[Rembrandt]

Buffalo Bill Cody probably started the exhibition trick shooting shows with the likes of Anne Oakley and others....but have you ever attended one yourself?

I've had the good fortune to see John Saterwhite do some amazing things with a 1911 on arial shots...later found out he uses shot cartridges when doing this. Single projectiles flying thru the sky were a bit dangerous. Saterwhite is also pretty good with a shotgun.

Saw Texan Joe Bowman do some amazing single action quick draw work. He uses Ruger single actions that have been specially modified.

Olympic Gold Medal trap shooter Kimberly Rhode and her father put on a good show with shotguns. She hangs upside down with her legs over her fathers shoulders and shoots arial targets. Very impressive young lady who has mastered the shotgun.

[AZ Husker]

Can't remember his name, but a hundred years ago when I was a kid, I saw a guy promoting Remington's Nylon 66. He'd shoot little wooden blocks out of the air forever. Made me save my pennies. I've still got that rifle!

[444]

Tom Frye ?

[Bigjake]

saw that shotgunner at fin feather fur outfitters in ashland,ohio. knapp i belive his name was?

[Futo Inu]

Well, those .45 shotshell loads may be safer, but they also sure to help the shooter accomplish the trick (and fool the crowd into thinking he's more amazing than he really is).

[vanbeast]

My room-mate once fired a .30-30 round through his bedroom wall but I wasn't there to see it. HAHAHHAHA!! Oh man... *sniff*.

I'm scared to death that's EXACTLY what is going to happen with my roommate...

[Quantrill]

Husker,
Could that Remington Exhibition Shooter have been Herb Parsons?? When I was a youngun', I saw him perform twice in the mid to late 1950's. I still can't believe what he could do with any of the guns he was promoting. Quantrill

[gamegod86]

I saw Bob Munden one time. He is pretty entertaining.

Todd

[Stickjockey]

A couple years ago a local car dealership brought Bob Munden in for a demo at their lot. No live rounds, just "fast draw" stuff. That boy's fast!

He also brought some of his collection with him, including some of his own custom work. If you need a Colt Single Action smoothed out, his are like glass!

(Note: I have no affiliation with Bob or his gunsmithing business.)

[Bacchus]

I watched Jerry Miculek's demonstration one time. He had a S&W revolver with his custom grips on it in 45 ACP with full moon clips.

It was amazing how fast he could pull the trigger 6 times, reload, and do it again while maintaining torso hits on silhouettes.

[AZ Husker]

Quantrill...Herb Parsons sounds right. It must have been around 1960. There were no tricks or gimmicks! Remington must have sold millions of guns with a show like that. He'd basically stop in every little town along the highway!

[444]

A Remington exhibition shooter named I believe, Tom Frye set some kind of a world record shooting wooden blocks hand tossed in the air using Remington Nylon 66s. This even occured in Reno Nevada sometime in the 1960s. When I was a kid, I got a book for Christmas that was entitled something like "The Best of Guns & Ammo 1960-1970" or something to that effect. It contained a story on this exhibition. The previous record was held by Ad Topperwein. There is some dispute that Frye didn't set his record using the exact same technique as Topperwein but I don't recall the details.
Yes, I had a Nylon 66, still have it and bought another one within the last year or two.

[444]

Here is a link I dug up on Tom Frye. See if this looks familiar AZ Husker:
http://www.traphof.org/inductees/frye.htm

[AZ Husker]

Sounds right, but there were several like that then. The one I saw in person was travelling down Highway 30 in Nebraska with Remington stuff all over his panelwagon. Man, kids came running from miles away! Course, back in those days parents got punished if their kids DIDN'T have a gun!

[Quantrill]

Husker,
You got me thinking about Herb Parsons and I believe he shot for Winchester/Western, not for Remington. As I remember, he replaced Ad Topperwien as Winchester/Western's exhibition shooter when Ad's sight started to fail. Quantrill

[Art Eatman]

I got to watch Bob Munden and John Satterwhite at the Steel Challenge in 1982. Satterwhite did the seven-claybird thing with his 870.

My grandfather was friends with Ad Toepperwein. Heard a few stories. I sorta recall seeing him once, at Petmecky's Sporting Goods store in Austin, back in the late 1930s, I guess it was. (That might be where I first got a whiff of Hoppe's #9. :) ) Petmecky's was the main central Texas hangout for shooters, way back when.

Art

[cxm]

Bill Jordan used to put on some very interesting and entertaining exibitions of "fast and fancy shooting."

Growing up in the same town with Mr. Jordan resulted in seeing him shoot a lot.

V/r

Chuck

[MessedUpMike]

I saw one of the trick shooters for Beretta at a shoot for a bunch of congressional wives some years back. I can't remeber his name, but he used a 686, and he was a real treat to watch!

[HankB]

I've seen John Satterwhite do his thing a couple of times. He was - at that time - using somewhat customized Benelli shotguns to shoot 7 clay pigeons he'd tossed in the air simultaneously. He was using a pretty open choke - a shell dropped in at the muzzle would fall in up to the rim, so the choke was at least as open as the chamber! According to my stopwatch, he broke those seven birds in about 2 seconds. (FWIW, when I was more in practice with a scattergun, I've done four with my M1S90 . . . and once or twice I managed to hit five. But not every time . . . we won't go into my percentages!!)

Satterwhite's Benelli had custom wood - "Shell Flame Maple" - because, in his words, it was the "gaudiest" wood he could find.

