Shooting match, Missouri style

            Years ago in a land far away, I attended shooting matches and as I understand it they still have these shooting matches.

               The title, “shooting match” should cause one to think of accurate shooting, possibly hitting a bull’s eye on a target.  Well that is not the case in these Missouri shooting matches.

These shooting matches were always held at a bar in the country. 

The guns used were 12 gage shot guns.

The person holding the shooting match provided the shot gun shells, #9 bird shot.

The targets were 6 x 6 inch piece of soft white pine.

The distance from the shooter to the target about 75 feet.

The shooters would arrive and pick their boards. Many people named their boards but all boards had the name of the shooter on the back side.

The targets were put on the boards by the shooter, usually using a very sharp knife or razor blade. The shooter would cut as many “X” in the board as he wants. Each X on the board cost the shooter from 50 cents to $1.00 per X.  They would draw a circle around each X for easy identification. 

You pay for your boards and then go sit in the bar until it was your time to shoot. The bars made a lot of money from the shooters sitting around talking, drinking and eating hamburger while they wait for their turn to shoot.

As you know when a shot gun is fired there are small pellets shot out of the barrel. If you shoot a shot gun at a sheet of corrugated the shot when it hits forms a pattern. Most of the shot guns were modified to shoot a tighter pattern. The diameter of the barrel was made smaller at the end which would cause a tighter pattern and more shot impacting the pine board. 

I used an old Long Tom single shot gun that had a 36 inch barrel; it belonged to my brother Carl. This old gun did usually shoot a good pattern. 

There was a bench to sit on and a table to rest the gun on for a steady shot. Two shooters sit side by side and each shooter gets 2 shells. The fellow that hands out the shells would call out “ready” so everyone knew shots were going to be fired. After both had shot their two shells the fellow would call out, “they are up”, meaning the target boy could take down the boards and put two more up.

The judges had magnifying glasses to judge who had a shot that was close to the X’s that were cut on the boards. If you cut a center (shot hit the X) then your board was held until someone got closer to the X. 

They usually had 6 to 10 prizes and the prizes were usually meat such as a hind quarter of beef or half a hog.

As you can see it was really more of a game of chance than skill. No one knows where the shot will hit. 

Have you ever been in a bar where everyone had at least one gun and some were drinking beer?  I don’t know of anyone ever being hurt at one of the “shooting matches”.

From the matchless mind of                        Don Ford

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