Cowboy FD

Cowboy Fast-Draw:

There's no doubt at all that the old fast-draw movies were a Hollywood, rather than a Western, fixture. Fighting men aren't dumb enough to depend on reflexes that dull with age. There is no such thing as a fair fight -- even in sports such as boxing that try to even the odds, no matter how carefully you try someone has longer arms, and someone has heavier bones for his body weight and therefore hits harder. That being true, the only rational thing is to try to make every fight as unfair as possible, in your favor. The gunhands of the West knew that, and did so accordingly.

That said, being blazing fast is an advantage as much as any other. There are two major competitive sports built around training yourself to draw and fire as quickly as you can, hitting your targets along the way. World Fast Draw is one; Cowboy Fast Draw is the other. The second is distinguished from the first mainly by using actual 19th-century style holsters, which were designed to hang around the natural waist rather than about the thigh. The latter are really faster -- that's why Hollywood developed them, and why you'll see silver screen gunfighters from John Wayne to Han Solo using a tied-down thigh rig.

Interested in trying it out yourself? Give a look to Mernickle Custom Holsters, who produce the best fast-draw rigs in the world. They can make you one legal in either of the sporting associations, or something just for you. And if what you want is a Western movie rig, they can do that too.

The West is every American's birthright, after all.