From what I've heard, Tom Frye "beat" Ad Topperwein's record by changing the parameters - closer shooting, less of a crossing angle - so IMHO Topperwein's record should still stand.

Also, I'm happy to say, a local restaurant has a picture of Ad Topperwein with a rifle sitting atop a big pile of perforated wood blocks - "World Record" lettered across the top of the photo. 72,500 hand tossed blocks, nine misses, and a "longest run" of 14,500 without a miss.

[Vic303]

Bob Munden--3x at the Powder Creek range Shooting Sports Festival in KS. He's great, and so is his wife Becky.

[Rembrandt]

Munden has a video tape that is a "must see".....they illustrate how fast he really is with a stop clock and slow motion video. Six shots with a single action in under a fraction of a second. So fast it sounds like one shot went off.

Also have a tape of Herb Parson's called "Showman Shooter", made in the late fifties. Parson's was trick shooter for Winchester....most amazing shooting was him taking a stack of 7 clay targets, throwing them in the air, and breaking each one with a seperate shot from a model 12 pump before they hit the ground....I've seen guys do this with a semi-auto, but none with a pump.

He would also shoot watermelons full of dynamite....ATF wouldn't approve of that today.

Using a .22 cal pump he would eject the empty hull into the air and shoot it with the next round...and keep repeating this until the magazine was empty.

[Nando Aqui]

Almost 40 years ago I needed to learn to shoot a shotgun so I could go hunting with my soon-to-be father-in-law. And so I went to the Winchester Club in Fort Wayne, IN.

It was a Sunday, and I just walked up to the manager at the counter (I believe his name was Marv) and told him that I didn't know anything about shooting, but would like to learn. Marv, who was in a wheelchair, said that he had just the guy to teach me, and had me go to one of the skeet ranges. By the way, I had no idea of what skeet or trap were.

There, a Winchester rep talked me through the steps, and I broke 15/25 the very first time. <<< Later that day, that man demonstrated shooting skeet with the gun at hip level. I watched him for about three or four rounds - - he never missed - he shot all the birds from the hip, including doubles. I understand he used the same style for shooting trap, but I didn't see it. >>>

After that I got hooked on skeet. And then rifles. And then handguns... And hunting...

Alex

[444]

Rembrandt
Where do you buy these tapes ?

[ralphtt]

and I was privileged to see his exhibit while attending the University of Tennessee at Martin in the late '50's. (things sure have changed since then . . . imagine a gun demo at your local college ;) )

Herb did amazing things with the Model 12. Would load it with seven shells and hand throw seven clay targets into the air. Grabbed the Model 12 off the table and broke all seven targets, individually, before they hit the ground. He had to try it a couple times 'cause more than once he would break two targets with one shot.

He also used a Model 61 .22 rifle (or maybe it was a Model 62 . . . can't be sure) to flip an empty .22 cartridge case into the air and shoot it while it fell. Seldom missed one of these and he shot them rapid-fire.

Then he pulled a Model 70 off the table and loaded it while explaining that Winchester guns shot harder the harder you pulled the trigger. :p He tossed up a couple cantaloupes and busted them just to show that the rifle was powerful. He then placed a target on a couple bales of hay about halfway across the football field and told his audience he was going to really pull the trigger this time. When he shot, the bales of hay literally disintegrated and a good-sized hole was left where they had been located. Obviously some sort of explosive device or dynamite triggered by the shot. :neener:

Herb Parsons was a showman too. He kept up a continuous line of conversation during the entire show and seeing this act was quite an experience for this college freshman!

Winchester offered the show on video tape for a while and I still have a copy here somewhere. Gonna' have to dig it out and refresh my memory . . . :D

[Rembrandt]

444,....the Bob Munden tape I rented from a local gun shop, the Herb Parsons tape I copied off from a friends original. I'm sure someone must carry copies of these....next time I'm at the gun shop, I'll see if there's a production companies name on the tapes.

[isshin68]

Hello,
About 1974 I saw Bill Jordan do a demo at the UTA ROTC range. He did about a 45 min. demo. Broke the aspirin tablets point shooting, did the ping pong ball drop to draw and ball fell into empty holster. Most amazing thing he did was ask a volunteer from the audience to hold a blank loaded single action just off his arm and an assistant held an aluminum pie pan about 15 feet to the side....Mr. Jordan asked the volunteer to "shoot him in the arm" when he felt ready...when the man moved, Mr. Jordan unsnapped his holster and put 6 plastic Speer bullets within one inch in the center of the pie pan....before the man could pull the trigger....sounded full auto. I had a model 19 with the Herrett grips and the Don Hume Jordan Trooper holster....

[nutty7462]

http://gunvideo.com/pgroup_descrip/67/4990/

Never purchased from this website and not affiliated with them in any way.

[CSA 357]

cmx, your a lucky man to have watched bill jordon shoot, now there was a man! csa

[Templar223]

I've been lucky to study under Chief AJ... world record holder in a number of shooting records. Seen him shoot exhibition style as well. It's not as hard as it appears once you've learned some of the fundamentals.

Also, Bill Oglesby is mighty impressive. And he doesn't use shot cartridges either.

John

[Fosbery]

Can't remember his name, but a hundred years ago when I was a kid, I saw a guy promoting Remington's Nylon 66. He'd shoot little wooden blocks out of the air forever. Made me save my pennies. I've still got that rifle!

When the Nylon 66 first went on sale in the UK in ~1960 a guy came over who'd broken the world record in shooting wooden blocks out of the air with a rifle, to promote the gun. Must have been this guy!