By the time the brush salesman made it to the little Ohio town everyone was gone – he strolled through a ghost town - and by the looks of things the residents had left in a hurry. The stores were empty, the restaurant coffee cups still warm to the touch, the barbershop radio drifted through the open door, the hardware locked down tight and dark. Not even a stray dog prowled the streets. “The circus must be in town or a bomb hit,” the salesman muttered under his breath. Both of those observations would ring true by the end of the evening because the “Wizard With A Winchester” had come to town. Earlier it had been a strange enough day for the residents of this Ohio berg. Shortly after noon a bright red station wagon with loud speakers shaped like huge shotgun shells cruised the streets blaring out that there was to be a demonstration of firearms – good Winchester firearms – outside of town and everyone was welcome and that it was FREE. Later the latest Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson tunes blared through the loud speakers and that got the younger crowd interested. They gathered around the strange red station wagon parked in front of the hardware store and listened to the music and cupped their hands against the windows to peer inside. And a bit later the strange red station wagon pulled to the center of the town park. A man emerged – he appeared to be southern in his speech and mannerisms – and casually set-up a mortar stand, dropped a round into the tube and calmly stood back while it exploded with a terrific boom over the town. Later some of the townspeople said that two strange boys emerged from the red station wagon and had been “dumpster diving” behind the gas station and were around town asking for old cans and containers and were filling them with water. And a lady from the red station wagon went into the grocery and bought up a varied assortment of produce like cabbages, oranges, plums, watermelons, grapefruit and bought the store out of eggs. Then the strange red station wagon that seemed awfully overloaded with sagging springs pulled out of town with the shotgun shell speakers still promoting Winchester. In a frenzied rush, the townspeople dove into cars and rumble seats and the back of pick-ups and followed in the dust of the “Winchester Red” station wagon. Had the brush salesman followed the Ohio small town crowd that late afternoon to the outskirts, he would have seen the greatest shooting exhibition ever offered at the time – it proved to be a combination of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Annie Oakley, Doc Carver, P.T. Barnum and a Vaudeville comedy routine. For the entire town – all 1000 of them – were gathered around the southern man in a clearing. In front of the man was a table of shiny guns – all types from a common Model 12 to a Tommy Gun – 15 or 16 of them. The name “Winchester” was in bright letters on the table skirt. Stacked high were all manner of clay targets, clay balls, the town’s produce, the town’s water cans and several wood cases of ammunition. And what the brush salesman would have first heard was not the splatter of gunfire, but the roar of laughter. One thousand townspeople gee-hawing and slapping their knees, elbowing their neighbors and rearing their heads back in laughter. For the southern man was funny. But with the laughter came a message. The southern man began telling the crowd that an armed America was a strong America. And to be a good American you needed to shoot well, observe the game laws and take your family shooting and hunting. Guns are the American way he was telling them between the southern jokes. Gun safety and hunter responsibility was paramount. Between rapid-fire bursts from the table’s firearms, the southern man unleashed blasts from duck calls that sounded better than the real thing. The brush salesman would have learned that the southern gentleman who so delighted the crowd was Winchester Firearms Representative and Salesman Herb Parsons of Somerville, Tennessee - and that he was touring the heartland of America to demonstrate the BEST firearms which were Winchester and Winchester-Western ammunition. From 1930-1959, Parsons earned the nicknames “The Showman Shooter” and the “Wizard With A Winchester”. In a few minutes after his introduction he proved that these were apt names! In 55 frenzied minutes Parsons would typically shoot non-stop over 15 Winchester firearms 52 different ways at over 800 targets scoring 99% on them (the ones he missed he would say were “hens”). Typically he would start off shooting oranges and cabbages that exploded juice and fiber over himself and the audience all the while keeping a running commentary that delighted the audience. Movie footage of his feats during this period showed the audience – civilians as well as soldiers and military generals – with their eyes wide open, huge smiles on their faces and hands to their mouth. Just when the audience was at rapt attention, he would change up the shoots by setting his gun down on the ground, throwing three eggs between his legs, grabbing the gun and scrambling all three while airborne. With the Model 61 pump, he ejected the brass hard up in the air and shot them! In the tradition of Annie Oakley, he used a mirror and shot behind his back. He’d heave multi targets into the air, empty a gun, throw it to an assistance, grab another loaded one and splatter the trailing targets before they fell to the ground. He shot coins in the air