Observing Moonshine Brutality
30 September 2024 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dime_novel_heroI had been following Ian McCollum’s YouTube channel Forgotten Weapons when I was introduced to Finnish Brutality in 2022 (link to video). As the name implies, it was pretty brutal but it also looked like a lot of fun. Just this year (or the end of last year), Karl of InRange TV, wanting more out of Cowboy Action Shooting, added a category to Brutality matches called Dead Eye, which, as one might expect, added 19th Century guns to the mix (link to video).
When Woodland Brutality came to a range in West Virginia, I wanted to go to spectate but life intervened and I missed out. But not much later, another opportunity came up with Moonshine Brutality (link).
But, what is Brutality? Well, it is kind of like pretty much any action shooting competition, only much, much more so. For example, Cowboy Action Shooting has shooters running a stage with two single action pistols (5 rounds each), a lever action rifle (10 rounds), and a shotgun, often times a double-barrel coach gun but also pump-action 1897s or lever action 1887s also show up. You fire at pretty close range and some very large steel plates with the rifle, then with the pistols, then 2 or 4 knockdown targets with the shotgun. Usually you move a few steps from one firing position to another. Sometimes the pistols are first. Sometimes the shotgun is first. Sometimes the shotgun is first, then also after the rifle and pistol. It’s pretty much the same, though. Every time. 10-10-4+.
To give a sense of how Brutality works, one of the stages went like this. . . With the rifle, engage a small steel target at 50 yards. Hit it three times. Then another steel plate at 75 yards. Three times. 100 yards. Three times. The plates are getting larger but still not the 18 inch plates common in CAS. After hitting all the plates, you put the rifle down, run over to a pile of 40 pound sandbags, grab one and move 10 feet to another pile. Run back to the rifle and shoot the string of plates again. Then back to the pile of sandbags. Repeat as many times as you can in three minutes. Some categories add additional physical challenges such as digging foxholes or running a mile in full kit.
Knowing these are the basics, I wanted to observe an event to see, first off, whether I would be capable of doing such a thing without having an aneurysm and then what it would take me to prepare. Some of the things I learned:
Cardio.
I’ve discussed this before but I am not in my best shape. I used to bicycle commute, would regularly spend a Saturday putting another 80 miles on the bike, and every year would ride the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canalway from Pittsburgh to DC. But loss of that job, a hypertension diagnosis, divorce, several house moves, and a new job that was not conducive to bicycle commuting, conspired to put me into a more sedentary lifestyle. I have resisted, but it has been only partially successful. If I am going to do Brutality without collapsing, I will need to step up my exercise game.
Clothing.
I dressed up to go to the range and got a lot of compliments but, while my reproduction Civil War era infantry boots are fine for the minimal movements of Cowboy Action, they are not going to serve me well at Brutality. I’ll need period clothes that I would care less about getting muddy. Brutality doesn’t have a dress requirement for its categories but I’ll still want to at least make an attempt to dress the part.
Accuracy.
Sending a 45 Colt bullet out to 100 yards to hit a 9 inch plate is quite the challenge with iron sights and a lever action. I’m not sure I can do it. There were three people at Moonshine Brutality shooting the Dead Eye category and I saw one empty his gun at the 100 yard target before getting a single hit. I will need to go to the range and pay attention to these long ranges.
Reloading.
Emptying your gun at a 100 yards target will necessitate reloading on the clock. There were stages that, even at close ranges, had 20 or 30 hits required. For modern guns, it’s relatively easy to just insert another full magazine but my lever action is tube fed and each additional round will need to be added. I will need to practice that. I will also need to carry that ammo with me. I have a drop holster with cartridge loops but for all the running around, I think I want the gun up on my hip rather than my thigh, requiring a new belt.
Cost.
Cowboy Action’s stage setup means that for any given 6 stage match, I will need 60 rounds for pistol, 60 rounds for rifle, and 12 to 24 rounds of shotgun. As both my rifle and pistol use 45 Colt, 120 rounds total for a match. I was watching a video from Gun Bunny as she packed for her trip to Moonshine Brutality and she was talking about taking 600 rounds (link to video).
Now, Brutality uses caliber dependent scoring, in that certain calibers have to hit the target more times. In the example above where the target needed to be hit 3 times, using a different gun might require each of those targets to only be hit twice. For the Dead Eye category, because I am using a pistol caliber for everything, I would only need to hit each target once.
