Sean C. Morgan
Fast-draw shooters strut their stuff in
local workshop
By Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Shooting from the saddle of a galloping horse, taking a backward shot over the shoulder and splitting a playing card, blowing a hole through an airborne business card or just drawing faster than anyone else may be the stuff of old westerns, but it’s also the inspiration for an entire sport, one that made a recent appearance in Sweet Home.
A couple dozen members of Oregon fast draw clubs gathered at Chafin Farms on April 6 and 7 to learn from nine-time fast-draw world champion Jon Wilson, a machinist from Sierra Madre, Calif.
“Right now, he’s probably one of the, if not the fastest quick-draw shooters,” said Shawn Anderson of Sweet Home. “He’s ridiculously fast.”
Wilson works as gun coach through his business, Trickshot.
“The first day was a seminar or class,” said Gregg E. Townsley of St. Helens, another notable visitor to the event. He owns oregonfastdraw.com and the sport has inspired him to write historical fiction novels. He started two of the three active clubs in Oregon.
“The second day was a little more that and a competition. It’s great. It’s my second time in Sweet Home.”
“I was a pastor for 25 years, so writing is not strange for me,” Townsley said.
Anderson is responsible for bringing Wilson to Sweet Home to share his expertise with other shooters.
Anderson competes in world and cowboy fast-draw events, he said. He prefers World Fast Draw Association style better.
The cowboy fast draw style doesn’t allow many modifications and is more traditional, Anderson said. “It’s supposed to simulate the Hollywood gunfight, which never happened – ever.”
Anderson has been involved in fast draw since 2009, he said. He took a class from Bob Munden of Butte, Mont., who was one of Anderson’s heroes as he grew up.
“He was one of the first big names in fast-draw shooting, Anderson said.
Since then, Anderson has been competing, although he hasn’t won anything yet, he said. “It’s just something fun to do with guns. Guns are kind of important to me.”
And fast draw is educational, incorporating lessons in history, safety, responsibility and more, he said. “And it’s just good fun.”
Anderson met Wilson at a sportsman’s expo in Portland last year, and they developed a friendship that led to the local fast-draw classes.
“Over the past couple of years, I’ve earned some respect by winning some championships,” Wilson said. He found his calling as a coach afterward at fast-draw competitions. At a shoot, others would walk up and ask him for tips.
Many successful competitors don’t want to share what they know, Wilson said, but he asked himself, “Why not start a school and teach shooting clubs?”
“I want to show you because it raises the level of competition,” Wilson said. “I’m in it for the love of the sport.”
He doesn’t like seeing the guy in the back of the pack showing up for a shoot three times, finding no success and then not showing up again.
That said, there is no secret to the fast draw, Wilson said, who said he shoots upward of 50,000 rounds per year, including wax rounds used in competitions, regular rounds and dry fire.
“Winning is the product of hard work,” Wilson said. It takes awhile to learn it, including a lot of practice, trial and error.
“I try to get rid of that 10-year period of learning curve,” Wilson said.
Wilson discovered the sport in 2002 at a fair, he said. He practiced hard, and the next year, he won a world championship against 110 of the fastest competitors in the sport. He had never won a club event prior to that. He participates in the Wild Bunch Club in Sierra Madre, a neighboring city to Pasadena.
Wilson began winning competitions and has finished with two overall world championship titles, along with titles in every fast-draw organization.
Since then, he has appeared on “Top Shot” as an expert trick shooter (in the seventh episode of the first season). He was hired after shooting a playing card at 60 feet using a mirror to aim a rifle over his shoulder. Then he threw an apple up and hit it with a .45.
He has appeared in other programs, but the shows have not aired yet, he said.
“Ninety percent is to set your mind up to go fast,” Wilson said of what it takes to be a trick shooter. People doubt themselves and stick their arms out too far.
“What I’m trying to teach is conservancy of movement,” Wilson said. He wants shooters not to think, but to condition a response.
Fast draw is the fastest timed sport, counted to the thousandth of a second, he said. There’s no time to think. A conditioned response to the signal is the only way to shave time off the shot.
Wilson met Anderson and Chris Blessing of Amboy, Wash., when they were competing to win a barbecue grill in a fast draw event at the expo.
Both of them wanted the barbecue, he said. They found Wilson and sought his advice. Blessing won the barbecue by two or three thousandths of a second. He was close after shooting a couple of times, and Wilson told gave him a couple of tips.
“Shawn was just a little behind the eight-ball that day,” Wilson said. Anderson and Blessing are neck-and-neck in speed.
He and Anderson had previously communicated via Facebook through Wilson’s gun works and repair business, Wilson said, but they had never met until then. They have remained friends since that expo in February 2012. They stayed in contact, and eventually Anderson asked about getting him up here for classes.
“I do this because it’s so fun,” Wilson said. “I want to show other people how to do it.”
His interest in fast draw came from fiction, “watching the Old West movies as a kid and how those guys shot from horseback,” he said. It was fictional, but “I wanted to be the guy that could do that for real. If a bullet will physically get there, I can hit anything.”
Wilson has numerous videos on YouTube under Trickshot Johnny.
Wilson, Townsley and Anderson expressed appreciation to Chafin Farms and owners Larry and Ladonna Chafin for hosting the class.
“Thanks for Shawn and Chris for their persistence for getting me up there to Chafin Farms,” Wilson said.
Anderson, who’s currently a member of the Portland Fast Draw Club, would like to start a club in Sweet Home and believes there may be enough interest here to do it, he said. A number of other fast-draw competitors live in the area.
Those who are interested may call him at (541) 409-1784.
Oregon didn’t have any fast-draw clubs before Townsley started one, he said. He started shooting fast draw in 2007, but he had to drive six hours to Idaho to compete.
He waited a couple of years, hoping someone would start a club; then he decided to do it himself, opening the Oregon Fast Draw Club.
“I thought there ought to be an easier way to do this,” he said.