Those of you with even a mild interest in the sport of "fast draw" might be interested in this video clip showing world champion Bob Munden. He can draw and fire in 2/100 of a second. When he fires two shots it sounds like one. And he can actually hit something from the hip. Fascinating to watch!

Fastest gunman on planet. [VIDEO]

John

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John
You might also be interested in this link too.
Ed Sullivan

Thell Reed started in the 60's at a very early age and at one time had a standing offer of $1000 against a brand new Colt SAA (about $125-150 then) to anyone who thought they could outdraw him...to my knowledge he never had to pay up!!!

Bob Munden is the Fastest, and he is also the man who I credit for getting me into gun smithing.

Years ago, I sent him two Colt Single Action Army Revolvers (fresh out of Colt's Custom Gun Shop) to have some action jobs, forcing cone and color case hardening work done on. I received the guns back (after paying a LOT of bucks - over $1,500.00) and they were both severely damaged! One had a barrel that was so loose I could unscrew it with my hand, and both of them had what WERE gorgeous sets of Genuine Ivory Grips (done by the Colt Custom Shop) completely ruined! The Colt that had the color case hardening done on it came back with the worst colors I have ever seen in my life! Of course when I called him 10 minutes after opening the boxes he denied the whole thing, and after a threatening argument, he begrudgingly agreed to have them sent back to him. He did wind up fixing the loose barrel, but totally denied ruining the Ivory Grips. Since the guns were new in the boxes when I sent them to him, there was not a chance in hell that they could have been ruined by anybody else but him. He refused to pay for the totally ruined grips and never re-did the case hardening job either. I still have these two Colt's and the destroyed Ivory grips today as a reminder to me to never send a gun out ever again!

After that episode, I started doing my own Gun Smithing, and have NEVER sent a gun out since! If I lived in the same state as him I would have sued him, but being 1,700 miles away, it would have cost more than I would have collected. I have also run in to another fella while competing at a SASS match who had a very similar experience with him. Not only is he the fastest gun who ever lived, but he is the fastest swindler that ever lived!




Regards,
chief38

Back in the '60s, a young Thell Reed was very active in the "leatherslap" competitions held at Big Bear Lake in California. Jeff Cooper and sheriff's deputy Jack Weaver also participated. Those were the formative years of "the modern technique of the pistol." Much of what Cooper learned there was codified at Gunsite in later years. Reed was the single action guy, Weaver liked DA revolvers, and Cooper favored...you guessed it... the .45 1911 pistol.

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

just curious....why in the world would you send a gun out with custom grips on it??

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SWCA#2208
KK4EMO

Yup, Thell Reed...when I was a kid I even thought the name he had was cool. I remember seeing him on TV several times. When I think "quick draw", Thell Reed comes to mind.....thanks for the video clip

kennyB:

The reason I sent the Colt's out with the Ivory grips on them is that Munden was to make the original two piece Ivory grips into one piece grips so they were stronger and less likely to move around while shooting a SASS match. That he did do, but destroyed them in the process!

I was younger and naive back then, (when SASS was new), and he was "supposedly" one of the pros. Little did I know!

I am now in the process of restoring these two fine Colt's, including two new sets of Ivory Grips. It's gonna cost me, but I could not look at them that way anymore!.

kennyb:

You have to understand that in the early days of SASS, guys actually shot matches with Genuine Colt's with Ivory grips. It was about having a GREAT TIME, looking good, and playing Cowboys. Today, it has become a "Gamers" sport, and guys are now shooting super slicked up and short stroked guns, using ammo that is loaded so light that the guns have no recoil, and it's all about winning. Rarely do you see anybody shooting a real Colt, mostly clones. I used .45 Long Colts that were loaded to honest traditional specs, and the two piece grips that guys used, sometimes loosened up during a match, so one piece grips became an improvement.

Regards,
chief

I don't know if it's permissable to post a link to the World Fast Draw Associations forums or not, but it's easy enough to find.

Once you get there, do a search on "Munden", (Bob will add a lot of unrelated hits.) People who actually play that game think a whole lot less of him than he does of himself. I won't give my own personal opinions, it's against my new years resolutions.

Nobody has just fun plinking tin cans anymore or going pan fishing. Everything has to be a contest now. You know, top custom equipment and a bunch of hero badges on your vest and cap etc.

You are welcome. I remember the story about when he was out on a set (or camping) and he encountered a bunch of rattlesnakes which he dispatched in "Walk & Draw" fashion.

Jellybean, you are correct! I dug this article up - makes interesting reading.

