American Shooter, shot of the week

[trimation]

I have never watched this program before, last night was my first time. They had this segment on called Shot of the Week with this marksman named Bob something. I am sure some of you saw this. This guy made the most amazing shot with a handgun I have ever seen. First, he took a Ruger in .454 casull with what looked to be a six inch barrel and shot a little balloon on a steel plate at 200 yards. It only took him one shot.

Then, the most amazing thing ever. He made the same shot with a .38 snubbie. Unbelievable. 200 yards, open sights, no rest. I didn't know such things were possible. Does this kind of thing happen all the time?

Trimation

[Mal H]

"Does this kind of thing happen all the time?" Yes, when Bob Munden does it. :) Bob is one of the best revolver/pistol shots around these days. Some of his trick shots and timed shots are unbelievable, but true. Would you believe shooting a holstered revolver, hitting a target and reholstering in roughly 2 to 3 hundredths of a second? How does he do it? Practice, practice, practice.

[trimation]

Does Mr. Munden typically do a segment on American Shooter every week? If so I am going to have to tune in more often.

Trimation

[larryw]

There's a SOTW segment on every show with three or four shooters sharing duty, but Bob's the best. Wait'll you see him shooting hand-thrown Trap with dimes and a pistol. :D

[gulogulo1970]

He pretty much does a segment once a show. I saw that show last night. Not only did he hit with the snub he did it three times in a row! That is one great shooter. I love that show.

[trimation]

gulogulo1970

You're right, I forgot about the fact that he did it three times in a row with the snubbie. My girlfriend was laying next to me, watching me freak out while I watched this, and she says, "what is that good or something?"

People that don't shoot just don't get how hard it is. I am still trying to get her down to the range with me.

Trimation

[10-Ring]

Those "Shots of the Week" segments can be really awesome! Makes you feel kinda lame shooting at 25', huh :(

[trimation]

Yeah it does. I told my girlfriend that I would probably have a hard time hitting that balloon at a quarter of the distance he did.

Trimation

[ENC]

Remember it is TV

Just because they show him hitting it the first time or three times in a row doesn't mean he really did it that easy.

Don't get me wrong he is a great shooter as are all of the SOTW shooters are but they do miss.

The great thing about Munden is he shoots all kinds of things wheelguns, autos, and even bow and arrow for those "trick" shots

[Topgun]

A good "aiming point" and being a good shot to begin with makes it a whole lot easier.

The Pewee Valley "Longshooters" used to have matches with .38 Spl revolvers. (6" bbls and good sights) to shoot turkey silhouettes at 200 yards.....ONE HANDED.

Way long time ago.

The modern trend towards tactical guns, mag capacity, 2 handed hold, and fast repeat shots, while great for defensive training, has really put bullseye shooting out of favor for some years now.

But it can be done. I shot a crow out of a tree at 85 yards once with my dad's Woodsman.

Not same league but a fine hold can work wonders with a handgun.

And.....practice practice practice

[trimation]

ENC-

yeah, about the bows, they showed a small clip last night on the show of someone doing some kind of trick with a bow and two arrows stringed at once and he had his head turned. Didn't show what he was going to do but it looked really interesting. Hopefully it will be on the show next week.

Trimation

[Bainx]

trimation, you need to hurry up and tape all of the A. Shooter episodes while they are still running. The rest of us are sick and tired of the re-runs and are hoping Jim's new show will start running. When it does, I have to believe, A. Shooter will vanish.

:cool:

[stans]

I think Mr. Munden is a great shooter. I also think he practices a whole lot more than most of us. Practice makes perfect.

[Mal H]

ENC is right about the made-for-TV aspect. Bob is a great shot, no doubt about that. But, even he will tell you he doesn't hit them all from the gitgo and there is some editing to make it look a little better than it is. I've heard him say, sort of under his breath, things like, "you don't know how hard that one was" or "I finally got it right". Once he has the distance or technique required, thats when he does the amazing shots one after the other.

[trimation]

Well, I figured that he didn't get the shot right off the bat the first time, but still it was one heck of a shot.

Stans-yeah, my girlfriend asked me how he does it and I told her that he probably has practiced every day of his life since he was a kid.

Trimation

[Tim Burke]

Would you believe shooting a holstered revolver, hitting a target and reholstering in roughly 2 to 3 hundredths of a second?
No.
I am assuming that the 2-3 hundredths of a second does not include any reaction time.
The world record single action fast draw (traditional) as of 2000 was 0.252 seconds. This includes the reaction time of 0.145 seconds, leaving 0.107 seconds for the draw and the shot. This does not include a reholster. I find it hard to believe that someone could draw from a holster, fire double action, and reholster in 1/3 to 1/5 of that time.

[armoredman]

What's up - American Shooter is bye bye? What new show?

[hksw]

But, even he will tell you he doesn't hit them all from the ...

