After decades of experience shooting and customizing guns so they can withstand the rigors of Fast Draw and other competitive shooting sports like CAS, Bob Munden has a lot to say.

Enjoy this edition of In His Own Words and read previous articles in the archive section below. Check back every month for more of Bob's straight talk!

TOPIC:
Fast Draw & the World Fast Draw Association (WFDA)

The beginning of the WFDA was when the Western Fast Draw Association and the Mid Western Fast Draw Association combined. I was involved in California when we started the Western States Fast Draw Association. That was back in the early 1960’s. When a club from Vancouver, Canada wanted to join, the name was changed to the Western Fast Draw Association. In the early 70’s when the Western Fast Draw Association and the Mid Western Fast Draw Association merged, it was officially named the World Fast Draw Association or the W.F.D.A. (WFDA.)

Way before there was a WFDA, Bob and Carol Hall put out a newsletter with the results and records. Of course when they were printing their newsletter, there was only one event: Walk and Draw Level Elimination with Blanks. It was easy to keep track of only one fastest time record. Walk and Draw Level was a great event for spectators because two competitors started 110 feet apart and on a verbal command, walked toward one another to emulate the gunfights of the western movies. The signal light was in the center and when it came on they had to react, draw and fire a level shot deemed able to hit a man between the groin and neck at 15 feet. There were three level judges for each shooter and each shooter had a hand judge who watched to make sure that a competitor’s hands did not touch their gun, holster or body before the signal to draw.

There were not any classes at that time and it was just 2 out of 3 tries for each match up. It certainly wasn’t fair to the new or slower shooters because they might have to compete against the best in the sport.

At first sight, my reaction to Walk and Draw Level with Blanks was that it was like play acting because they weren’t shooting live ammunition; but, the more I watched the more I realized the skill required and I also realized that this was a perfect outlet for urban gun owners who wanted to shoot their guns. When I entered blank competition, Curtis Blakemore was the only shooter reacting and shooting under 30 hundredths of a second. He held the record of fastest time with a .27. I started competing in 1960 and my only goal was to shoot the fastest time. That was always more important to me than winning. I beat Curt’s record shooting Walk and Draw Level in 1961 at Ridgecrest, California at the California State Championships, which I also won. I shot a .27 and .26 and I had a .28 average using what I always use for Fast Draw: a Colt 4 ¾” .45 single action that weighs 2 and ¼ pounds.

The National Fast Draw Championships of Walk and Draw Level were held for four years in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Convention Center sponsored by the Sahara Hotel and Colt Firearms Company. In 1959 Gary Freymiller won. In 1960 Jack Simms was the champion. In 1961 Fred Stieler won and in 1962, Bill Lewis, who was to become my brother-in-law a couple of years later, took second to Vance Anderson. Most of the entrants were shooting Rugers so I don’t believe the Colt Firearms Co. was too interested in continuing as the major sponsor after 1962. I was strictly a live ammo fast-draw shooter from 1953 to 1959. When I got into Fast Draw with blanks, I became a top shooter, but wasn’t allowed to compete in the nationals in 1960 and 1961 because there was a restriction that competitors had to be at least 21 years old. In 1962, I was 20 and they changed the rule to a minimum age of 18 so I was finally able to compete.

Unfortunately, just months before the 1962 tournament, I had a freak accident and shot my fanning hand with a blank right at the muzzle. For those of you unfamiliar with blanks, though there is not a bullet, there is certainly an explosion when you fire the gun. If you make a mistake, the results can be ugly. With duct tape on my gloved hand to keep the still-healing wounds closed, I won several matches but lost in the end because my final competitor shouted at me to remind me of my injury and it bothered me enough that I didn’t fire a shot against him and lost. I made a promise to myself right then that I would never let anything distract me again.

The fastest time ever recorded at the Las Vegas Nationals was a .31. In 1962, when I could finally compete in the Nationals, I averaged .31 shooting a Colt .45 4 ¾ inch using an Alfonso #2 holster. In fact, Curt Blakemore owned the very first #2 Alfonso rig and I owned the second one. That holster and all of the different ones I have used follow the original specification where the holster is required to cover all of the barrel and 75 percent of the cylinder. The boot of the holster is just big enough for the gun to fit in it and it sets at a 25-degree angle to the ground.

