GunFighter Gulch

The year was 1957. A Denver television station invited me in to do a live studio show with Hugh O’Brien. Hugh was in town promoting his TV show, “Wyatt Earp.” At the studio I met Marshal Faber who was an electronic engineer in charge of the station audio and visual equipment. Marshall was a very nice fellow and quite talented in many technical fields. The studio invitation was offered quite unexpectedly and required that I be there the afternoon of the late morning call. Eager to share my new found potential fame, I called my sister who lived in Denver and suggested she watch the show.

Shortly after my arrival at the studio, realization set in as to why I was invited to perform live on TV. It certainly wasn’t because of my renowned gun handling ability. The truth is I was the only local gunslinger they could get on such short notice. Hugh had a Great Western timer and the dad blamed thing didn’t work! Since the timer prop was not available, Hugh wanted a local shooter to discuss with him the new Fast Draw craze that was sweeping the country. Hugh was an accomplished gun hand, having been trained by Arvo Ojala. Hugh shot a .45 caliber nickel plated Colt Single Action. As shown in the photo, I shot a Magnum .44 caliber nickel plated Ruger Blackhawk that I had modified. On camera we fired off a few blanks and twirled our guns a bit. Later after the show I called my sister to get her comments. She said, “I thought you said channel three at four o’clock – but the show was on channel four at three o’clock – I missed it!” Dang! Oh well, so much for my fifteen minutes of fame and glory.

Hugh O’Brien asked Marshall Faber to repair the Great Western timer. Marshall, with the usual design engineer mindset said, “This thing is a piece of junk!” Hugh then engaged Marshall to design and build him a reliable timer along the same lines as the Great Western. At that time almost all Fast Draw (also at the time also referred to as “Quick Draw”) shooting activity relied on a percussion blast. Either a primer or blank was fired. The sound of the shot was detected by a microphone that in turn stopped the timer sweep hand motion. The timer clock face was calibrated in hundredths of a second. The timer was activated by the shooter’s trigger finger depressing a start button mounted on top of the adjustable stand. The stand also contained a microphone. Upon release of the start button the timer hand began its sweep. Upon detection of the shot, the microphone stopped the clock. The fastest time off the button I ever witnessed in an actual contest was nine hundredths of a second. That event took place in San Antonio at the 1962 Texas State Championship.

For the next several years I had the pleasure of traveling around the country and shooting in Fast Draw contests while representing Faber FasDraw. It sure was a lot of fun as I rarely competed to win. My sales strategy was to make available a FasDraw Timer to local club contests at no cost. I even paid the entry fee necessary to personally enter the contest. If I was lucky enough to win a trophy, I donated it back to the sponsoring club. That is, all except the Texas Fast Draw Championship of 1962, 1963, and the Texas Two Gun Championship in 1964. I kept those! While very few local clubs owned a fast draw timer, a reliable, accurate, and low cost timer was of great interest. Without a timer, fellow shooters performed a “judge” assignment; look at the smoke and determine if the shot was high or low.

I came across a remarkable and innovative timer at a contest sponsored by a local club in San Jose, California. The home grown timer used a 45 RPM phonograph turn table calibrated to indicate up to one and one-half seconds total elapsed time (two revolutions of the turn table). The turn table mechanism utilized a stepping motor and was surprisingly quite accurate. The phonograph timer was started by use of a start button (operated by another person) that turned on a reaction light and concurrently started the turn table. A microphone mounted behind the metal target detected a wax bullet hit, turned off the reaction light, and stopped the turn table.

As the use of wax bullets developed, the Faber FasDraw Timer design was enhanced to support this popular change in the fast draw game. Early on, timer start button manipulation became a source of contention. Soon the Faber FasDraw timer self-start button was replaced with a reaction light start mechanism (copying the phonograph turn table timer design). The ultimate demise of the Faber FasDraw Timer came about as a result of the popularity of Walk & Draw blank contests. The Faber FasDraw electronic design could not be reliably modified to support two shooters firing a blank shot within milliseconds of each other. It took two complete FasDraw Timer systems to compete with products such as the Chrondek Timer that used more advanced electronic technology. In addition, the FasDraw Timer design would not tolerate low AC voltage current which was often found when a long extension cord was needed for the power source. However, the product has proven to be durable as working examples of the Faber FasDraw Timer exist today.