Yup. Due also to the amount of time he has to show the trick shoots on TV, it's not very efficient to use up most of the time to show the misses. Except for one segment where he was shooting a thrown into the air target with a .45 ACP derringer. (IIRC, a coin. Don't recall the denomination.) He certainly knew he would miss a few and in the begining showed the, IIRC, .30 cal ammo can filled to the top with .45 ACP reloads he would be shooting. He was down to his last two shots when he finally hit it with the second last shot.

[Sisco]

Saw Tom Knapp live a few weeks ago, he has done shotgun segments on American Shooter.
On TV they make hitting nine hand tossed clays look easy. In real life he had to try almost a dozen times before he got them all. Several times he didn't fire a shot because they wern't patterning right after being thrown.

[Black Snowman]

Tim Burke , fire double action,

Of course he fires single action fanning because double is far too slow. The hammer is already starting to drop again before the barrels on target. I've seen it on TV in both real time and with high speed photogrophy. It's just crazy. Absolutely no wasted movement. I think it would still fall under 0.30 of a second, not 0.03 of a second. That's a nearly impreceptible amount of time. I think Mal H was either mis-quoting or mis-informed. It's easy to get those decimal places off ;)

My favorite was him shooting an asprin at 100 yards with his well-worn 1911. Only took 7 tries too. So then the archer (can't remember his name) had to do it too, but he tossed his in the air. So the week after that Bob had to do the same trick with his 1911 ;)

[Mal H]

Nope, no mistake on the decimal point. And Tim is correct that reaction time was not included. The timer would start when the revolver started to move and stopped when it was reholstered. There was a large face clock with the single hand making one revolution in one second. The hand moved very little. I may be wrong about the 2 to 3/100ths, but it was definitely 5/100ths or less. I'm certain it was no where near 1/5th second or more.

[added]
Check out this page, 2nd paragraph: http://www.outdoorcentral.com/mc/pr/03/09/04c4.asp

[Gillster]

Not trying to take anything away from Bob Munden, seen him shoot in person several times with his wife and they are great to watch, but the bullet splatter from hitting the big STEEL target will pop the balloon, it doesn't need to be a direct hit on the balloon itself. Saw an episode one time where Bob and Byron?? (the archer) went after smaller and smaller thrown objects till they had each hit a thrown aspirin out of the air. Amazing stuff.

Chris

[SASS#23149]

On one show I saw bob hand throw four clays and hit em all......with a double barrel shotgun! very fast relaod and hammer cocking.!!!

[JohnKSa]

It's true that he just has to hit the plate. However, IIRC, the shot was made at quite a bit longer range than 200 yards.

I've also seen him hit a balloon at 75 yards with a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. You don't get any bullet splash to help you with that...

[Tim Burke]

Black Snowman writes:
Of course he fires single action fanning because double is far too slow.
Bad assumption on my part. I thought DA would have been faster. Thanks for the clarification.

Mal H writes:There was a large face clock with the single hand making one revolution in one second. The hand moved very little. I may be wrong about the 2 to 3/100ths, but it was definitely 5/100ths or less. I'm certain it was no where near 1/5th second or more. Yeah, I thought you might have gotten the decimal point wrong, too. 1/5 of a second would be about what I figured, thinking that it would take just as long to get holstered as to it did to get off the shot. On the dial, 1/5 of a second would mean a sweep of 72 degrees, same as a standard second hand sweeping from 0-12 seconds, or past the 2 o'clock position. 0.05 would mean a sweep of 18 degrees, which compares to a zero to 3 second sweep on the standard second hand. 0.033 would mean a sweep of 12 degrees, which would be the sweep from 0-2 seconds on the standard second hand. Those of us that learned to tell time on an analog watch are very adept at determining whether the hand has swept past the 1 o'clock position, which, in Mal's clock, equals 1/12 of a second. If Mal tells me it's significantly less than that, I believe him (her?). I would still like to see it. The link Mal provided quotes a record which is certainly fast enough to make one think this is possible.

[Black Snowman]

It's crazy fast. Of course I've never seen him take less than 3 shots when he's drawn so maybe that's why I was guessing longer. His quick draw shirt has a leather shield to protect him from the cylinder blast since the gun doesn't come up much over his belt and never goes out of alignment with with the holster.

IIRC, which I may not, the quick draw competition mentioned is 2 shots, on two targets at differant heights and distances. That will slow you down a bit ;)

[Tim Burke]

IIRC, which I may not, the quick draw competition mentioned is 2 shots, on two targets at differant heights and distances.
There may be one like that, but not the one I was citing. I used this site (http://www.fastdraw.org/fd_draw.html) as my source for my numbers.

[Mal H]

The more I replay what I saw in my mind (I sure wish I had a video of it), I think I misstated what he did. Now I believe it was only a draw and fire and the clock stopped when the shot was fired, not when the gun was reholstered. I still maintain it was only a few 100ths of a second, that I remember distinctly.

