Whistling Will: Two-Time SASS World Champion, Canadian Firearms Law & Cowboy Action Gear

Estimated reading time: 5 min

Gun Rights Update: NICS, Payee Rules, and Gun Trusts

[01:00]

Caller Mark from Woodland Hills opened with a pair of legal and administrative developments worth knowing about. The first involves Social Security payees. Under a rule that was originally enacted and then repealed by Congress in 2017, seniors and others with a financial payee were being flagged as mentally defective and added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. While the federal version was rolled back, 23 states have since enacted their own mandatory reporting versions. California, New York, Illinois, and Connecticut are among them. In those states, conditions such as depression or prescriptions for anti-anxiety medication can trigger a gun prohibition report. Patients asked about firearms by a doctor have the right to decline to answer, and the advice on this show was plain: exercise that right.

For anyone who has already been placed on such a list, 38 states have a firearm rights restoration process. According to what the caller had reviewed, roughly 73% of petitions are granted. The case law most relevant to this is Nichols v. Township of Scott, which held that Second Amendment rights cannot be stripped through administrative processes alone. A judicial order is required. In some states, a person can demand a full evidentiary hearing before a judge if their rights are challenged this way.

The second item was gun trusts. Only about 8% of gun owners include firearms in their estate planning at all. A properly structured trust protects the inheritance rights of successor trustees, meaning that even if the original owner is later determined to be legally diminished, a co-trustee can continue to manage the firearms without those rights being administratively removed. In states where National Firearms Act items such as suppressors and short-barreled rifles are legal, an NFA-compliant trust may be required to hold them. California’s restrictions make certain trust structures irrelevant there, but for everyone else the advice was to consult an attorney if anything in the estate involves NFA items or any nuance beyond a straightforward inheritance.

The takeaway from the segment: if you own firearms, your doctor cannot compel you to discuss them, your rights cannot be stripped without judicial process in most jurisdictions, and your guns are better protected if they appear in your estate planning. Gunslinger Auctions handles transfers and consignments for estates of all sizes, and getting the paperwork right before it becomes urgent is always the better path.

Whistling Will: Two-Time SASS World Champion

[05:57]

The guest for this segment was Whistling Will, identified on air as the second international shooter to win the SASS World Championship and the only one to have done it twice at the time of this broadcast. The conversation started with the numbers. Sub-10-second stage times came up immediately, and Will confirmed that his slowest stage at End of Trail, a stage involving six shotgun knockdowns, came in at 15 seconds and change. The crew noted that on a 9-second stage, travel time alone accounted for 7 seconds, which gives some sense of what is actually happening in the shooting window.

Will’s assessment of the match itself tracked with what the crew had already said: it was probably the most approachable End of Trail in recent memory, easier to relax on and let the guns run rather than having to be deliberate on every target. The previous year’s match was described as more challenging by comparison, though both were said to have their merits.

On training, Will’s answer was notable for what it did not include. He said he had done very little formal practice for quite a long time. The position he described was that once muscle memory is established, competition at this level becomes primarily a mental exercise. His stated approach is straightforward: aim, shoot, aim, shoot. Get the sight picture before every shot. He is doing that faster than anyone else in the world, but the underlying discipline is the same one any serious shooter would recognize.

Asked about influences, Will mentioned several Canadian competitors by alias, including Holler Al and Caribou Lefty, as well as American shooters he studied on YouTube before ever competing in the States. Watching top-level shooters closely and extracting specific pieces of technique, rather than trying to copy a whole style wholesale, was how he described building his own approach.

Cowboy Action in Canada: Handgun Freeze and Workarounds

[10:07]

Will competes out of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and when the subject of pursuing the sport in Canada came up, the picture he painted was a difficult one. The Liberal Party of Canada enacted a pause on handgun ownership that effectively freezes the market: anyone who already holds handguns can keep them, but buying, selling, and transferring restricted firearms, which includes most handguns, is no longer permitted. For anyone trying to enter cowboy-action shooting now, the path in is considerably narrower than it used to be.

Cap-and-ball revolvers are not exempt by default. In Canada they are classified as restricted firearms unless manufactured before 1898, and even then the exemption does not apply cleanly. The government carved out the most common cowboy-action calibers, specifically .44-40, .45 Colt, and .38, from antique status, which means those guns remain restricted regardless of age. The practical result is that the most available legal option for a new competitor trying to build a period-correct revolver setup is a Smith and Wesson in .44 Russian, which qualifies under the antique exemption for that caliber and action type. The Schofield-style top-break format was mentioned as the likely configuration for that route.

It is a narrow door, and the discussion on air reflected a certain grim appreciation for finding any door at all.

Gear, Gunsmithing, and the Browning Side-by-Side

[11:11]

Will runs two Ruger Vaqueros as his revolvers and a Uberti 1873 for the rifle. The shotgun is a Browning side-by-side, a choice that came up in the conversation with some specificity. Will had previously shot a Winchester Model 1897 pump, which carries significant weight forward of the action. When he made the transition to double barrels, SKB side-by-sides felt too light by comparison. The Browning offered a better weight balance and, critically, opened more easily, which matters when loading under competition pressure. The weight and the action feel were the deciding factors.

On the gunsmithing side, Will said he does the vast majority of his own work. Parts sourcing runs through suppliers like Shotgun Boogie and Cowboys and Indian Store. The guns are tuned and maintained in-house rather than sent out, which is consistent with the level of mechanical familiarity that competing at this level tends to require.