Which is faster: Bob Munden's hand of his mouth? - 12.18.89 - SI Vault

chief38

I have to give credit where credit is due. I saw Bob perform at a car dealership in the late 80's in MO and he is fast. They slo-mo'ed the two shot sequence (like the clip) to show he did actually get off two rounds...funny thing is, they didn't show his hand doing it! Now I have to wonder. I have personally seen a full-auto SAA. The gun left Colt without a firing pin bushing and when my customer shot it for the 1st time it went full auto. What happened was the primer was blown through the hole in the blast shield and recocked the hammer. It happened so fast he could not let go of the trigger and boom...it emptied 6 rounds...hmmmmm

Quite right, well said. This phenomenon has turned some gun writers, outdoor writers, and etc. toward establishing themselves as "personalities" and "brands" with products and services to hawk or shill for, or endorsements to be sought, etc. What was once the stock in trade of pro athletes and TV personalities like Ed McMahon, has now deteriorated and spread to other realms...

chief38, the first time I ever heard of him was on a TV show that said he was the fastest gun alive. I jumped up and started taping it with my VCR. He claimed he was going to shoot two baloons, that appeard to be about two feet apart, with two seperate shots, but you would only be able to hear on shot. He then showed the two loaded .45 Colt rounds as he loaded them into his gun, which I thought was odd as he was in a building with a whole bunch of people in it. He then did his trick and it looked like he did what he said, and the slow motion camera shots proved it.

Then I watched the tape. Slowing the tape down as far as I could, I could never get that second shot to show up, even thought the first one lasted about three or four frames. Then I noticed that one of the slow motion camera shots that they had shown was directly in the line of fire looking back through the balloons at Munden! Had he been using live ammo there was no way the camera wouldn't have been hit by a bullet. It was then too that I realized that while the balloons looked like they were about two feet apart while looking from the front, they were almost in a straight line looking down his line of sight. And then there was a camera showing the balloons close up when they were shot. When I watched it with my VCR in slow motion I could see little orange flickers of light pass by, which I thought at the time was BBs, but after learning more about "fast draw" I realized they were black powder blanks used for breaking balloons. And there was only one fired.

I dabbled in fast draw and trick shooting a little after that and now I like to watch his stunts to see where he is decieving the audience, but I have to do it with the audio turned down.

Oh well, it's not January 1, yet.

jellybean:

I hung up my spurs in the Cowboy Action Shooting game 4 years ago for a number of reasons, but mainly because at the time I was running two business and had to work on Saturday's which is when they held the matches. When I first started, they were on Sunday's. I have not shot my SAA Colt's in those 4 years because to be honest it pained me to look at them!

I am now in the process of sending them back to Colt to have them refinished with Royal Blue & Case Colors, then I am having Nutmeg (Jim Aliamo -used to do the Custom Ivory work for Colt) make me 2 new set's of Ivory grips. I will then do the action work myself.

There have not been a whole lot of times in my life when someone has "got over on me", but Munden did. I did learn my lesson, and I have become wiser from this experience. Up until this original post, I just blotted this whole thing out of my mind, but when I saw the OP, I just could not bring myself to ignore it.

I was in my own Retail Business for 30 + years and one of the reasons I credit myself for being successful was that I always wanted the customer to walk out of my stores happier then when they walked in. I did not always make a profit on every single sale, but I never lost a customer because of a poor attitude. If I had an employee that had a bad attitude, I would show him/her the door in short order. "The Customer is ALWAYS Right" rule must be followed every day, even if the customer isn't, because in their mind they are. That's how you keep them coming back.

Regards,
chief38

SASS is still played with original guns and such here in Montana and Idaho. Most people still use .45's, 44-40's, 38-40's and a lot of black powder. If you have the desire to re-join what SASS used to be come out and shoot with us here in Montana/Idaho!
Randy
PS. Bob lives over in Butte and doesn't hold the esteem he thinks he has here in Montana.

Chief38, I'd heard of numerous complaints about his gunsmithing on the fast draw and CAS forums, I guess he really does a job on them.

I belonged to the SASS too for several years long ago. I was waiting for the sport to get more popular in this area so I could try my hand at it, but upon reading their newspaper for several years at all the gamers whining about why they couldn't cheat instead of practicing more to get ahead, I got sick of it without ever firing a shot.

The IDPA was the same thing except I did try it once, what a scam. feralmerril is right, why can't you go out and shoot with a bunch of guys without someone having to prove he's something he's not or somebody getting rich from a "prizeless" contest?

I also did the SASS thing a quite a few years back. Then realized that I'd be spending 4 or 5 hours at the range and actually pull a trigger for less than 15 minutes !!! What's wrong with that picture.

