these folks:
http://www.valleyregulators.com/
First I phoned their designated contact person who answered my early questions about CAS.
Then I went to Wiki and Google to find out more, and decided to go check out/observe one of their Saturday fun shoots.
By the time I got there, they were all in the saloon talking amongst themselves. When I walked straight thru those swinging doors
the place got quiet and everybody turned to look at me. I said,
"Howdy, boys! Hey...why did the music stop??" We all laughed
together, and my go-to guy stepped forward to introduce himself.
I was short one pistol and a lever gun, but two of the boys loant me theirs to try. Mighty decent of them to let me use their personal guns.
I only had time to shoot one 'stage', but that was enough
for me to decide I wanted to do some more the following month.
I came to the next monthly gathering with the
four guns I'd need, and what I thought would be lots of ammo. There were four stages to be
completed in the morning, then we had burgers by the barbi outside the saloon. After dinner was over we went out for two more stages.
Turns out I was 10 cartridges short of what I needed to complete the stage, but again, one of the boys came through and made up the shortage out of his own stash. The ammo I got from this kind soul (custom handloads) must've been black powder, 'cause there was smoke and flames going everywhere. Hee-hah!
Good times.
It's lots of fun and it's a rewarding sport because their reactive steel targets are not too difficult to hit if you can keep your wits about you and not try to rush it.
But equally important, as far as scoring is concerned are speed and gun handling skill. I've decided to favour accuracy over speed until I get comfortable with the sequences and some moves that I'm not familiar with.
I'll be back again for more on the third Saturday in March.
I might be 'slow', but if I can "clean" (ie no misses) most of the stages I'll still have a respectable finish. And anyway, I'm not all about 'winning'.
Yet.