I won’t be needing as much ammo as Gun Bunny’s 600 rounds but that assumes I am able to hit all the targets with that one round. As evidenced by other shooters, there’s bound to be a lot of misses. And at the going rate of about $1 a round for 45 Colt factory loads, a lot of shooting is going to be a lot of money.
Reloading.
Setting up my inherited reloading machine will be absolutely necessary to be able to afford to do this at all. I need to rearrange my garage and get power run.
That is a lot of challenges and detriments. What will I gain from Brutality to balance all that out, to make all that work worth it? In part, I think my experience of seven hours on the road traveling to and from the match illustrates that in part.
Conservatism.
Brutality took place in the backwoods of West Virginia, way up secondary, tertiary, and muddy dirt roads. But long before that, just outside the urban enclave in which I live, the dominance of conservatism was clearly apparent. There were the billboards on the highways, the yard signs, the bumper stickers, more yard signs, the yard that was entirely filled with yard signs, the guy with the big truck with banners and half a dozen flags slowing traffic, and, of course, more yard signs. And this was all still north of the Mason-Dixon line and the general population. The gun community has always been dominated by conservatism. The redneck fudd is a stereotype for a reason.
These are not my people.
Even the gun club of which I am a member (and my father before me, and his father before him being a charter member) is conservative, not only politically but within the shooting sports allowing no steel plates, only one round in any rifle, and only targets at the designated ranges being some of the ways shooters are limited by tradition. Even the 10-10-4+ traditional matches of Cowboy Action are too active for this club.
Brutality is very different. Obviously there is the broad variation in match and stage setups but it is the people that break the mold.
All the stages had science fiction themes (Star Wars, Aliens, Warhammer). There was the guy running stages in a crop top, shorts, and crocks. The guy with the Trans Rights t-shirt. Some assorted rainbows. Gun Bunny in her bunny suit. Cat ears on ear muffs and helmets. Karl from InRange was passing out pizza and selling “Support Choice” t-shirts featuring a fetus with a Glock.
THESE are my people.
Not only that, I’m sure the people at Cowboy Action Shooting matches are having fun, for a given value, but the people at Brutality were clearly enjoying themselves. They were laughing. They were silly. They were animated. They were downright joyful in a way that would seem terribly out of place at CAS.
And this is what I’m looking for. I will never win a match. If I ever win in my CAS Duelist category, it will be because no one else shot that category that day. I will never really be competitive. But if I am having fun, I won’t care. And it’s a lot easier to have fun when it is clear that everyone else is having fun. At Brutality, it was clear, and I want me a piece of that.
When Woodland Brutality came to a range in West Virginia, I wanted to go to spectate but life intervened and I missed out. But not much later, another opportunity came up with Moonshine Brutality (link).
But, what is Brutality? Well, it is kind of like pretty much any action shooting competition, only much, much more so. For example, Cowboy Action Shooting has shooters running a stage with two single action pistols (5 rounds each), a lever action rifle (10 rounds), and a shotgun, often times a double-barrel coach gun but also pump-action 1897s or lever action 1887s also show up. You fire at pretty close range and some very large steel plates with the rifle, then with the pistols, then 2 or 4 knockdown targets with the shotgun. Usually you move a few steps from one firing position to another. Sometimes the pistols are first. Sometimes the shotgun is first. Sometimes the shotgun is first, then also after the rifle and pistol. It’s pretty much the same, though. Every time. 10-10-4+.
To give a sense of how Brutality works, one of the stages went like this. . . With the rifle, engage a small steel target at 50 yards. Hit it three times. Then another steel plate at 75 yards. Three times. 100 yards. Three times. The plates are getting larger but still not the 18 inch plates common in CAS. After hitting all the plates, you put the rifle down, run over to a pile of 40 pound sandbags, grab one and move 10 feet to another pile. Run back to the rifle and shoot the string of plates again. Then back to the pile of sandbags. Repeat as many times as you can in three minutes. Some categories add additional physical challenges such as digging foxholes or running a mile in full kit.
Knowing these are the basics, I wanted to observe an event to see, first off, whether I would be capable of doing such a thing without having an aneurysm and then what it would take me to prepare. Some of the things I learned:
Cardio.
I’ve discussed this before but I am not in my best shape. I used to bicycle commute, would regularly spend a Saturday putting another 80 miles on the bike, and every year would ride the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canalway from Pittsburgh to DC. But loss of that job, a hypertension diagnosis, divorce, several house moves, and a new job that was not conducive to bicycle commuting, conspired to put me into a more sedentary lifestyle. I have resisted, but it has been only partially successful. If I am going to do Brutality without collapsing, I will need to step up my exercise game.
