Tully Mars Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 Hi all, The 2021 California State Wild Bunch Championship is scheduled for May 14-16, 2021. It will be held at Diamond Dick's Cowboy Town in the Sacramento Valley Shooting Center. 10 Stages of WB. Side matches include Speed Pistol, Speed Rifle, Speed Shotgun and Muchos Federales! Dry camping is available as well as water to fill you tanks. https://cagunslingers.com/AnnualMatches/2021CAStateWB.pdf Thanks, Tully Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJ Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Hi All - I can speak from experience here. Tully Mars and the Gold Country Wild Bunch group put on one heck of a match. I have attended their matches over a number of years and have not been disappointed. Their facilities at Diamond Dicks Cowboy Town are great. Plenty of camping space and water to boot! If any of you are looking for an adventure towards the middle of May, hitch up the wagon and journey to the Sacramento Valley Shooting Center. You will not be disappointed. After Tully's email, I received an email from Mr. Ed (The Horse of Course). It looks like he and Wilbur will also be attending the Match. Wilbur even made some comment to Mr. Ed about bringing Carol along this year. There might be a short problem with Carol's attendance however. Apparently Wilbur is going to have to purchase a larger horse trailer and a new bigger truck. Carol likes to travel heavy. He said something about looking for one of those trucks that have the four tires on the back. Mr. Ed was not to sure what that meant, but he seemed excited. So come out to the event and shoot with the crowd. J.J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederick Jackson Turner Posted March 5, 2021 Share Posted March 5, 2021 Penny Ante and I are really hoping to make this one... Cheers, FJT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tully Mars Posted March 5, 2021 Author Share Posted March 5, 2021 We would love to have you both! How can I help you make your decision? Tully Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederick Jackson Turner Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 Good weather, cheap hotel, and cookies! (Or Guinness...) ;D I think we can pull this one off. Keep an eye on your mailbox. Cheers, FJT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tully Mars Posted March 11, 2021 Author Share Posted March 11, 2021 FJT, It would be awesome to have you! We have shooters from Texas, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada coming as well! I'll make sure to have Guinness and cookies on hand! Tully Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tully Mars Posted May 6, 2021 Author Share Posted May 6, 2021 RIFLE OPTIONAL! at the 2021 California State Wild Bunch Championship! Yup, use your 1911 instead of your rifle! Registration is closed. We're looking forward to a great shoot and seeing folks from several western states! Side Matches: Card Cutting Turkey Shoot as well as speed stages. Thanks to all that have registered! Tully Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvertip Posted May 17, 2021 Share Posted May 17, 2021 Tully put on a fantastic match. It was challenging but at the same time doable, very well run I never saw any problems. Great bunch of people. One of the nicest ranges I’ve been to it even has running water at the stages. Red Marie and I will be back. Silvertip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tully Mars Posted May 18, 2021 Author Share Posted May 18, 2021 Thank you for the kind words Silvertip. It was great to shoot with you and Red Marie again! Here are the scores, I'll do more of a write up when time allows. Tully Overall https://cagunslingers.com/Scores/2021CAWBScores.pdf By Category https://cagunslingers.com/Scores/2021CAWBCatScores.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederick Jackson Turner Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 This was a great match; one of the very best I have ever attended. Tully is to be commended for his inventive and enjoyable stages, as well as the hard work that went into creating a seamless and entertaining match. A tip of the hat, Tully. Cheers, FJT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tully Mars Posted May 19, 2021 Author Share Posted May 19, 2021 FJT, Thank you for the kind words! It was great shooting with Ms Penny Ante and yourself as well as getting to know you both better. Tully Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJ Posted May 21, 2021 Share Posted May 21, 2021 Howdy All - Last year at the conclusion of the 2020 California State Wild Bunch Match I received an email from Mr. Ed (who is the Horse of Course). At that time I was the editor or the Battle Born Rangers Monthly Newsletter. This year Mr. Ed again sent me an email concerning the 2021 California State Wild Bunch Match and asked me to post it for everyone to read. Apparently he, Wilbur and Carol were in attendance again this year. Over the past couple of years Mr. Ed has submitted a few articles to be posted in the Battle Born Rangers Newsletter. I suspect next month this article will be posted in the Battle Born Rangers newsletters also. The following is what he sent. Hello - It’s Mr. Ed (the Horse of Course) again. The last few months from the 2020 California State Wild Bunch Match have flown by in record time. Wilbur is always looking for places to travel and go Wild Bunch Shooting so he again asked me what I thought of us again traveling to Diamond Dicks Cowboy Town (DDCT) at the Sacramento Valley Shooting Center in Sloughhouse California to attend the 2021 California State Wild Bunch Match. I thought about this statement for a very brief moment and then stomped my right hoof and neighed with joy about attending one of our favorite matches in our travels. As Wilbur and Carol lead me out to the trailer, read on and you will find out why. The 2021 California State Wild Bunch is again over and what a time it was. As I mentioned a number of months ago Wilbur, Carol and I would attempt to attend and we were able to. Before we left this year Wilbur, at Carol’s insistence, did purchase that fancy new horse trailer and new truck. Wilbur no longer has to store my hay on the top of the trailer like he did on the old trailer. He is happy about that. He says that he is getting too old to toss bales of hay on the top of the trailer anymore. When we arrived at DDCT a couple of days before the Wild Bunch Match it was a little warm. Thank goodness the new trailer is air conditioned for the three of us. This year we parked down by the pond at the range. The breeze was nice and cool as it came off the water. Fortunately the rest of the days for the match the temperatures cooled down and the evenings were comfortable. During the three days of the math, Wilbur and I went for some memorable evening rides enjoying the cool breezes, observing the numerous wildlife at the range and later in the dark of the evening watching the millions of stars in Gods magnificent sky. On the starting Thursday morning of the match, Wilbur strolled down to the range to register for the match. Tully Mars (the 2021 Match Director) was just as surprised to see Wilbur this year as he was last year. Wilbur did make a short commitment to Tully to try to hit a few more targets than he did last year. Tully, after his jovial laughter had finished, had to sit down for a few moments to catch his breath. As Day 1 of the match commenced, Wilbur walked down the range to watch the Thursday side matches. After a short stroll he found a bay where they were shooting the Speed Pistol and Shotgun events. Just like last year, as Wilbur watched the contestants shoot, he was again amazed how scary fast many of the men and women 1911 shooters were. Wilbur also mentioned how fast these people could fire their shotguns. At night I think Wilbur has dreams at night about being able to shoot his 1911 and his shotgun like all of the contestants. It must have been awesome to watch the festivities. As Wilbur continued down the bays, he found a Side Match that he had never seen before. It was called a ‘Turkey Shoot Side Match’. As he watched the event he saw that the Wild Bunch folks were shooting at little red knock down targets that were hidden behind larger targets. There were ten of these little turkey targets hidden behind five or six larger targets. Each shooter had to move through a series of three windows to be able see all of the targets. The ‘Turkeys’ were far enough back that each of the contestants were shooting them with their match rifles. Some of the contestants even attempted to shoot the turkeys with their 1911’s. Wilbur did mention to me that after watching the contestants shoot with their 1911’s that he had a much greater respect for the Hollywood people who are able to shoot at their handguns at targets from 50 to 75 yards or further out and never miss!! He believes they must have some really good trainers. The last Side Match Wilbur watched was an event where contestants attempted to shoot playing card in half with their 1911’s. The cards were mounted on 4x4’s about five or six feet from the firing line. Wilbur wasn’t really sure about the distance because he would not be able to perform that trick anyway. Contestants were tasked to load 5 magazines with a single round each. They then attempted to shoot the card in half when the timer went off. As he watched the event it was funny to watch some shoot the 4x4’s with their 1911’s. However, some contestants were able to hit multiple cards. In the end one of the contestants won the event by shooting all five playing cards in half. Wilbur was quite excited as he explained this to me. Unfortunately, Carol could have cared less when he told her. Day 2 of the match commenced early in the morning with the usual gathering of the group for safety instructions and announcements. Wilbur especially listened to the safety instructions. He was somewhat concerned about what to do if he accidently ‘winged’ himself. The group then disbursed to their posse and bay assignments. A short time later rounds were being fired down range. I understand that many of the shooters, at the end of the day, expressed to Tully how much fun they had shsooting his stages and target placements. The only disparaging negative comments Wilbur expressed was how small the tutanka targets (buffalo) were on one of the stages. Wilbur believes that on that stage were each time he fired his 1911 or rifle at the tutanka’s