Bob Munden Fastest Gunslinger ever *video*

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

It is most definitely not bull.

What you may not know is the technique called "fanning". You pull the trigger, which does nothing, and you fire the gun by cocking it with the ball of the hand. It will fire as fast as you can slap the hammer with your hand. Most people can't hit anything that way, but some can.

I would like to say the object is to be fast, and not necessarily accurate, but he was that too, to a point of amazement.


And especially...

So that's what that's called, I thought it was something just done in Westerns.
That being said, one thing that my mother has always pointed out about westerns is the rather long distance between the shooters in the traditional main street 'shoot-out' when it's not particularly easy to accurately fire a pistol of the era at that range. One could imagine the rather embarrassed silence after the two pistols fired and both gunmen were still standing but two bystanders were bleeding out on the saloon floor...

[Spike88]

For a second I thought it was going to be about this guy:


I wonder how accurate he is.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Oberon

So that's what that's called, I thought it was something just done in Westerns.

For the most part it is. Note near the beginning of the first video Munden points out that the Old West Shootout was something that never happened.

That being said, one thing that my mother has always pointed out about westerns is the rather long distance between the shooters in the traditional main street 'shoot-out' when it's not particularly easy to accurately fire a pistol of the era at that range. One could imagine the rather embarrassed silence after the two pistols fired and both gunmen were still standing but two bystanders were bleeding out on the saloon floor...

Actually the scene in The Unforgiven where two guys shoot from about five feet, neither is particularly faster than the other and they both hit their target was the reason it didn't happen much. The Tombstone gunfight was the result of the Earps intending to arrest the Clantons and McLaurys, the 'Cowboys' figuring that assassination was the intent and not arrest, and everybody starting a fight that nobody wanted.

One of the interesting aftermaths of that fight was the death of Johnny Ringo. From his actions and his writing, later experts think he probably suffered from melancholia, or depression, and the inquest's return of suicide was likely the correct one. Ringo's friend Billy Claiborne, however, believed otherwise. He picked a fight one night with "Buckskin Frank" Leslie in the Oriental Saloon, claiming that Leslie had murdered Johnny Ringo. Leslie pushed him around a little. Claiborne went home and got a rifle, then returned to the street and called Leslie out. At close range with a pistol Leslie had the advantage. An inquest ruled it a "self defense".

One of my favorite scenes on film is from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. In the very last episode Indy is working as a go-fer for John Ford. Ford's technical adviser is none other than an aging Wyatt Earp. Ford asks Earp to describe a typical shootout. Earp says "Shootout? If you wanted someone dead you got a rifle and shot him in the back."

Ford says "I can't have my hero do that!"

Earp replies "Listen, son, what happened in Tombstone was a fluke. None of us wanted to be there."

While fiction, I think that's a pretty good description.