Clothing.
I dressed up to go to the range and got a lot of compliments but, while my reproduction Civil War era infantry boots are fine for the minimal movements of Cowboy Action, they are not going to serve me well at Brutality. I’ll need period clothes that I would care less about getting muddy. Brutality doesn’t have a dress requirement for its categories but I’ll still want to at least make an attempt to dress the part.
Accuracy.
Sending a 45 Colt bullet out to 100 yards to hit a 9 inch plate is quite the challenge with iron sights and a lever action. I’m not sure I can do it. There were three people at Moonshine Brutality shooting the Dead Eye category and I saw one empty his gun at the 100 yard target before getting a single hit. I will need to go to the range and pay attention to these long ranges.
Reloading.
Emptying your gun at a 100 yards target will necessitate reloading on the clock. There were stages that, even at close ranges, had 20 or 30 hits required. For modern guns, it’s relatively easy to just insert another full magazine but my lever action is tube fed and each additional round will need to be added. I will need to practice that. I will also need to carry that ammo with me. I have a drop holster with cartridge loops but for all the running around, I think I want the gun up on my hip rather than my thigh, requiring a new belt.
Cost.
Cowboy Action’s stage setup means that for any given 6 stage match, I will need 60 rounds for pistol, 60 rounds for rifle, and 12 to 24 rounds of shotgun. As both my rifle and pistol use 45 Colt, 120 rounds total for a match. I was watching a video from Gun Bunny as she packed for her trip to Moonshine Brutality and she was talking about taking 600 rounds (link to video).
Now, Brutality uses caliber dependent scoring, in that certain calibers have to hit the target more times. In the example above where the target needed to be hit 3 times, using a different gun might require each of those targets to only be hit twice. For the Dead Eye category, because I am using a pistol caliber for everything, I would only need to hit each target once.
I won’t be needing as much ammo as Gun Bunny’s 600 rounds but that assumes I am able to hit all the targets with that one round. As evidenced by other shooters, there’s bound to be a lot of misses. And at the going rate of about $1 a round for 45 Colt factory loads, a lot of shooting is going to be a lot of money.
Reloading.
Setting up my inherited reloading machine will be absolutely necessary to be able to afford to do this at all. I need to rearrange my garage and get power run.
That is a lot of challenges and detriments. What will I gain from Brutality to balance all that out, to make all that work worth it? In part, I think my experience of seven hours on the road traveling to and from the match illustrates that in part.
Conservatism.
Brutality took place in the backwoods of West Virginia, way up secondary, tertiary, and muddy dirt roads. But long before that, just outside the urban enclave in which I live, the dominance of conservatism was clearly apparent. There were the billboards on the highways, the yard signs, the bumper stickers, more yard signs, the yard that was entirely filled with yard signs, the guy with the big truck with banners and half a dozen flags slowing traffic, and, of course, more yard signs. And this was all still north of the Mason-Dixon line and the general population. The gun community has always been dominated by conservatism. The redneck fudd is a stereotype for a reason.
These are not my people.
Even the gun club of which I am a member (and my father before me, and his father before him being a charter member) is conservative, not only politically but within the shooting sports allowing no steel plates, only one round in any rifle, and only targets at the designated ranges being some of the ways shooters are limited by tradition. Even the 10-10-4+ traditional matches of Cowboy Action are too active for this club.
Brutality is very different. Obviously there is the broad variation in match and stage setups but it is the people that break the mold.
All the stages had science fiction themes (Star Wars, Aliens, Warhammer). There was the guy running stages in a crop top, shorts, and crocks. The guy with the Trans Rights t-shirt. Some assorted rainbows. Gun Bunny in her bunny suit. Cat ears on ear muffs and helmets. Karl from InRange was passing out pizza and selling “Support Choice” t-shirts featuring a fetus with a Glock.
THESE are my people.
Not only that, I’m sure the people at Cowboy Action Shooting matches are having fun, for a given value, but the people at Brutality were clearly enjoying themselves. They were laughing. They were silly. They were animated. They were downright joyful in a way that would seem terribly out of place at CAS.
And this is what I’m looking for. I will never win a match. If I ever win in my CAS Duelist category, it will be because no one else shot that category that day. I will never really be competitive. But if I am having fun, I won’t care. And it’s a lot easier to have fun when it is clear that everyone else is having fun. At Brutality, it was clear, and I want me a piece of that.
