Annie Oakley

As a shooter myself, I did some research, & have reached my own conclusion that Annie Oakley (1860-1926) B. Phoebe Ann Moser, in Darke Co. OH, was the best freehand shooter of all time thru now.

When age 8, a relative with a .22 rifle saw a squirrel & handed her the rifle, saying, "See if you can hit that squirrel". She hit it squarely in the head, saying a head shot wouldn't ruin the meat. (Hunting was a necessity for people in that time/place to feed themselves.) Her mom entrusted her to hunt to feed the family, & she was very successful. She was "farmed out" when her widowed mom simply couldn't support the family She spent a coupla years with a family that made her a virtual slave, & she ran away at age 12 & met a family who cared for her & allowed her to hunt. She heard her mom had remarried & was better-able to support the family, & she returned to her at age 15.

Her hunting skill & marksmanship attracted much local attention, & several families paid her to hunt for them. All this time, she used several .22 rifles & 12 Ga. shotguns, Her pay for her hunting enabled her to pay off her mom's farm mortgage. News of her skill spread all over Ohio.

In 1875, the Baughman and Butler shooting act was performing & the marksman, Frank Butler, bet $100 with a Cincy businessman that he could beat any local marksman. The businessman arranged a match between Butler & Annie, shooting birds with rifles. Butler missed with his 25th shot, while Annie made hers & won the match. Butler lost his bet, but began courting Annie & a year later they married. (They had no children.)

Annie began performing with Frank, who didn't hesitate to give her top billing over himself, & her skill increased. That's when she took the stage name "Annie Oakley". Performing with an ordinary .22 rifle & ammo, she split playing cards edge-on at 30 paces, shot cigarettes from Frank's mouth at 40 paces, & shot corks outta bottle tops at 3 paces, shooting over her shoulder, aiming from a hand-held mirror!

The coplle joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1885, & Annie soon became its favorite performer. One of her feats, recorded on early movies, was shooting tossed dimes from the air with a rifle. She progressed to shooting the ashes off her hubby's hand-held cigarettes & cigars in his mouth in half from 50 paces!

Buffalo Bill's friend Sitting Bull, who rarely expressed emotion, was with Bill watching her shoot, & his mouth dropped open, & he kept muttering "Watanya Cicilla repeatedly, which translates as "Little Sure Shot". That became one of her nicknames.

She went on a 3-year tour of Europe, performing for most of Europe's heads of state, including Queen Victoria & Italy's King Umberto. She shot the ashes off a cigarette held by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

All this time she remained very-feminine, always wearing dresses, keeping her hail long & neat, always calling herself "Mrs. Frank Butler". But she also campaigned for womens' rights & reportedly taught over 15000 women how to shoot.

She continued to set shooting records, some of which still stand. She had a shotgun made to fit her small frame & short arms, & she became very proficient with it, & had others made to its specs. She routinely broke 100 clay pigeons in a row in trapshooting many times, while also beconing proficient with pistols. She last broke 100 pigeons in a row in 1925 at age 65.

She was injured in a car accident in 1922, forcing her to wear a brace on her R leg the rest of her life, but a year later, she put on a few more shooting shows.

She died in 1926, age 66, of pernicious anemia. Frank, overcome with grief, died 18 days later. They're buried in a cemetery near Greenville, OH.

Annie was inducted into many Halls of Fame, including the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, National Trapshooting Hall of Fame, National Womens' Hall of fame, & several state Womens' Halls of Fame, & in virtually every international shooting Hall of Fame.

And all this time, she remained VERY FEMININE, always advocating womens' rights!

 

No one has ever duplicated many of Annie Oakley's shooting feats. To me, her accomplishments rank her as the best freehand shot of all time to now.

it's estimated she fired over 2 million shots in her life. And she never fired a shot in anger, intending to shoot another person !

 

We can only speculate how good she woulda been with modern precision firearms. She was a small person, barely 5 feet tall, so it's unlikely she coulda freehanded a Barrett .50 cal, for instance, but she doubtlessly coulda hung with anyone if she'd had modern smallbore arms & match-grade ammo available. She generally used commonly-made rifles & revolvers & ammo bought over-the-counter. The only custom-made guns she used were shotguns made to fit the length of her short arms.

Comparing her to modern shooters is as comparing old-time football running back Red Grange to, say, Ezekiel Elliott. We can only speculate.