Have since gravitated to classic bullseye pistol shooting and the Steel Challenge game. For the Steel Challenge I use a wheelgun so I won't have to be bending over to pick up the brass.

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A closed mouth gathers no foot

While his speed and accuracy with the Colt is without question, he otherwise comes across as an arrogant idiot to me.

It's certain that the Western movies and books exaggerate the gunfights and fast draws, but to say that they didn't happen at all and "they were all shot in the back" is even more asinine.

Best damn forum read I've ever had!

AMEN!!!!!!!!

Thinking back, there was an episode of Real People that had a woman fast draw artist on it, who played the Walk and Draw game...anyone remember her??

I remember seeing a video in which Munden admitted to using blanks. He also had specially modified hammers that allowed him to cock the hammer three times with a single sweep of his hand. He would catch the spur with his thumb, middle and pinkie fingers while sweeping his hand with a fanning motion and fire three shots that sounded like one. Of course this works only with blanks and is not possible with live ammo. He must've spent a lot of time mastering this stunt that has no utility out on the street.

Ed McGivern did some work with fanning single action revolvers using live ammo and had some interesting things to say about it in his book.

If I'm not mistaken, Cooper claimed that Thell Reed was so fast that nobody was able to beat him at close range.

Dave Sinko

Bob Munden performed an action job on my brand new Cimarron 1872 Open Top .44 Special. I bought the gun because I really liked its unique look and the fact that it was chambered in my favorite cartridge. I knew that it would have a terrible trigger pull and a heavy factory mainspring. It was truly horrible with a trigger pull of 8 pounds and a hammer almost impossible to cock one handed.

I sent it to Munden for the trigger work and to have the barrel's forcing cone cut to 11 degrees and to have the barrel engraved with "Custom by Bob Munden."

When I got the revolver back, I could not be more pleased. The action is slick, light, and smooth. It's perfectly timed and the bolt leaves no turn ring on the cylinder. The trigger pull measures just under 2 pounds with my Lyman digital trigger pull gauge. The bore doesn't lead with my .428 bullets at all and I think that's because of the recut forcing cone. My Cimarron is also very accurate as well.

Everyone who handles my 1872 is impressed. I also feel that Munden's prices are quite reasonable, even considering that he is on Impossible Shots on the Outdoor Channel every Wednesday.

If you watch the show, you will "get" Munden's sense of humor. When he says, "I'm not perfect, I'm just the best there is." He's joking. The joking back and forth between Munden and the host of the show is fun.

I "get" his humor and I think it's funny. Munden has always explained that much of fast draw is done with either blanks or wax bullets for safety. He was on Stan Lee's Superhumans tv show and they hooked up electronic speed measuring devices to Munden's hand. They showed the two shots on two ballons 6 feet apart and slowed it down with a digital camera that takes 40,000 photos per minute. It was clear that Munden fired two shots from his Colt Single Action Army while thumb cocking each shot. The electronic equipment measured it as well (with the professional operator saying that he has measured the strike of a rattle snake and that Munden is faster than a rattle snake) and showed the very quick two shots.

Here's a link to a YouTube post of the episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht7QfGY66Bc

His accuracy is pretty good, but not really exceptional. He has good eye/hand coordination but I have seen him using cheats on some accuracy stunts. His speed is a real issue though. When shooting fast draw he was a gamer, something which was uncommon for the sport, in that he did everything he could to win by going outside the rules.

He is very much like a magician in his performances as they are more illusions then skill.

In the link provided by mm6mm6, the announcer makes a mistake by saying he fired two bullets. He is firing black powder blanks that are made by using fine grade black powder topped off with a much coarser grade, they are actually more like shotshells and accuracy isn't required. All he has to do is sweep his hand a short distance while shooting to cover both balloons, and yes he does have tricked out revolvers to help him get an edge on that too.

I admit I am biased on this matter, there are people that can really do most of his stunts without trickery and they deserve the credit for it.

