Yesterday, I went to a nice little one day show put on by the NH arms collectors. One of the best shows I've been to in years. One table in particular caught my eye. Picked up some old magazines with feature articles by Massad Ayoob, a pair of eagle j rounds and a few books.
The nice lady behind the table was Mrs Dorothy Ayoob and she had a prize gun that was won by Massad, it was #6 and from the Second Chance shoot. A no dash 629 done up by magn port with a much newer 3" barrel.


Has anyone ever heard of this second chance shoot?

To the top for the evening crew.

I've not heard of this and didn't turn up anything of significance on the net. BTW, did you buy the gun? Looks like price is negotiable.

Second Chance was a body armor company and they did run a few matches for LEO - gave some nice prizes as you can see.

No,
She had it priced in the shooter grade rm category.

I didn't notice the dog snout grips until my second time looking at the photo. I must be slipping.

I shot at Second Chance in June of 1980. I still have the "patch" that Richard Davis gave to all the shooters who paid the entry free so that they could go eat in selected restaurants in the town of Central Lake (provided the restaurant displayed "the patch") without having to pay your meal. There were other things that went with the patch .... I just don't remember them all. Discounts on stuff and such.

I have the baseball cap (Second Chance) although it's coming apart and a windbreaker. I went with Ron Schol, Rick Anderson and Ivan Runions who along with myself founded IPSC Manitoba the same year we went to Second Chance. In fact -- I don't care if you believe me or not but it's true -- for about 3 or 4 years afterwards there was always a page or half-page ad in American Handgunner for the Second Chance shoot and several times the photos showed either Ivan Runions or Ron Schol actually shooting. I had been there all the time with both of them and yet for some reason those two guys got their photos taken by the American Handgunner Photographer or whoever sent in the photos for the ad and those were the ones that got used and I lost every argument I had with either of them for years afterwards with the finality of: "If you were so hot, they'd have used YOUR photo in the Second Chance ads."

Every night at Second Chance, they B.B.Q.'d a whole cow and everyone ate under an open-sided roof while they screened (each night) the original Dirty Harry. The beer flowed.

On a couple of different nights, Massad Ayoob sat at our table. He talked with us and joked with us and we all got our photos taken with him (and probably those photos are still in a trunk in my sister's garage in Canada) and he was just an all-around regular guy. One of the photos I remember is Ron Schol and Rick Anderson standing beside Massad at our table with Masaad seated in front of the two of them and an M-1 Thompson sans magazine sitting on the table in front of him.

I met a few gunwriters in the years I was competing, whether it was Bob Poos from S.O.F. or Bill Jordan (I knew Dave Anderson personally before he ever became a gunwriter -- in fact at an IPSC/Manitoba party in 1980 Ron Schol debated throwing him off a third-floor balconey just to see how hard Saskatchewan boys land but it was all in fun), they were all nice guys but Massad sat with us through several screenings of Dirty Harry and made jokes about our "Canadian humor" as we sipped the suds together so he's sort of unique. All of us came away with a great impression of him. I know nothing about what Massad would have won over the years he was at Second Chance covering the match, but I can assure you that if you went to the Second Chance match you'd have probably seen him there. If you read this Massad, you may not remember us, but we thought you were cool.

And the Second Chance matches were the greatest. They were an event. They were an experience. They were unforgettable.

Photo: Ron Schol shooting his Model 29-2 at Second Chance. Ron actually won himself a Second Chance groin protector at that match, AND a Ginsu knife. The photo taken of him that was used in the American Handgun ads would have been taken within minutes either-way of when I took this one.

I think the owner of Second a chance was known to shoot himself point blank in the chest with a .44 magnum to prove that his soft armor was effective. I remember he would stuff some magazines behind the armor to prevent blunt force injuries. Amazing.

Well that would be Willy, about the only time he's more than 2 steps away from me is when I'm at work or shooting.
He's the one on the right.

Do you remember what the price was?

Vividly
Check your inbox

calmex,

Sounds like a great time was had by all. Do you remember if they gave one gun a year or multiples out.
Thank you for the info and photos, I appreciate it.
Chris

Big events like that have multiple guns on the prize table.

I haven't read anything of Ayoob's in several months. My most recent gleaning was that he was divorced, with some sort of g/f now. I wonder if this 'Dorothy' was his ex?

Yes, she is the former wife. His early writing mentions her as "Dot" rather than Dorothy.

There were lots of guns given away in 1980 and the years following when I still followed the match in the gun rags, and lots of other prizes as well. It was really pretty incredible. You ate like a king, you partied like a king and although we just stayed in tents in the Central Lake campground you pretty much lived like a king.

Davis did a demonstration at the match but when I saw him do it he shot himself with a Ruger Security Six and some 125 grain Remington JSP ammo and he dropped down to one knee then stood up and did a half turn and shot some bowling pins off the table behind him. I'm sure he sold a few vests after that.

