Chops the quick drawing, gun slinging cowboy
During the week Josh Hanks is a mild mannered family man and factory worker, but on the weekend he becomes Chops, a mutton chopped, quick drawing, gun slinging cowboy, hitting targets in half a second, taking on all comers at a quick draw club in Beaver Dam, Ky.
Hanks is a member of the Bluegrass Fast Draw Club, a club dedicated to competitive shooting of the quick draw kind, where members dress up in 1870s outfits and use 1870s guns to shoot a 24-inch target 15 feet away faster than the other guy.
“The easiest way to explain it is it’s basically a drag race,” Hanks said.
Shooters line up and take their stances, one hand resting on their single-action revolvers, waiting for a light in the center of their target to go off.
“And when your light goes off you have to draw your gun, cock the hammer, fire the shot and hit your target,” he said.
Whoever does that faster than their opponent in a best three out of five moves on until only the champion remains. The bullets are Colt .45 casings but they shoot wax instead of lead.
While the competition is ostensibly about winning, it’s really more about an experience, a short-term getaway where members can channel their inner cowboy.
The Cowboy Fast Draw Association, the worldwide organization under which the Bluegrass club is a chapter, says that the club does its best to operate under the “romance and legend” of the Old West. When members join they choose a cowboy nickname, which is registered across the world, and they get a sheriff’s badge with their player number stamped on it. Aside from using guns and holsters from between 1873 and 1899, members must dress in period appropriate clothing as well.
“When you go to these big competitions there’ll be the people in the full dress,” Hanks said. “The guys will be in the dusters and the hats and pocket watches, anything that a cowboy or gentleman would‘ve had. And the ladies will be in the big dresses and the fancy hats.”
Hanks, aka Chops, said the competitions are a little bit role playing and a little bit break from the real world.
“For that weekend you don’t go by your normal name,” he said. “Everybody knows you and calls you by your cowboy name, so for that weekend you get to basically forget about 2021.”
He was introduced to fast draw a year ago when a small men’s group he was a part of was looking for some kind of activity to do. Someone in the group knew someone from the Bluegrass Fast Draw Club and the guys went to Ohio County to try it out.
“I’d never heard of it, didn’t even know it existed,” he said.
He and the others borrowed guns and holsters from members and tried it out.
“My very first night I had shots that were less than a second, like .6, .7,” he said. “I thought it was fun so I started looking at getting my own stuff… My fastest shot to date is a .514.”
Competitions are electronically timed and the difference between winning and losing can be minute.
Last Saturday and Sunday Hanks competed in Beaver Dam against shooters from places like New York, Pennsylvania, Arkansas and South Dakota, but he didn’t bring home a trophy.
“I got beat by 5 one thousandths of a second,” he said. “We had people lose, like one shot a .470 and one shot a .471.”
But it’s not only about sheer speed either because it doesn’t count if you miss.
“Even the guys that are super, super fast, if they’re not real accurate… This weekend I beat a couple of guys that were some of the fastest in the world right now,” he said. “But they just was off target and I was hitting.”
Speed for speed’s sake isn’t even the main goal for the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. Years ago there was a split in the fast draw community between those who wanted to keep the cowboy heritage and those who wanted to do anything it took to go as fast as possible. Those who wanted sheer speed started a group where no holds are barred as long as it’s fast, but the Cowboy group wanted to maintain the Old West heritage and do things as cowboys would’ve done it.
The CFDA’s motto is “Safety first, fun second and competition third.”
The environment at a shoot is very laid back, not stressful like other competitive events, and sometimes entire families compete.
“It’s very family oriented,” he said. “Because you can start shooting at either 8 or 9 years old… and there’s people that are shooting right now that are in their 80s.”
They come from all walks of life.
“There’s lawyers that shoot, business owners, electricians, mechanics,” he said. “Some guys that came in this weekend, they’re airline pilots.”
Hanks has a portable target at his home for practice, but it’s also serving as a de facto public relations tool for the sport and the Beaver Dam club, which is the only one in Kentucky.
“All of my kids will shoot it here at the house,” he said. “Any time I have it out here at the house all of them want to shoot it, even my 9-year-old daughter.”
The club welcomes anyone interested in the sport to come to a practice, where they can borrow equipment and try out their speed.
“If you show up at a practice somebody’s going to have something there,” Hanks said.
For more information about the Bluegrass Fast Draw Club, contact President Nick Maiden, aka Green River, at 270.256.0675 or search for the club on Facebook.
By Dave Taylor