they either jumped, kneeled down or moved to the right or left each time he fired his guns. I think he must have had a bunch of misses on that stage. Throughout the shooting bays many different stage scenarios were set. Only a few of the targets were somewhat closer and some were out far enough that Wilbur stated next year he would have to replace his WWII stubby front sights on his old 1911 with something larger so that he could actually see them on the end of his gun. Carol mentioned to him something about perhaps purchasing a new 1911. As Wilbur turned around and looked to me, after Carol’s comment, his eyes started to beam. The bays targets were arranged with squares, circles, dueling trees, smaller club and diamond shapes, the small ‘turkey’ knockdowns, an 8’ plate rack, tombstone knockdown plate rack, paddle shaped shotgun knockdowns, tutanka - cowboy - coffin targets and (or course) a Texas Star target. Wilbur did not do very well on the Texas Star. He told me when contestants shoot one of the paddles off that are on the end of the 5 steel arms, it falls off and the Texas Star starts to spin around on its ball bearing axis. I suspect he missed one or two of the paddles as the Texas Star started to spin around faster and faster making it harder to hit the rest of the paddles. Wilbur must have done poorly on the Texas Star because his head was spinning round and round as he was explaining this to me. I got a little dizzy watching him. He also mentioned he was extremely glad Tully did not design that particular stage to shoot the Texas Star with 1911’s. Strangely enough, Wilbur says some Wild Bunch shooters enjoy shooting the Texas Star with their 1911’s. He has a hard time understanding that!! When Day 3 came the shooting of the final five stages of the ten stage match commenced early in the morning. Everyone I noticed was excited to begin their day of shooting. About an hour after the match was over, everyone gathered around a place called ‘Rosie’s Cafe’ at DDCT for the Award Ceremony, raffle drawings while told each other stories of their accomplishments and perhaps disappointments. The scores were quickly calculated by a person from Nevada. As Wilbur explained to me, all the shooters’ scores were entered into iPads by a different shooter right after that shooter was finished with their stage. At the end of Day 2, the iPads were recharged and ready for Day 3’s festivities. The program for scoring was called ‘CAS Scoring System’. I hope some of you understand what that means because my ears twitched as I struggled through Wilbur’s explanation of the scoring worked on the iPads. He assured me that if I took a few minutes to learn the program that next year, if I wished, I could enter the scores into the iPad for his posse. He says is really quite simple to learn and use. When the match was over it only took less than 2 minutes for the Nevada person to sync all three of the posse’s iPads to a Master iPad. The scores were then magically ready for all to see after the Award Ceremony. Just like last year the Award Ceremony and raffle drawing commenced without a hiccup. The ceremonies were finished in less than an hour. Wilbur mentioned that Tully had enough raffle prizes for everyone that stayed for the Award Ceremony. Wilbur was glad he stayed for the ceremony. He was happy that he was able to pick out a nice prize when his number was called. Many shooters recceived nice looking trophies for their accomplishments. The top three winners of each category received a trophy that looked like a 1911 mounted on top of a 45acp bullet. The first place trophies were larger than the second place trophies and the second place trophies were larger than the third place trophies. The shooters standing was etched on the 45acp bullet. This year Tully also ordered some much smaller trophies like those mentioned in this paragraph for all of the side match winners. There were even different types of trophies for the top man and woman Turkey and Card Cutting winners. As like last year Wilbur hung out at the back of the crowd during the Award Ceremony with his eyes staring at the ground. Someday he hopes to be able to have a shooting trophy to mount on the stable walls. Not everyone attending shooting matches are able to win a trophy. Some come for the enjoyment of being with others and the pleasure of shooting their guns. Just as quickly as the match started it was over. After the Award Ceremony was completed most of the contestants hitched their covered wagons to their mechanical horses and headed off to the surrounding hills to make their way home. Some stayed to leave the following morning while enjoying the evenings peace and solitude. Wilbur, Carol (and ‘Yes’ me) are again already planning on attending the 2022 California State Wild Bunch Match. Wilbur, Carol and I hope all of you fellow Wild Bunchers from near and far will also attend. Perhaps if you take a few walks around the facility and look around you will spot us. And I am Mr. Ed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tully Mars Posted May 22, 2021 Author Share Posted May 22, 2021 Straight from the horse's mouth! Thank you Mr Ed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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