[Topgun]

Ever wonder how MANY shots it takes him to connect with a balloon at 300 yards with a 2" revolver?

The camera shows sometimes 2 or 3.


but.............????????????

[kidcoltoutlaw]

if he can do it then a machine rest could do it even more often.i don;t buy it.

[benewton]

I do.

The weapon itself is accurate, it's the sight length that makes it seem inaccurate. Given the correct bullet weight and the right barrel twist, a 2" is no less accurate than a 6"...


Of course, at 100 yards, you take careful aim, single action, and, from a brace, carefully squeeze off the shot.

You then stand up, placing the weapon on the bench, adjust your cap, shield your eyes, and wait...

Then comes the puff of dust from the berm.

[AK103K]

Not to knock Bob Munden, but the clip I saw of him shooting the balloon, it was attached to a steel plate. Is he really hitting the balloon, or is the round fragmenting "anywhere" on the plate and popping the balloon? Looks like an old sideshow trick to me, not that hitting that plate at 2-300 yards isnt a feat in itself. :)

[Mal H]

"... the clip I saw of him shooting the balloon ..."
Don't you mean the magazine you saw of him shooting? Oops! Wrong thread! ;)

I believe Bob Munden himself will tell you it takes quite a few shots to get the range in the trick shots that he makes look so easy. When he looks at the camera and says something like, "That was a tough one", I have to think he shot anywhere from 10 to 30 rounds that landed on the cutting room floor before getting it consistent.

[Thumper]

The weapon itself is accurate, it's the sight length that makes it seem inaccurate. Given the correct bullet weight and the right barrel twist, a 2" is no less accurate than a 6"...

Absolutely right...hard to get newbies to believe it though.

[Sisco]

Saw the one where he shot an egg at 100 yds with a 1911. Not sure I could hit an egg at that distance with a scoped rifle!
I am curious how many misses they cut from the final tape before it airs.

[DMK]

This past week, I saw him shooting quarters, nickles and even dimes :what: by throwing them in the air and shooting them with his 45. I'm sure it took a lot of practice, but man! I could try shooting a dime in the air all week and not hit one!

[Marko Kloos]

Well, if he ever gets attacked by a pack of rabid dimes, he'll be absolute death.

Long-range handgunnery is not all that tricky, but you do need to burn some ammo to figure out just how far you have to hold over. Flat-shooting calibers help, of course. After a cylinde ror two of ranging shots, I could hit a foot-wide rock at 200 yards with my S&W M19 pretty consistently. I like the Elmer Keith method of long range revolver sighting, where you keep the front sight on target and lower the rear sight rather than hold over the target. Works pretty well, and it's great for winning bets.

[swampgator]

Long range revolver trick shooting: See Ed McGivern

.357 shooting out to 600 yards.

[Nick96]

Dang, when I first saw this I thought they were talking about shooting at hot air balloons. My first reaction was anyone dumb enough to shoot at balloons should be in jail for the rest of their natural life.

Goes to show - the written word can be a tricky thing.

[LeonCarr]

The next time you watch American Shooter, and Bob Munden shoots at long range with a handgun, take a look at the berm behind the target. Close to the top of the berm, you will see what looks like a piece of surveyors tape that stretches the length of the berm. That is his aiming point. He holds on that piece of tape, and lets the bullet drop do the rest. I had to look close to see it, but it was there. Pretty slick.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

[cratz2]

Man, I don't care what any of you guys say... I don't wanna be down range from him after he catches me in bed with Becky. :D

Rifle, 44 Magnum or 2" snubby! ;)

His single action gunsmithing is super duper top notch as well. There's one he did in the shop for $1300. Clicking that hammer back is a near religious experience and pulling the trigger seals the deal.

[Archie]

He does a pretty good show. He used to compete and put on a show at the End of Trail cowboy match.

The long range balloon stuff is not faked. One year he nailed the balloon the first or second shot.
Next year, he reloaded one or twice.

Same deal with a Detonics 45 hideout gun. Shooting at a 12" gong at around 90 yards, it took him eight or nine rounds to get the hold over right. Then he dinged it several times in a row.

No surveyer's tape there, either.

During the match, under time, he couldn't connect with a bowling pin to save his kazoo! He still mutters about bowling pins....

[Justin]

Bob Munden is cool.
I imagine that between filming of episodes, he comes up with an idea, and then goes to the range and burns a bunch of ammo practicing and refining it. Trick shooting isn't an impossible feat, you just have to invest a lot of practice time and money into it. Go read Ed McGivern's 'Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting' to get some really good insight into shooting handguns really fast, at moving targets, long ranges, and any number of other ideas.

One of the coolest things I've seen Munden do on American Shooter was to break a balloon at 75 yards with a Red Rider BB gun.

[tonerguy]

http://www.imgmag.com/images/tonerguy/BobMunden.jpg

[Don Gwinn]

When the internet decided that Massad Ayoob wasn't really such a great gun expert, I accepted that. Heck, who is?

But I sure hope the internet is not now trying to convince me that what Bob Munden does is not such a big deal or doesn't require some pretty extraordinary skills. A lot of people called Unintended Consequences unrealistic because it depicted Henry Bowman doing the sorts of tricks Bob Munden does. Now we hear that this stuff isn't really all that tough and it's no big deal.
Odd.

[badgerrr]

I saw him in person doing fancy blank shooting at an assembly in my Junior High.

(Kinda tells ya how long ago that was, doesn't it?) :scrutiny:

[Vic303]

Bob Munden & Becky Munden regularly appear at the Powder Creek Shooting Sports Festival in the KC area in September. They do several shows/day over the weekend--usually with ammo, but on one occassion the rifle range area was not useable, and he had to do the show with blanks. He is GOOD and blindingly FAST!!!! You blink, and you WILL miss his draw!

--Vic

[C.R.Sam]

Takes an exceptional person.
Who trains exceptionally hard.
With an exceptional will to excell.
To rise above the crowd.

Sam

[Rembrandt]

....did a TV show on Sporting Clays a few years ago with TNN...borrowed someone elses gun, missed about half the shots, not one of my finer days on the course....by the time the show aired I had improved quite a bit, all the misses ended up on the cutting room floor...:D

[SRYnidan]

I have been watching Bob and his wife since I was in high school (1977) and he is the real deal. Anyone who thinks the tricks are easy just needs to duplicate them. Some are hard and some are harder.

[hksw]

I don't think Bob Munden minds people knowing that it takes a few rounds to hit the target, even for him. Watching him shoot at targets and constantly missing is a waist of time and (TV show) money. On one of the shows he brings in a full ammo can load of .45ACP. He was shooting coins out of the air using a derringer and knew he would be missing a lot. He was down to his last two round when he finally hit a coin (second to the last shot).

[jimcon]

I am sure that you are all correct that the trick shots are all researsed and that he does miss a number of shots while he is setting it up. Make no mistake, however, in thinking that he is not a very good shot. In my last trip to Frontsight in May, I was told the he attended a 4 day defensive handgun course last year without anyone knowing who he was. As one instructor told it, he was awesome and they could not figure out how hr was learning so fast.