Draw, Podner!

Inspired by tall tales and egged on by television, a new generation of gunslingers is springing up in the once wild West. These six-gun artists would not think of drilling the sheriff, robbing the morning stage or shooting up a saloon. The current crop of gun toters consists of butchers, businessmen and other working folk, intent only on competitive fun as they draw against one another in one of the reformed West's newest and fastest-growing sports.

There are an estimated 100 fast-draw clubs in the U.S. today. Denver alone has 13. Members dress up in fancy Western outfits, tote six-shooters that cost from $50 to $125 and are modeled on the classic six-shooter of the Old West.

Clocks & Targets. The modern gun-slinger draws against the clock instead of the marshal, fires paraffin-loaded shells that would make the bad hombres of yesteryear laugh themselves sick. Before making the draw, he must keep his hand on a button four inches from the holster. When his hand leaves the button, the clock starts running. The sound of the shot stops the clock. The Colorado Frontier Gunslingers' President Jim Dillon, a Denver butcher who likes to wear Western clothes under his meatcutter's apron, has been timed at a flashy .12 sec. In other contests, contestants fix a man-sized target, are timed from draw to bullet's impact.

"I'm pretty sure I could do just as well as Jesse James or Billy the Kid," says Dillon. "Our boys regularly draw in .14 sec. Of course, if they were going to keep up with the oldtimers on accuracy, our boys would have to do some target practicing, but they can sure draw faster. The oldtimers had real poor gun belts. They often carried their guns too tight in their holsters."

In the Calf. Today's fast-draw fanatic makes his move in a single, sweeping motion. He cocks his single-action pistol as he draws it from the holster, fires as soon as it gets into position, sometimes, alas, even sooner. In a recent match with Dillon's men, the Colorado Gunslingers Association's President Earl Vaughn, a Colorado Springs air-conditioning engineer, managed to shoot his right calf full of paraffin. Says Dillon, who has been guilty of the same sin himself: "The oldtimers must have cocked as they drew, too. 'Course, I never heard of any of them shooting themselves in the calf."

Club members everywhere were aghast last week when one Jack Bender of Chicago, practicing with real bullets in his Buntline Special model, accidentally shot and killed his 14-month-old son (whom he had named Wyatt Earp). They quickly pointed out that he was not affiliated with any club. Cried Dillon: "Anyone using live ammunition is like a drunken driver. He is simply asking for trouble."

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