Seems Like a Longshot, but He’s Top Gun at 58

The first major decision I can recall making as a youngster was whether to be Wyatt Earp or Lash Larue. I didn’t care which was tougher; I wanted to be the one who could draw his gun faster. If I’d only known, I would have pretended to be Bob Bussinger. Or maybe his wife, Jean.

The Bussingers of Lake Forest are more than just the fastest guns in the West. Jean Bussinger is the current U.S. women’s champion of the World Fast Draw Assn. Bob Bussinger is its reigning world champ. Or, as they say in the quick-draw business: He’s Top Gun.

This week they both gave me demonstrations of how fast they can draw a .45-caliber frontier revolver from a holster. Lightning speed came to mind without exaggeration. Just how fast is Bob Bussinger?

Well, he says in modest tones, think of those fast-gun cowboys of the old West, “I could take on three of them at once and nail all three before any of ‘em could get off a shot.”

To be even more precise: In his latest competition, he drew his gun from its holster, cocked the hammer, and blew away his target in .248 seconds by computer count. That’s less than one-fourth of a second.

Here is the part that’s still a wonder to me: Bob Bussinger is 58 years old. With an artificial hip.

Bussinger, who runs his own floor-covering business, is quiet and unassuming; it’s not an easy task for him to talk about his fast-draw accomplishments. But he did say with a slight smile that his competitors have joked they’re sure glad he hasn’t had both hips replaced.

Catching up to the Bussingers for an interview wasn’t easy. A few weeks ago, when I first called them, they were off to Salem, Ore., for the U.S. national fast-draw competition. Bob Bussinger was favored to win the national. He had picked up his first world title last summer.

He didn’t disappoint: He took first place. But he got even more excited when his wife, Jean, won the U.S. women’s national title. She’d won national titles in the 1960s and ‘70s but then had retired from shooting to concentrate on raising their family. (The Bussingers have three children, now grown.) It wasn’t until four years ago that Jean, 57, returned to serious competition.

Soon after that they were off to the world competition, held each year in Deadwood, S.D. Deadwood is where Wild Bill Hickok met a fatal bullet (while holding aces and eights in a poker game at the #10 Saloon). The world competition, in fact, is called the “Wild Bill Hickok World Fast Draw Championship.”

Bob Bussinger picked up his second world title. “I always wanted to be a cowboy,” he explained.

Bussinger, also an avid hunter and fisherman, grew up in Southern California admiring Western movie stars. His favorite was Roy Rogers. Later Bussinger participated in fast-gun competitions at the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville and got a chance to meet his hero.

When Bussinger was 22, he happened to meet a fast-draw participant in Buena Park who told him about a local contest. Bussinger says he gave it a try, but was pretty bad. He decided then to practice hard enough at it to become state champion in two years--which he did.

The fascination, he says, is the competition: “It’s the fastest time sport in the world. You can win or lose by just a thousandth of a second.”

But for many years, Bussinger never quite reached national prominence in his chosen hobby. When he and Jean would attend regional or national meets, it was his wife who won the modest prize money that helped offset traveling expenses. She smiled as he told me that.

“I had a great teacher,” she said. Meaning her husband.

“For years all I did really was just play at it,” she explained. “What I enjoyed most was getting together with the other families. We’ve made wonderful friends at these events through the years. But about four years ago, I decided to really focus on getting good.”

Her main interest, she is quick to point out, is in her husband’s accomplishments.

Top Gun: Bussinger explained why it took him so long to reach the highest level: “Fast draw is 90% mental. Experience means as much as speed and accuracy. I know guys who are faster than me, until we get in competition. But when we’re standing next to each other getting ready to draw on a target, their nerves get them, knowing I’m there. They’re good for a round or two, but they can’t keep ‘em coming.”

The Competition: In the early days of fast-draw contests, two shooters would walk toward each other--just like Hollywood does it--and start shooting blanks after the signal. A set of judges would decide the winner. Later, a precision clock would judge the winners, who would shoot at targets instead of each other. Now everything is done by an electronic computer timer, which eliminates any doubt about who the winner is.

Contestants stand side by side and shoot at silhouettes or small balloons, usually 8 to 12 feet away. The fire power is either black powder blanks, strong enough to down a target, or wax bullets. The winner most times is the one who wins three rounds out of five. It’s all very loud too; everybody wears earplugs.

After an event, Bob Bussinger said, “You are just drained. There is such an adrenaline rush as you gear up for your shoot; when it’s over you just have no energy left.”

That Bad Hip: Bussinger has a unique shooting style: His right leg is bent at the knee, boot heel off the ground. That’s to keep from snapping his artificial hip during the draw, he said. But he credits the new hip, which he got two years ago, with making him world champion. The pain from his bad hip, he said, was often what kept him from winning. Now he shoots pain free.

Wrap-Up: Today the Bussingers are off for Virginia City, Nev.--famous as a chapter in Mark Twain’s life--for a new competition called “Fastest Gun Alive.”

With back-to-back world titles under his belt, Bussinger is heading there with confidence. The Top Gun says he plans to keep entering these contests as long as he can handle a gun: “I really believe that shooting has helped keep Jean and me young.”

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail tojerry.hicks@latimes.com