Trestle Valley Rangers 

                    Cowboy Action Shooters Of the

        Minot rifle & Pistol club

                  Minot N.D.  

A Shooting Sport for the "Cowboy" in Everyone!

A lot of folks ask what is Cowboy Action Shooting? 

Cowboy Action Shooting is not only a shooting competition, but also an atmosphere It’s getting together with a bunch of good people, dressing like you just walked out of an old-time western movie, or portray a persona from the actual West and playing a game where you shoot scenarios.  About a hundred years after that famous gunfight at the OK Corral, SASS (Single Action Shooting Society) introduced Cowboy Action Shooting. It began in 1981 as an idea and blossomed to what we have today. Men and women are dressed in 1880's costumes as cowboys, native Americans, soldiers, gamblers, saloon girls, and many other characters from the old west.  Each shooter adopts an alias that is registered and protected by SASS. This alias allows you to build or rebuild the character that you would like to portray.

In cowboy action shooting all guns must be SASS approved and pre-1899 in design.  You will need two single action revolvers; a rifle or carbine, usually a lever action, in a pistol caliber. It's a good idea to have it in the same caliber as your revolvers. Shotguns may be a double barrel or a pump with an external hammer.  A match consists of a series of stages which are timed separately. Each missed target is a five second penalty. There are also additional penalties if you fail to follow instructions or do something which may be unsafe.  Safety is always the most important item in Cowboy Action Shooting.  It is not a quick draw contest and there are no prizes for winning…Just bragging rights until the next match.

With Safety as the number one consideration.  Guns are always holstered, in a gun cart or gun stand and are unloaded until just before the shooter steps up to the line.  There is no “Show and Tell” allowed.  This means you cannot take your guns out and show a buddy.  They must stay holstered or in the gun cart or stand unless going to and from the firing line.  Muzzles must always be pointed in a safe direction.  This is by far the safest shooting sport you will ever encounter.  Cowboy Action Shooting places fun second only to safety.

At some competitions your times are simply added at the end and the fastest time wins.  At most SASS recognized events; a system called Rank Scoring is used. In each stage you are given rank points for your place of finish. The first shooter gets one rank point; the second gets two and so on. The rank points are totaled at the end of the match and the shooter with the least rank points wins. Rank points can, and often do have a different outcome than that of total time

Click here for a brief history of SASS.

***** Special Note About SASS *****

You do not have to be a SASS member to be in Cowboy Action Shooting and shoot at our range but there are some marches that do require SASS membership to participate in, such as the SASS North Dakota and South Dakota State Championships hosted by the Sheyenne Valley Peacekeepers at Enderlin, ND.