I went to lots of matches from 1977 until 1985 but the 1980 Second Chance match was -- for me -- "the big one". Not because I won because I won nothing. It was "the big one" because I never had so much fun at a match before or since. Austin Behlert put a new trigger in my 1911 from inside a tent he was set up in, and I sat beside Larry Kelly on one of the hay wagons taking shooters around the enormous range on my way out to see Ivan shoot the "Banzai Charge Bang-and-Clang" out on the shotgun range.

One night before it got dark, we found some discarded vests out by the Banzai Charge Bang-and-Clang range and put one on a post and were shooting at it with our .45's when Bill Wilson and Mickey Fowler showed up. We thought "God, now we're caught" but they were as excited as we were to test their loads and grabbed a vest or two themselves and shot at it. I have often wondered if Bill Wilson had his experimental hot .38 Super loads at that time but did not ask him.

My poor Second Chance cap has had the biscuit since my daughter decided to wash it and it all came apart. But the patch is still good; I'll pull it off and get it sewn onto another cap I suppose. For years, I wore that Second Chance cap to all sorts of events because -- by having that cap -- it was a way of saying I had been there to the Second Chance match.

If Saint Peter tells me that the cloud they're sending me to in Heaven -- if I get to go to Heaven -- has to be representative of a shooting match I have held or attended I would chose the cloud where Richard Davis is throwing the Second Chance Match because I never personally saw anything that topped it or even really came close.

Photo: For many years any photo taken of me shooting featured the Second Chance Cap I got at that match in 1980.

I have a Mossberg 500 w/20" barrel cyl bore, full length, 8 shot magazine that has '1990 Second Chance Combat Shoot' engraved in gold color no less, on the receiver side.
Has the old style ribbed wood forend and a wood stock, so not tactical.
Bought from a Des Moines dealer in winter 1990, I believe? Don't know anything about the engraving, so based on the previous readings, maybe an prize, gift, or award for a participant, or most likely a leftover?

__________________
Wherever my mind isn't
Jim

It was probably a prize that was sold by the winner for cash or traded in. I think...from the little bit I got to know Richard Davis in my week at Second Chance (yes, the match was a week long!!!) that he would have given away every prize that he had come in.

I also know that I myself won several prizes over the years that I simply had no use for at the time. I remember winning a nice .36 caliber blackpowder Pennsylvania rifle at the 1980 Canadian IPSC Nationals only a few months after I was at Second Chance that I never even unboxed. I simply trundled it down to the local gun store and traded it for a beater Browning Hi-Power plus some cash thrown in on my part.

But your shotgun was probably a prize, although that is just an opinion.

One time in the late 70s, I rode in a single engine Cessna with two friends to the Second Chance match. After we landed, one of the two others made a call to be picked up and Richard Davis along with Massad Ayoob arrived in Davis' Mercedes and carted the three of us to the range. I thought that it was pretty nice of Davis to pick us up himself, instead of sending someone else.
We camped out during the match and ate the food provided there by Davis. I do not recall how we returned to the airport. I don't think any one of us won anything, but we had a great time. I never had a chance to go to another one though.

__________________
Richard Gillespie
FBINA 102

Wow, great memories. I always said if shooting matches were rock concerts, Second Chance would have been Woodstock.

That gun was one of a handful that Larry Kelley of MagnaPort, a close friend of Richard Davis, made up for the match. I considered myself damn lucky to win one. Second Chance was my personal vacation every year for 20-some years, and as part of the deal, I gave what I won there to my lovely bride. (Or to our kids.) That slick little .44 Magnum custom snubbie should still be unfired.

I've come to the shooting sports game late in life and it looks as if I missed out on a lot of good times and memories.

Wow!
I freely admit to being a little intimidated.
I consider it an honor to reply to one of your posts in this thread, almost more then buying some of your old items. The gun did appear to be in fine shape but I refrained from handling it. (You wouldn't believe what happened to it, right in front of me) It certainly would've come home with me but was priced out of my reach. I truly enjoyed just looking over some of your old handguns. Those old jframe eagles will go on very special gun, my summer carry gun.
Thank you for you post
Chris

Calmex, great rendering of those fantastic times. Is that a Mauser 712 schnellfeuer on the second photo? I see two cases in the air.

Mr. Ayoob, it is an honor indeed to read you, your reputation goes way beyond American borders. And that 629 looks super sweet indeed.

Although I've shot the Mauser 712 both here and back in Canada because in both places I met up with people that had one, the Mauser pictured is just a regular not-too-bad-shape Military Mauser from the period of Mid-First-World-War. I was just shooting a quick 3-shot drill and the photo came out that way. It looks more exciting than it was -- as passes in most of my photos except the blurry ones.

Saw the demo in Louisville, KY, in 1979. We'd heard that he would shoot himself, but we were stunned when he did it.

There were also two LEO's from Lexington Metro, who attended. One of them took a load of 12ga 00 in the upper left quadrant of his vest. Saved his life, but he had permanent nerve damage in the spot; a far better outcome than without the vest.