Alamo Fast Draw

Interveiw With the Gunfighter Jim Martin:
LLedslinger: What got you interested in Fast Draw.

Well it goes back to when I was a kid clear back in the forties watching the western movies, I grew up on them. The only problem I have today I've got old I just haven't changed, I grew old I just didn't grow up is what it amounts to. TiM McCoy I was a big fan of his and I still am. People talk a lot about movie actors you know and how fast they are and everything and in most cases they really are'nt, that's all PR stuff but Tim McCoy really was he was a hell of a gunman. He was probably one of the first actors whoever timed himself by using frames of the film he can count the frames of the film to see how long it took to draw. It was down around 1/4 second I don't remember  the exact time but that's pretty close he was really good with a gun. I used to watch Johnny Macbrown and Roy Rogers doing fancy gunhandling them  I would go home and practice them all and then at go back to the movies and watch it some more. Thats how I got started doing the fancy gunhandling.
LLedslinger: When you started seeing the movies it go all the way back to the silent movies?
Jim: when I was young I didn't see a whole lot of silent movies. One of my favorite silent movies was  Tumbleweed with William S. Heart. It was RE released in 1938 if I remember correctly. He did a prologue to it that's about the Landrush in Oklahoma you know and he filmed it and he did all of his own stunt riding and everything. He was a real good horseman, avid old west fan and in the prologue to his 38 release still silent then but he did just a magnificent speech he was just a great orator and really knew how to talk. It's very moving in fact a raise the hair on the back of my head when I saw it just a few years ago after all that time. Most of the movies I watched when I was a kid were B movies from the thirties and a you know I think it was about 1943 before I found out that Tom Nix was dead. I didn't know he had died in 40 or 41 I think it was 41 when he got killed out here by Florence Arizona in a car wreck. I did not know he was dead you know I was watching his movies in the movie house where I went they just played westerns you know so I literally grew up with this stuff.
LLedslinger: You got into fast draw but were you playing around with guns long before that?
Jim: Yeah every sense I can remember I've been messing with them and when I heard about the fast draw thing. You know a lot of people todays don't know this but all fast draw when it started was done with live ammo there was no Blanks and there was no wax. You try to explain that to people today and people don't believe it but that's the way it was.
LLedslinger: When that was your first contest.
Jim Martin: Oh probably about 54 or 55 I'm a little hazy on the year but it was right along there someplace out in the desert north of Los Angeles. A bunch of guys would be out shooting and whatever holster you had on and what ever gun you had on, you got up there and then they started trying to figure out a way to start us together you know because we were not just shooting by ourself it was elimination. This will really sounds strange in todays time but they used to have a guy stand between the two shooters with a handkerchief for instance. He'd be just slightly behind with his arm extended and when the guy drop the handkerchief you both went for your gun and then they had guys judging to see who shot first and who hit it was crude but that's the way it was done back then. Then they started using stopwatches and that didn't work too well.
LLedslinger: I guess if you had two guys that shot real close together it would be real hard to tell who won.
Jim Matin: They just called it a draw and they did it over. There wasn't any, there just wasn't a whole lot of this big ego junk going on back then like it is today.
LLedslinger: Do you have a favorite shooting style?
Jim Martin: Thumbing I always preferred it and I stayed with it but I did want to learn how to do the others just so I knew that I could do it. I could ram fan or poke fan whatever you want to call it I even learn had to twist and I hate it. That's one of the things that really hurt the sport of fast draw a lot, was injecting some of this un-western type of shooting and un-western type of holster you know them big bucket holsters I think it really hurt the sport but then I'm opinionated to.

If any of you Gunfighters would like to hear more of this interveiw you can listen to episode 11 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.