Sangamon County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois


Jeri Hayden





Special Presentation:
Jeri Hayden - Cowboy Action Shooting

SCRA Meeting, March 7, 2011
April 2011 GunNews






People at the Diamonds Buffet have become accustomed to seeing Phil Davis outfitted in various military uniforms from bygone eras at the monthly SCRA meeting.  But Monday night they were in for quite a surprise.

Jeri Hayden even had people looking through the windows of the kitchen doors at the Diamonds Buffet on Monday night as she gave her presentation.  They  were peeking at her lovely period clothing and her beautiful guns and holsters.

Jeri said Cowboy Action Shooting was actually started in 1981 by Harper Creigh who is now SASS Number 1 and some of his friends that were in IDPA and IPSC, etc.  He'd been sitting around watching some old western movies one Saturday afternoon and he called up some of his friends and said, bring your cowboy guns to the next shoot, let's do something different.  So they did and Cowboy Action Shooting was born.

SASS (Single Action Shooting Society) was actually born in 1987 to preserve the old western attitudes and guns and to preserve cowboy action shooting.

The unique thing about SASS is the costuming. They wear an outfit appropriate to the old west or Hollywood.  They've got a "B" western category.

Everyone  picks an alias when they first join SASS.  Jeri's alias is "Fancy Free".  Her husband's alias is "Footloose".  He was a member long before Jeri obviously.

Their guns are all representative of what were used in the old west.  They can be either authentic pre-1899 guns or reproductions thereof.  Competitors use two single-action revolvers, a pistol caliber rifle and an old west type shotgun which can either be an 1897 pump, a side by side, a lever action or a single shot.

The matches consist of stages each with its own scenario or story line which will tell you how you shoot targets for that stage.  Typically it will be two pistols, the rifle and you'll finish with a shotgun.  You don't finish with a rifle because the timer somtimes won't pick up the rifle shot.

Your scoring on that is your total time plus 5 seconds for a miss.  There are other penalties you can also accrue.  A "procedural" is given  for shooting targets out of order.  A "minor safety" is a failure to open the action on your long gun when you restage it, failure to holster a pistol, or something of that nature.  It's where you're endangering somebody with your actions.

A major safety is an action that has high potential for a personal injury, sweeping somebody with the muzzle of your barrel, a dropped gun, or an accidental discharge.  If it impacts within ten feet of you that's a stage DQ or disqualification.  If it impacts within five feet its a match DQ and you're out of there.  The minor safety is a ten second penalty.  The major safety, that would be a stage DQ and if you get two at a match, two stage DQs, that's a match DQ and you're gone.

Sass promotes safety above everything.  They require hearing and eye protection when you're on the range.  They also sometimes have site matches beyond the regular match.  Pocket pistols, derringers, long range rifles, speed pistols, speed rifles, speed shotguns and those are all separate from the main match.

There are also loosely related "Wild Bunch" shoots and those have a completely different set of rules and different guns.

SASS has over 90,000 members worldwide.  This is an international organization.  They have clubs in all the 50 states and in 18 foreign countries, some of which really surprises Jerri that they have Cowboy Action Shooting.

Jeri and her husband are members of Kaskaskia at Sparta and members of Shady Creek Shootists at Little York, Il.   They have been to probably 15 different states including Alaska.  They have met people from all over the world and they're a great bunch of people.


Return to SCRA Home Page