Have I got this right? Trick out a single action by opening up the fireing pin hole. Of course load your own trick ammo, dont let anyone inspect it, maybe slightly loose primers that kick back through with the gas`s and recock the hammer and it doubbel fires. Also probley somehow use super thin lead or a material that is thin and fragil over "dust bbs" made to look like regular soft points.
I have watched the videos before, and even have tried the impossibel thing of supposedly fanning with your fingers spread.
I dont belive it is possible to fan the gun FOR REAL with your fingers spread. My conclusions in this werent reached just since this thread, but long ago.
He tells you he is fireing with his seperate fingers as he slaps the hammer. He doesnt. He fans the hammer just once, and the gun double fires on its own
Now I dont belive it`s really right to down him on all this. It took some ingenuity to develope this trick. Lets be a little honest here. You could take a average NON gun lover, and if you could get them to agree to try the trick diligently, probley with daily practice at some point in a week or two, your naked eye couldnt probley pick up the difference between mundun and the new trick artist.
If you knew him well enough to try and pull a trick on mundun, it would be interesting to fully load that gun while he left the gun on the table that he just loaded two rounds in to turn and blow his nose or get a drink of water! I would like to see the look on his face if it slam fired 5 or six rounds instead of two!
I guess I always did have a mean sense of humor!

[QUOTE=Jellybean;135739523]His accuracy is pretty good, but not really exceptional.

On the TV show he uses a 2" S&W model 60 .38 Special with Pachmeyer grips and hits a balloon at 200 yards. That's pretty exceptional accuracy in my book.

[QUOTE=Farmer17;135739732]I saw a video of him doing that stunt. The balloon was taped to a large metal plate and a hit anywhere on that plate would break the balloon. Most bullseye shooters can do that trick with little practice, wether they know it or not.

These are the same old hashed out complaints that are completely unfounded. It amazes me how many people want to find "problems" or "tricks" with the shots.

As stated on his website, Munden's famous 2" .38 Special snubnose shot at 200 yards was to hit the steel plate. The balloon was only there to have a visual as it popped for the television audience and the camera. The shot was to hit the plate. For some reason, some people always want to complain that he didn't hit the balloon, but that it broke from the splatter from hitting the plate. Ugh.

Munden is superfast. Munden is a very accurate shooter. When he performs on Impossible Shots, he doesn't always make his shot on the first try. They show him missing. He never says he can do it every single time he tries.

He was titled The Fast Gun Who Ever Lived by Guiness and others back around 35-40 years ago. Others have broken his records. Fine.

Tom Knapp broke Herb Parsons' record of breaking 8 hand thrown clays. Knapp's record of 9 was broken by Patrick Flanagan. Does this mean that Parsons and Knapp are no good anymore? Knapp has since tied Flanagan's 10....

Munden is a great shooter, one of the best who ever lived. Can't we just live with that?

We had a discussion on Bob Munden a while back and most of this has already been discussed. A lot of people like him and that is fine, to each their own and they can believe anything they want.

But the above statement is not correct.

When he performed his shot for Guiness it was set up like the fast draw competitions. However the person(s) from Guiness didn't know anything about the rules that fast draw competitons adhered to and so they didn't know that Bob was breaking them. Nobody ever beat his old record, it's impossible if done legally under fast draw competiton. The reason the record is no longer in the Guiness book is because some of the people that are involved in fast draw competitons contacted Guiness and gave them an education in what it was all about and what had been done differently. They then pulled the record completely. If I recall correctly the title "the fastest gun that ever lived" actually came from Bob and was probably the reason he payed to get into the Guiness book in the first place, it was publicity for his act.

There will probably never be any replacements in the book because there is no one person that is so much better than others that he/she wins the competitions every time.

I'm with the jellybean man on this one!

"The reason the record is no longer in the Guiness book is because some of the people that are involved in fast draw competitons contacted Guiness and gave them an education in what it was all about and what had been done differently. They then pulled the record completely."

No. Guinness pulled their firearms related records due to pressure from liberal libraries and the like. A search of there website's listings return zero results for gun, firearm, fast draw, or anything else related to humans shooting guns of any kind. Records still exist for smallest gun and largest gun and other similar things.

yes...i have shot for years...the reason i asked is your original post made no mention as to why ivory grips were sent...hence the question...

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SWCA#2208
KK4EMO

Other realms like bass fishing & poker...

Can you you say "Helicopter lure?" :lmao:

Some bug control guy has even started a show dressed up like dog the bounty hunter, only worse...

Anybody who doubts that our society is circling the drain need only look at what's popular on TV. "Lowest common denominator" doesn't even come close.

[QUOTE=mm6mm6;135740818No. Guinness pulled their firearms related records due to pressure from liberal libraries and the like. A search of there website's listings return zero results for gun, firearm, fast draw, or anything else related to humans shooting guns of any kind. Records still exist for smallest gun and largest gun and other similar things.[/QUOTE]

And that is according to who? Bob Munden? I believe there was a listing for "fastest draw" in their 2008 edition, and the holder wasn't Bob Munden. But since I've never actually bought one of their books I can't say for sure.

I will finish this up with: Believe what you want, worship who you want, but don't let facts get in your way.

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