A little Fast-Draw

This is What's My Line? The contestant is Bob Graham, who won the World's Fast-Draw Championship, for the second year in a row. According to his website, he's won it four times.

In this day and age, that show is scary as hell. Steve Allen, who is going to show his prowess, says quite candidly, at 6:50, "I don't know much about these". Then he shoots. Live TV audience. Yes, wax bullets, but still.

Later, gonna show how fast Mr. Graham is, so Steve claps his hands and Mr. Graham gets his gun drawn and in between the clapping hands. Did not unload the gun. Now, maybe he only had one round in there (which he had already fired). And again - wax bullet. But - not me, Bubba. No-how, no-way would I have done that.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIGwg2uo4hU[/ame]

Seems to break all the standard safety practices that we have preached for years....

WR

What are the odds of that "topic" even making it on the air today??????


1 in 1,000,000,000,000...........

Times sure are different,lot of movie stars of the era were fast draw guys.

I think it was, "You Asked For It" that featured Bill Jordan. I much later saw him shoot in person and he was incredibly fast and accurate with wax bullets. Shot aspirins off a table with his M-19 and an old M&P that was handed down in his family.

I presume that everyone here knows what he said there about S&W's then-new Combat Magnum. I suspect that contributed a lot to the gun's brisk sales. If you do NOT know what he said, I will, for the sum of $49.75 and a copy of Taylor Swift's newest CD, tell you. Or, you might get lucky and see someone post that here for free.

Bill could draw from his holster and shoot faster than most men can shoot with the gun already in their hand.

I appreciate that Bob Graham came across well and was an articulate speaker and a polished gentleman. TV tries to present "gun people" as rednecked hicks.

I love the clock!

Talking about fast draw demonstrations, when I was a kid, there was a store here called Johnny's Hobby House.

National Fast Draw Champion Dee Woolem was on tour for the Kilgore Toy Company.

My dad took me and my best friend Larry to see him at the store. We'd never seen anything like that! I still remember how fast he was. He was dressed in full cowboy gunfighter regalia, too. He did one trick...had the gun out with a Dixie cup on the barrel. He'd flip the cup off the gun, holster the gun, then draw, fire, and catch the cup on the barrel again. We were simply awestruck.

My dad bought me the Dee Woolem fast draw set made by Kilgore mentioned in the linked article. Larry and I wore that thing out. Wish I still had it.

I recall reading about Dee Woolem in gun magazines. And I think Kilgore and Nichols had some of the best cap guns, although Hubley had a few.

There was another man whose name slips my mind at the moment. He also tuned guns, mainly Rugers, and was a fantastic shot. He broke a balloon or something at 200 yards with a snub .38! I met him at the Ruger hospitality suite at the SHOT show and was very impressed. Joe Bowen? Bowman? I also met Bob Munden, a really fast trick shot.

As strange as it may seem , I've had no one accept my kind offer to tell what Bill Jordan said on, "You Asked For It." Heck, I'd have probably dropped the price to just the Taylor Swift CD, if someone implored me to, pleading low finances!

Seriously, I was pretty sure that another member would have posted that by now. Sometimes, this board disappoints me...Some here haven't even read Keith's book, "Sixguns" which ought to be required reading for anyone interested in shooting, let alone in handguns!

So...Bill Jordan called the Combat Magnum "the answer to a peace officer's dream." And that's just how he saw it: a .357-capable gun with about the weight of a .38. Of course, he meant it to be fired maybe 10-15% of the time with full .357 loads, and the guns last well if used that way.

Bill reminded me that most people with .357's really shoot .38 ammo most of the time, and that was then true. Now that officers have to routinely qualify with duty ammo instead of with target wadcutters that's changed, and S&W brought out the L-frame guns.

I was intrigued with fast draw as a kid and when I got real guns, tried to keep in mind Chic Gaylord's comment that Treasury agents were expected to draw and fire within a half second. I think I managed, although I had no timer.

When I was 12, I went to the FBI HQ in Wash., DC and saw the live ammo demo on their basement range. Impressive. When I was finally able to fire a Thompson SMG, I found it somewhat ill-balanced and heavier than expected. But it was a grand experience.

I wish I still could manage that half second draw and fire. That really impresses me more than the cowboy fast draw artists, armed with holsters suited only to that sport, primed and ready for the timer.

Anyone else still know what "stepping the coat" means in fast draw from under a suit coat?

Texas Star said:

There was another man whose name slips my mind at the moment. He also tuned guns, mainly Rugers, and was a fantastic shot. He broke a balloon or something at 200 yards with a snub .38! I met him at the Ruger hospitality suite at the SHOT show and was very impressed. Joe Bowen? Bowman?

Click to expand...

That wasn't by any chance Bob Munden, was it?

Mule Packer said:

That wasn't by any chance Bob Munden, was it?

Click to expand...

Well, I met both him and Joe Bowman. I'm trying to recall which, on that occasion. Munden made the 200 yard shot on the balloon.

Actually, I think I met both in the Ruger refreshments suite, maybe in different years. Been maybe 20 years.

I was talking to Jim Carmichel and asked him who the fellow was, and I think Jim introduced us. I was pretty sure when I saw him, but wanted to be sure.

I do recall that the Ruger exec overseeing the drinks display seemed pleased when I asked for ginger ale. I had to drive that night...

I met Joe Bowman, "The Straight Shooter", three times - each time at Mule Camp, a cowboy shoot every Memorial Day in Georgia.

The last time I saw him, it was pouring down rain, and he could not go out and do his act. So he sat there, under the cover, and did card tricks for my granddaughters.

He was a helluva nice guy, and the world became a little less when he died.

I met Joe Bowman in Houston several years ago. He was indeed a class act.

A couple of thoughts on this thread.
Tandy Leathercraft indeed marketed a Dee Woolem holster kit that you could tool and lace together in the 60's.
And also, in addition to being one heck of a gunsmith, trick shot and nice guy, Joe Bowman was also a custom bootmaker of reknown. Quite a guy.