In the 1950s and early 1960s almost every shooting-related magazine included articles about Fast Draw. The first chairman of the Western States Fast Draw Association was Ron Mossholder. He was also the publisher of Top Gun Magazine where the records were printed along with the results from each sanctioned contest. I have a copy of the Top Gun from 1965 with my picture on the cover when I won the California State Championships again.

I shot record times in Walk and Draw events from 1961 up to 1975. My fastest timed shot in the Walk and Draw Level event and proven by a back-up shot while still on the line was a .15 in Arcadia, California in 1972.

Our sport was not classified (into A, B & C classes that allowed the newer competitors, especially, to learn the sport, improve and move up in the classes,) until the International Fast Gun League came into being in 1969. So, before that, probably as an aid to the slower shooter, we started shooting targets. We shot blanks at a 4” balloon at eight feet away which was the fastest event. The method of competition was still one shooter shooting against another but they stood side by side and shot at balloon targets 8 feet away. The Mid Western Fast Draw Association was using wax bullets at a rectangular target 15 feet away, and preferred to have one shooter on the line at a time with a total time or average recorded. We, in the western states, started shooting a Standing Wax event in 1964. We later added a Walking Wax event where the target was pushed forward as the shooter walked. The walking events were much more difficult because the shooter’s holster, strapped securely to his leg, moved as he walked, making it more difficult to find the gun and draw. We also added a Walking Balloon Event shot with blanks to add to the Standing Balloon Event.

We now had four major events with Walk and Draw with Blanks falling pretty much by the wayside. This hurt the sport because it had been much easier to attract sponsors with the Walk & Draw event that was very entertaining to watch. Walk & Draw shot with blanks brought spectators to the premises of sponsors like car dealers, restaurants, bars and shopping centers where matches could be safely held using blank ammunition. Blanks loaded to break balloons carried further and wax bullets are still bullets, so when the sport moved to targets, safety precautions resulted in changes that made the sport less available to spectators – and less interesting for them because the shooters no longer had the appearance of walking toward one another like in western-movie gunfights. Fewer spectators resulted in fewer sponsors.

Most of the time when I shot in these overall timed matches I thumbed 3 of the events and fanned the Standing Balloons Event. To win the overall, a shooter had to have the lowest total time after their 20 recorded shots, 5 in each event. I always got the fastest time trophy in Standing Balloons and sometimes in the other three events. The fastest time I ever shot at a sanctioned overall contest was a .16. That is in hundredths of a second. The fastest five shots I ever shot at a WFDA tournament was in Prescott, Arizona in 1966. It was a total 1.06 for five shots in the Standing Balloon with blanks event. I was shooting out of an Andy Anderson rig that time, using the same Colt of course.

The WFDA does not have any of my records in their record book because they have thrown the records away three times that I know of. A check of their record book will show that it doesn’t list any record times from when I was competing in Fast Draw with blanks or wax from 1961 to 1975. I stopped shooting in WFDA shoots when we started the International Fast Gun League in 1969. I shot with the League from 1969 to 1975 until a contract to entertain sent me to the east coast. We had made an effort to eliminate the lightened, gimmicked guns and funny holsters that were creeping into the sport, but were unsuccessful. It was a real shame to see the sport go downhill, and so quickly, after that. Rather than stay around to watch the honor bleed from the sport, I concentrated on my full-time career as an exhibition shooter using all types of guns, and walked away from single-action fast-draw competition all together. I had been shooting competition since the age of 11 beginning with a long live ammo fast draw career, but that is another story.

I was a fierce and successful Fast-Draw competitor. For years I have heard rumors and crazy stories invented by people who, I guess maybe because they couldn’t shoot as fast as I and other top shooters did, even with their funny guns and holsters, are still bent out of shape. Some of these guys go to some trouble to attack my credibility. Although I know I will never be able to silence the critics, I thought I would address a few chat-room attacks that have recently been brought to my attention:

“Bob’s hammer is not WFDA legal”.

