Alamo Fast Draw Episode 27 History of Fast Draw

17 August, 2008 (06:57) | Fast Draw Talk Show, History

Coffin handle Bowie Knife. Blade is in the pat...

Alamo Fast Draw Episode 27 History of Fast Draw
LLedslinger: The subject for tonight the origins of fast draw. The other night I was talking to Blackbird and I mentioned what I wanted to do on the show he made a comment I don't really remember what the comment was exactly what I said I wanted to talk about the origins of fast draw. Now that doesn't mean the origins of fast draw competition. I had read a book a while back called the First Fast Draw by Louis L'amour the story I guess was his way of giving up his theory of the first fast draw. When I mentioned that to blackbird he said well you want to go all the way back to sword's or something along those lines. Blackbird is here tonight and were going to find exactly what he'd met by that and hopefully he will enlighten us. Blackbird how are you doing? Was I pretty close to what you said the other night.
Blackbird: Yeah if you can get real close to when swords begin we have leeway of several thousands or maybe 0.5 million years. I think the idea of the fast draw is part of maybe a or general idea of readiness. A lot of people got themselves killed when they were not just quite prepared for meeting their enemy when they were coming around the corner. It probably at least goes back to the time of sword when men habitually wore sword's. They came up on an enemy unexpectedly, they went for their sword's and their sword's very often were fixed in a way that would make them handy and the fellow they got his sword cleared from the scabbard first was ready to chop or thrust was the fellow who won that day's contest. So that's what I meant by the day of the sword.
LLedslinger: When you first mentioned that to me it kind of caught me by surprise. But it didn't take me long to kind of realize that that would be a very good possibility that that's really how far it went back. You would draw that sword out quick and get into business.
Blackbird: Just look at the oldest paintings that you can find more woodcuts whenever you have for illustrations. Several hundred years ago the you see men with things like knife's or dirks or swords and they're stuck in a waistband of some sort at the very least. Very often there on the left side handy to the right hand reaching for them and their tilted in the direction of the right hand so the man can reach for that handle and swing this word out without having to raise his hand higher than his hat. I think the idea of being prepared were ready is a very old one it may go back beyond sword's it might go back to clubs for all I know. I would guess that it's an ancient idea and I think also if we could learn anything from this is very often we think of progress in fast draw in terms of the discovery of this or that point of how to build a holster or how to arrange a gun. The basic idea is really much older than the fellow who most recently popularized that idea.
Lledslinger: I think you probably find that in a lot of things out there that over the years we find that things we think are pretty new are not anywhere near as new as we were regionally thought.
Jim Martin: Back in the early days of Texas the Jim Bowie was a hell of a knife fighter, this is where we're going to go a little bit from the sword's to the knife's. There was a famous fight between Jim Bowie and about four different people all at once. He took on all four of these guys or five I can't remember exactly how many it was but he wiped them all out by himself with his bowie knife. Now that's gonna be doggone fast. Bowie was very famous for being very fast with a knife so this is kind of a natural progression from what Bob was saying while ago with the sword. When you bring your weapon to bare fast it's the fast draw it don't make any difference whether it's that or even a shovel for instance if you get that show up their first you're going to beat the hell out of your opponent. It's bringing a weapon to bare is what it amounts to.
LLedslinger: Yes and that's why it made sense to me when I thought about it, I had just never thought about it that way and it just naturally progressed into guns.
Jim Martin: Then in colonial times when you had the flint locks they were carried in a Cumberbun as opposed to a holster and then when they progressed from the flint locks to the percussion cap they were still carry that way and generally a guy would carry two or three or even more because they were single shot pistols. You had to be an adept at pulling these things and getting them into the confrontation very fast and this is where I think the first fast draw with the guns, came from because this was up close and personal battles because once you fired your rifle you're all done you haven't got a chance to reload that rifle so you had to go to your pistols. I did an interview one time with a program called Arizona cowboy where I talked about this and the first time I saw the border shift ever done with muzzleloaders believe it or not Leslie Nielsen did it. He was playing the part of the Swap Fox and he drew one percussion cap at of his Cumberbun and shot it then swapped guns pulled the other gun and shot it and took his opponent out. He did a border shift to achieve that it's the first time I never shot done with a percussion cap handgun. Disney research this because the Swamp Fox was a real person he was very famous back in his day.
LLedslinger: I think Blackbird had a comment on my comment about the natural progression.
Blackbird: I think there is a progression, I don't think it's necessarily a straight linear progression. I think their sort of a conversion of ideas that come and meet at some point and complement each other. I think the knife fighting that Jim mentioned the reason Bowie's hook at the aft end and some people will talk about a little bit of a breast catcher on the upper side of the blade. These are sort of little technological things and I are very important but they don't tell the whole story. There usually has to be some need for a thing in there has to be someone willing to push it along because of that need, what the sociologist used to call a push and a pull but to get back to earth. I think that the things that were converging at the time were the knife blading the sword fighting and the importance of being ready and quick along with the dueling pistol and the orders of dueling in the countries in which it was legal and in the countries in which it was illegal and dealing with those laws. I think the early dualist of the old west and they were called dualist probably much more often than shootist. It had as much to do with the code of dueling as they had to do with technical breakthroughs like the one very important one the six shotgun.

If any of you Gunfighters would like to hear more of this interveiw you can listen to episode 27 on the audio player(red) on the right side of this page. If you would like to join in the show live or listen live to the Alamo Fast Draw show or call 1-724-444-7444 show#16056. Whether you are a gunfighter or not its a fun show.

Gunfighter Gulch Is a great place to get a lot of info on Fast Draw History.