[Tim Burke]

Based on Munden's world record, that certainly sounds within the realm of possibility... for him. That's probably a technically easier thing to time, too.

[Scooter .45]

And the fishing programs show 'em catching one fish after the other for an entire 30 mins...uh huh. Make no mistake, BM is a great shot and those guys are great fishermen, but you can do amazing things with 8 hours of edited tape. Pro photograpers take hundreds of shots to find that one prizewinner too. Doesn't diminish the expertise required, it's just the way life is.

[Archie]

I've seen Bob Munden in person.

The time for a single "fast draw" shot is in thousandths of a second. (Two significant figure numbers.)

I've seen him shoot balloons with short barrelled revolvers. When I saw him shoot, the backing was a plywood surface, so the bullet did not disintegrate and splatter the balloon.

He didn't hit all the long range targets on the first try. But he hit a couple right off.

And, he's a pretty decent guy to talk to.

[targetshootr]

i seem to remember the 454 FA shot was at 250 yards? incredible for sure.

a few years ago he and byron ferguson were at a show in yanceyville, nc. i drove up there and got up the nerve to shake their hands and ask a question or two. i placed an order for one of mr fergusons bows which i have yet to shoot. i also bought some of their videos. a year before bob munden tuned a couple of colts for me. they are as slick as owl poop.

he did a show and then bought out some of his guns for everyone to handle. he even let people like me hold his gold plated colt 45. what a day it was. one i'll long remember.

[targetshootr]

speaking of long range shots, elmer keith could hit a 4 foot square target at 700 yards with a scopeless handgun. i think thats close to half a mile.

[paul105]

Here is a link to John Taffin's article on Bob Munden's gunsmithing and some mention of his quick draw activities: http://www.sixguns.com/range/munden.htm

Here's a link to Bob Munden's own web page -- he sells videos, etc. He also lists his gunsmithing services: http://www.bob-munden.com/index.htm

I saw a performance where he and his wife Becky were demonstrating fast draw with blanks -- no he didn't make every shot, but it was still truely amazing. Taking into consideration that he isn't a young man anymore -- he must have really been something in his prime when his reactions were at their peak.

[461]

Bob also rides Harley's and is a heckuva nice fella.

[LeonCarr]

Bob Munden claims that he is in the Guinness Book of World Records, but I have looked at Guinness Books back to 1980 and I have yet to find his record listed. Can anybody help? Has anybody seen his record in the book, and what year was the book? Thanks a bunch.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

[Stevie-Ray]

Yeah, he was definitely in Guinness, I've got it somewhere. Seemed to me it was in the late 70s or early 80s, but I don't know. I'll try to find it. In it there was a picture of him drawing a fairly long-barreled revolver. Man, he must be getting old. He was amazing when I was a kid.

[paul105]

On his web page, it makes reference to when he was 11 in 1953 -- that would make him 61 or so.

[bones]

I thought it was a 44 Mag. not a 454- watched the shoot twice- yep 44Mag

[Moparmike]

I saw the one where he was shooting coins, with a .45lc I believe. He hit Half-dollars, Quarters, Sacagawea dollars, Nickels, Pennies, and even a Dime, ALL TOSSED IN THE AIR!!! That is one man I want to be on the good side of if I am within 1000yds of him armed.:)

[JohnK]

What's up - American Shooter is bye bye? What new show?

Shooting USA is supposed to be the new show.

http://www.shootingusa.com/


Bobs 200 yard shots with the 2" 38 are impressive, so are his 600 yard balloon hits with a iron sight 6" M29. He used a truck hood for a rest for those, but that's still damn impressive shooting.

[azrael]

Last year Bob Munden was in Raleigh NC for a fishing or hunting show...me and a bud were supposed to attend but I came down with the flu and couldnt attend...THIS year if he comes to NC anywhere near me I am going even if I have to be wheeled in on a stretcher!!!!:D

One of my favorite episodes of sotw...he showed different draw speeds from TV and movies...he even said that the late Sammy Davis Jr. was a heck of a shot!!!...I still want to find the episode where he shot the 3 steel targets with the Colt SAA in answer to Jerry Miculeks record with a S&W mdl 625 .45acp revolver...I would love to know the time it took him to do that with a single action pistol.

[ProCharger]

I did watch one where a shooter was shooting at some washers with a small pistol caliber. It looked like he missed cause it came straight down, well the guy asked to put tape over the hole for ther est of the shots. after that he DID have 2 shots that missed the washer completely but put a hole in the tape in the center. Very impressive to me!

Brett

[JohnKSa]

so are his 600 yard balloon hits with a iron sight 6" M29. He used a truck hood for a rest for those, but that's still damn impressive shooting.
THAT'S what I was trying to remember. I was pretty sure that he was using a 44mag, and I was pretty sure that the distance was quite a bit longer than 200 or 250 yards. Thanks for refreshing my memory.