[Editor: The following was a letter written to The History Channel by an attorney from Louisiana. The attorney saw our story on Bill Oglesby in GunNews and shared this with us. We’re reprinting it because, well, it’s just that good.]
by Sydney Horn, Attorney at Law
(GSL) – I am one of Bill Oglesby’s students. You have had Bill perform various shows on your channel, but you haven’t touched on his real talent.
I have seen Bill do the following shooting feats, which are more interesting than what you have had him do for your show.
1. Bill is the first man who has ever done the double-tap from a single-action pistol. That is, shoot two shots so fast you only hear one bang. He does not fan the gun, as some people call it. Bill can do this with either his right or left hand. He can do it with two hands holding the pistol normally, and he can do it holding the pistol upside down.
2. Staging: Bill has his pistol in his holster. He also holds a deck of cards in his left hand. There is also a metal plate standing 5 yards away. Action: He announces that he will throw the cards in the air. Then he will draw his pistol and shoot the plate, and then the ace of spades while it is in the air. He also informs me that he has placed the Ace of Spades on the bottom of the deck; otherwise, he would not know which card was the Ace of Spades once he threw them in the air.
By placing the Ace on the bottom of the deck, he told me that when he throws the cards in the air, the Ace will be the bottom-most card. He then asked me if I was ready, and I said yes. He threw the cards in the air with his left hand, then he drew his pistol with his right hand and shot the plate, and then the card. I heard two bangs.
When he got through, he asked me to approach him. He said, “Hold out your hand.” Which I did. He ejected “4” empty shells into the palm of my hand.
I said to Bill, “I only heard two shots.”
He smiled. “Look at the plate.”
There were two bullet impacts on it. Bill then told me to find the Ace of Spades. When I found it, there were two bullet holes in the card.
I would have thought it was impossible if I had not witnessed it.
3. How about putting a black dot on a golf ball, throwing it up in the air, and then shooting a .38 caliber bullet into the dot with his Winchester 1892 rifle? Yes, he hits the black spot while the ball is spinning in the air.
I asked him how he did that, and he said, “I can see the dot.” I guess he is like Ted Williams, who claimed he could read the writing on a baseball that the pitcher threw to him.
He can also play what he calls Cowboy Golf. He throws a golf ball in the air, shoots it with his rifle, and makes the ball hook to the left or slice to the right.
[Editor’s note: I’ve seen him do this with a single-action revolver shooting from the hip. And he called it as a hook, slice and straight away before he throws the ball.]
4. Bill can also shoot three balloons spaced about 3 feet apart with his pistol. This is called the triple tap. In other words, he shoots all three balloons with three bullets, but you only hear ONE BANG. He does not use blanks or rat shot, and the balloons are more than 5 yards away from him. He does this with two fingers of his left hand.
5. Have you ever seen Bill play Russian Roulette? He can put one cartridge in the cylinder and leave the other 5 empty. He then spins the cylinder until you tell him to stop. He then pulls the trigger, and the gun goes off. Or he can put 5 rounds in the cylinder and leave one empty, spin the cylinder until you tell him to stop. He then pulls the trigger, and the gun goes click on the empty cylinder.
6. Bill holds the world record for speed shooting. Yes, he is faster with a single action than Jerry Miculek with a semi-auto. At the sound of a timer, he has shot 5 9” metal plates in .82 seconds. He has also shot 5 shots from his single-action pistol in less than .45 seconds. My best time for shooting 5 shots and knocking down 5 plates is 1.03 seconds, and I have only done it one time. All of these shots, made by Bill, require a timer, including reaction time. That means the timer does not start with the first shot. The timer starts with a beep, then the shooter reacts.
7. Bill also shoots a 1897 shotgun with speed. How about loading two 12-gauge shotgun shells in the shotgun and shooting both so fast you only hear one bang. One of the guys who worked for him said he had done it with 3 rounds. Ask him to do that for you.
8. With the high-speed cameras you have, you could even show what a double-tap looks like with one bullet following another as they exit the barrel.
9. How about Bill taking a Ruger .44 Magnum? He wraps his shooting hand with tape on the pistol grip so he can’t use his thumb. He then fires two rounds, performing a double tap using just the recoil of the 44 magnum to cock the gun and fire the second shot. Two shots and one bang. One-handed.
10. Fast draw: Bill can do that, also. Stand in front of Bill with your hands apart in front of you, palm to palm, and see if you can clap your hands before he draws his empty pistol. I have drawn against Bill with empty guns, facing each other. When he draws first, I never get my gun out of the holster before his hammer falls. Remember the gun is empty, but you can hear the click as the hammer falls. If I draw first, we both would die, but Bill is quick enough that his gun goes click almost at the same time my gun goes click.
These are just some of the things Bill Oglesby does that I think are much more interesting than watching him shoot a hangman’s rope. Yes, that is hard to do, but not as amazing as the shots described above. Splitting a bullet, yes, that is not easy, but again, the above are more interesting. If you want to be entertained, let Bill do some talking to the audience. He is really funny and puts on a great show.
BILL OGLESBY IS THE BEST SINGLE-ACTION PISTOL SHOOTER THAT HAS EVER LIVED.
He once went Quail hunting at a famous ranch and hunted with a .22 rifle. The owners thought he was crazy, and they bet him he would not hit one bird. They lost the bet.
I have personally seen Bill do all of the above. I think your viewers would like to see Bill shoot. His skills need to be recorded for history.