The following is a letter I sent to my USPSA club members about CAS shooting. It give you an idea as to how our club shoots CAS:
Several of you have asked for better directions to the Texas Regulators' range.
http://www.geocities.com/texasregulators/ From the Four Corners intersection in Tomball (FM 2920 and 249) go west on 2920 for 6.5 miles. This is 3 stop lights, a flashing yellow light and 3 more stop lights. The last stop light is Mueschke Rd. Turn left (south) on Mueschke and go for 3.3 miles. Turn right onto Bauer-Hockley (as of 1/19/03 there was no street sign; there is a large sign that says Matt Family Orchard at this turn in), go about a mile till it dead-ends (this is a very rough road!!).
At the dead end you will see a gate on the left that goes into a cow pasture. Turn left into this field (wouldn't call it a road) and follow the path till you come to the parked cars. Park there and follow the parked cars into the range itself.
Now for the details of the matches:
We usually get there around 7:30 on Saturday to help set-up and paint targets, Sunday--around 8:00, we shoot the same stages both days. If you want to shoot the match briefing is at 8:30--your first match is free with the TR's. You need shooting glasses and the in-the-ear ear plugs. Hard to fit the muffs over or under a cowboy hat but if that's all you have then by all means bring them. A couple bottles of water are nice to have and if you are bringing the Mrs. and she is just there to watch a lawn chair and umbrella is a nice touch for her. We have a goody number of the ladies shooting CAS.
Be advised the Regulators will try to get you to shoot. Even if you are just there to watch you will be asked and they really mean it! Take my word for it--it is fun! This is not a high pressure sport (granted there are some that go all out to win but even they want everyone to have fun.) Why else would we dress up as cowboys and use aliases such as Cheyenne Ranger (that's me), Lone Wolf, Lady Wolf, Shotglass, Trooper, etc.?
Guns: two single action revolvers (you know, the ones that have the cylinder that goes around when you shoot it), either a SxS shotgun w/ or w/o hammers or a pump shotgun with an exposed hammer and a lever action rifle in pistol caliber. We typically shot about 60 pistol, 60 rifle and 25 shotgun rounds per day. All the pistol ammo is lead only bullets and low velocity, pistol under 100fps, rifles under 1400fps. Shotgun rounds are # 6-9 shot.
You are more than welcome to share my .45 LC RV's (Ruger Vaqueros), Marlin .38 Sp lever action and Win 1897 12 gauge pump shotgun. I have ammo for us. We can trade off the hostlers so you might want to bring a belt as mine will be a bit big (OK a lot big) for you. Cowboy hats and boots are the dress of the day. Don't have them, come anyway.
Courses of fire: You are assigned to a "posse" (USPSA's squads) for the match. We usually shoot 6 stages, takes till about 1:00-2:00 pm to finish. We can stay after on Saturday and have free shooting time. Dues are $24 a year, pro-rated and a one time initiation fee of $25.
While each stage is different we normally shot 10 pistol, 9-10 rifle and 2-4 shotgun rounds per stage. They are like our Virginia count matches in that there is no way to make up a missed shot. Unlike USPSA you have a certain order to shoot the targets. All targets are numbered from the left to right so a pistol might be shoot one shot at #1,5,2,4,3 targets, holster draw the other revolver and shoot 5 shots at #3 target; bit of a mind game. You usually have three shooting positions at each stage, one for each type of gun.
Each course is different so you have to really think (something I don't do well, I might add.) This is a much more structured event than ours; and there is always an opening line you have to say to start the course, such as "Kill 'em, kill 'em all," or "Is this Rodney Allen's gun?" At the last match the stages were based on western movies, "Stagecoach," "High Noon," etc.
When you are ready to shoot you go to the loading table (on the left side of the stage) holding the rifle and shotgun vertically , and under the gaze of one of the other shooters in the posse you load your revolvers and rifle. We use loading blocks with just the correct number of rounds for the rifle and revolvers. You carry the shotgun shells on your person. Usually you have to load the shotgun under the clock.
From the loading table you "stage" your long guns and take the starting position. Sometimes you start with one of the long guns--it just depends. You say the opening line, the buzzer sounds and you shoot the course. When you finish with either the rifle or the shotgun you have to have the action open and the gun staged back where it started before moving to the next shooting area in the stage. Times run from 40 seconds to
I usually am around 70+ seconds. Don't care I'm having a ball! After you finish you move to the unloading table (on the right) and show the posse member there the rifle is empty, the shotgun is empty (work the actions on each to accomplish this), and unload the revolvers. They will clear you and you take your guns back to the gun cart again keeping the muzzles pointing straight up.
We shoot each stage and then move to the next one. This means you probably need something in which to put your long guns. We call them gun carts. I have room for two extra plus my two. All six stages can be in operation at the same time. All the targets are steel and on some you just have to hit them (we can hear the "clank") or have to knock them down. The reset by pulling a rope at the firing line. No one has to go down range to reset targets (AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO PASTE THEM!!!)
Scoring is just total time with misses counting as an additional 5 seconds and procedurals--10 seconds. A procedural would be shooting out of order or with the wrong gun. Unsafe gun handling, like USPSA, is a DQ.
For me this is another way to keep my hand in the shooting sport and it has the added dimension of rifle and shotgun. At RangeMasters we normally just have handgun shoots. I love both and will keep going to both types of matches.