          First of all, I don’t shoot with the WFDA. Secondly, the man who stated this on a chat room uses a modified hammer. I sometimes use modified hammers. In my exhibitions I use different modified hammers and some stock hammers. Thirdly, isn’t it strange that the shooter who attacked me about one of my hammers competes in the WFDA with a Ruger Blackhawk which has an aluminum back strap and trigger guard, is a .357 bored out to a .45LC to which he has added aluminum barrel with aluminum or titanium cylinder and a skeletonized frame? It could weigh less than 12 ounces. Years ago I coined the phrase “Funny Guns” for these because of the Funny Cars of drag racing –which appear to be real cars but are really rails with a false body to resemble an actual car. The Funny Guns that some WFDA competitors use are really lightened facsimiles. Why not shoot cap guns? My Colts that I have always used for fast draw weigh in at 2 and ¼ pounds. Who is shooting with no honor here? Also, the WFDA’s Open Class holsters protrude out in front of their bodies and bounce when they walk. The holster “boot” is so big they can set the gun in it half drawn. It is cut down in the front so low all they have to do is tip the gun to fire a shot. My holster covers all of the barrel and 75 percent of the cylinder. I actually have to draw my gun. The WFDA’s equipment is an embarrassment. I saw the sport of Fast Draw almost completely die with a few hanging on and most of the time reduced to sponsoring their own contests. Cowboy Action Shooting has helped create a new interest in shooting and Fast Draw and has brought about a new entity known as Cowboy Fast Draw, in which competitors use wax bullets. Cowboy Fast Draw definitely shows promise. I don’t agree with all of their rules but I think they are on the right track away from Funny Guns and gimmicked holsters.

“Munden said he quit competing because no one could beat him”.

          I quit shooting competition fast draw in 1975 when, because of entertainment engagements on the east coast, I relocated to New Jersey from California. I had also given up trying to reverse the way the rules were changing to allow radical gun and holster modifications.

“The Guinness Book of World Records removed Bob Munden's fast draw records because the WFDA wrote to them saying his records weren’t legitimate.”

          In 1981 David Boehm of the Sterling Publishing Company, which publishes the Guinness Book of World Records, told me by phone that they decided to remove all of the gun shooting records from the book because the board that decides what books to place in school libraries across the nation told him that they would purchase the Guinness Book to be used as a reference book for schools only if the publisher would take out all shooting records. As a result, my records along with those of Annie Oakley’s, Tom Frye’s and Ed McGivern’s, were removed. It was a sad day in shooting history. The only shooting records that are still published in the book are Olympic records.

“A few years ago, someone offered a $5,000.00 bonus to Bob Munden if he would attend a WFDA sanctioned tournament and win”

          I wouldn’t even attend a WFDA match as a spectator, let alone shoot in it. The equipment they allow is an embarrassment to the shooting world and I do not want any part of it. If I entered one of their contests I would be supporting what they do and there is not enough money in the world for me to do that. If you don’t use a real gun, what is the point? The sport came from the TV westerns. The TV western gunslingers didn’t wear radical holsters and they used real guns, not lighten facsimiles. My participation would have been a de facto endorsement of something I do not support.

          Some members of the WFDA don’t like me because I tell everyone about the equipment they use; and I don’t respect the organization because it allowed a good gun sport to turn into a laughing stock.

I want to take this opportunity to add that I am extremely concerned about the direction Cowboy Action Shooting has taken by allowing extremely light loads and short strokes. Many of my gunsmith customers are complaining that they are being forced to use smaller calibers, lighter loads and short strokes in order to compete against the top shooters. Here we go again? Another great shooting sport being ruined? I hope not. -- Bob Munden

WARNING: DO NOT EVER FAST DRAW WITH LIVE AMMUNITION. NOT EVEN ONCE. IT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.

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Do you have questions about Bob Munden's Six-Gun Magic gunsmith work on single actions, Marlin Lever-Action Rifles, Stoeger (or IGA) Double-Barrel Shotguns, Smith & Wesson Double-Action Revolvers, the Bond Derringer and other guns? Call Munden Enterprises at (406) 494-2833 (8am- 8pm MST), or visit our contact page.

ARCHIVE:
Click on any topic below to access previous In His Own Words articles.

• Stock Guns - 05/05

• Efficiently Cocking the Single Action & Primer Recommendations for Light Actions - 09/05

• Bob Munden -- The Collector's Edition DVD - 11/05

• Choosing a Barrel Length - 01/06

• Choosing a Caliber - 06/06

• Fast Draw and the World Fast Draw Association (WFDA) - 11/06

• Misfires - 02/07

• Remembering Jeff Cooper - 05/07

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