Alamo Fast Draw

Alamo fast draw interview with Cal Elrich: Cal Elrich 17 time World Fast Draw Champion was my guest on episode 4 for of the Alamo Fast Draw show. The following it is an excerpt from my interview with this gunfighter also known as Quick Cal.
Cal: Hi Steve how are you do this evening.
Lledslinger: pretty good, a little nervous but OK.
Cal: Oh why are you nervous man were among friends here.
Lledslinger: Yes we are but a I've come a long ways. Used to be I could not talk in front of five people. I'll calm down here as soon as things get going.
Cal: Alrighty well I'll tell you, you know you covered some of the things. I'll tell you I started fast draw when I was 15 years old and it was during the late sixties. I'd just gotten know a whole bunch of the folks that were a few years older than I was and I think it got me going and the right direction in life. I just learned so much from so many folks that the had a big impact on me and my life. Consequently I am a student of the game. Even before I started shooting and 1968 I studied who the past champions were. I just always just love the sport I think its a certain brotherhood among those that stand on the line and put it all on the line. I feel a real close bond with anybody that shoots fast draw.
Lledslinger: It's hard to find a better group of people.
Cal: Well it really is my main it's really unique thing you know. It's a high level competition, you're on the line shooting whether index or elimination. You're out there trying to do your best you can in win, you're standing there one moment give it all you've got and trying to put an X on your opponent and a that may be one of your best friends in the world and you're off having a beer after the competitions over and patting each other on the back. That's a really unique thing.
Lledslinger: Cal you have kind of got this Cowboy thing going, why don't we talk about Cowboy Fast Draw.
Cal: Well I'll tell you years ago I spent all those years in fast draw. I started venturing into other games you know whether it was parcical pistol shooting some call it combat shooting and then I had a good run in that during the eighties and I spent most of my time doing that. Then I came back into fast draw in the late eighties early nineties and they came back with a different perspective than what I'd left with then what I had before I ventured into these other sports. I came back much more conscious of safety rules even though we had an in the World Fast Draw Association. We always had safety rules but I had a totally different vantage point about how we ran our contests and how we appeared. It kind of dawned on me that the holsters the equipment and don't get me wrong I was there with everyone else trying to win and using the latest equipment that was out. It seemed to me that we forgot our roots. I remember a friend of mine called Dennis Robinson said to me it looked more like Buck Rogers than Roy Rogers and so I really felt that we should start pushing the traditional fast draw and so I spent some time in the nineties as an officer of the World Fast Draw Association and tried to push the more traditional type shooting. You see what happens Steve folks go out and buy the really high quality equipment we have, the highly tuned guns, the really good leather and everything everyone uses. Everybody just gets in to that equipment and once people buy it and I own it, I don't think you can ever change and again. And so a friend of mine started the Cowboy Fast Draw Association and 2002 his name is Brad Hima he's the manager general manager of the first gold hotel casino there in Deadwood. He put on promoted and hosted more about 9 or 10 fast draw championships in Deadwood all during the nineties and he too saw that the equipment was getting a little bit much. And so he formed this Cowboy Fast Draw Association and he actually called me when he was putting it together as he did a lot of people, he got a lot of information from a lot of folks about equipment so he pretty much decided we were going to use stock guns and you can do in action job on them but no exterior modification period. Even the action work we don't allow anything that affects out word operation of the gun. No short strokes, no free spines, and you can't take the safeties out of them and so the guns are pretty much so you can go into your local gun shop, purchase a gun and go when a world championship with it with very little work done to it if any.
If you would like to hear more of this interveiw you can listen to episode 4 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.