that whirled skyward and washers through the center that fell at his feet. When some members of the crowd began cat-calling him, he simply put a stamp over the washer hole and drilled it dead center and then handed it to the nearest town bigmouth. There was silence after that! With the audience “juiced up”, he would select a grapefruit loaded with explosives and shoot that. The resulting boom made the kids shriek, the ladies swoon and the men holler. While exploding watermelons with a Model 71 .348, the last one would be stoked with several sticks of dynamite. One of his favorite presentations near dark was to fire a parachute up in a mortar round and hit it numerous times with a Winchester M1 Garand or M1 Carbine loaded with tracers while it floated down. Another shot was a gasoline filled watermelon that made the entire grounds a raging inferno. To shake things up, he’d often produce a nickel-plated Thompson sub-machine gun and tear the produce targets to pieces or shoot the head off a paper silhouette while on full auto. The crowd loved it! Never had they seen their favorite Model 12 bird guns or deer rifles like a Model 94 perform in such a manner! It was surreal magic! One of the most famous shots Parsons made during a shooting exhibition was on a flying crow at the end of a parade grounds with a .270. Paced distance was 1200 yards! During the 1950’s shows, perhaps the favorite part of Parsons’ shooting exhibitions was when he paused in shooting and laid all of his guns on the table. He casually beckoned with his finger and two young boys emerged from the crowd. They had the slicked back hair of their generation, rolled up jeans, Buster Brown shoes and plaid shirts. They politely flanked Parsons and he introduced them as his sons. At that time he said perhaps his most famous phrase, “If you hunt with your son today, you won’t have to hunt for him tomorrow”. The crowd grew pensive and silent. And further he said, “It’s a pleasure when you hunt with your son, it’s a heartbreak if you hunt for him. So let’s keep America strong! Let’s keep American shooting!” And with that he asked the boys if they wanted to “try” shooting and they politely hollered out: “Yessir!” And so the “fix” was on! With a nod from Parsons, the small boys each selected a Model 12 pump from the table, loaded them and waited their turn. With Parsons throwing, the small boys started out smoking one clay target at a time with their 20 ga.’s and then each built up to five clay targets thrown at once. All of the targets were “smoked” and all were broken before they hit the ground. After each boy could break five on one toss, Parsons would throw his hands up and say loudly, “OK, whose show is this anyway? Get on out of here!” The crowd loved it and the boys drew some of the loudest applause of the day as they melted back into the crowd after posing as mere spectators. After the boys left, Parsons did his most difficult shot of the evening with the Model 12. At that time he held the record for the most hits on one rise from a factory pump gun – seven. He made the Model 12 pump sound like a full automatic as he dusted each one – the last clay only two feet off the ground. Parsons’ last shooting task was in keeping with his running commentary about being a good American. He fired at and ignited a watermelon full of gasoline and then turned his Model 12 to a hanging clay target suspended by wires from two poles. When he exploded the target, an American flag unfurled. It never failed to bring a standing ovation from any crowd – especially when he performed for the military. Unlike any other exhibition shooters past or present, Parsons allowed the surging crowd of star-struck townspeople or soldiers to come around his shooting table and freely handle his exhibition guns. There are many photos of him helping children and women shoulder the Winchester rifles and pistols after an exhibition. The nickel Thompson was a special treat for all. The elated soldiers had never seen their service weapons perform such feats before. These lessons and inspiration from the “Showman Shooter” they would later use on the battlefields. In those summer days of the 1950’s, the family of Lynn Parsons traveled like a moving arsenal while promoting Winchester firearms from town to town, major shoots like the Grand American and military installations. Inside that “Winchester Red” station wagon were not only special wood compartments for each example of the Winchester rifle and shotgun line, but the Thompson sub gun, mortar and mortar rounds, cases of dynamite, other explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Son Lynn said of that experience, “Daddy shot off mortar rounds in hundreds of town squares, exploded tons of explosives outside of town and shot a Thompson Submachine Gun all over the country and for the life of me I can’t remember him ever having a permit or license to do so!” While the “Wizard With A Winchester” shows may have looked like a free-wheeling shooting circus, there was actually a rigid behind-the-scenes protocol as well as detailed organization of the firearms, ammunition and targets so the shooting exhibitions ran smoothly. “Boys being boys” getting bored with routine acts, son Jerry one day decided in his infinite nine-year old mind that he was going to deviate from shooting the five clay targets his father demanded - BOTTOM TO TOP - and reversed them to heighten the effect for the audience. Jerry remembered: “It sounded exciting to me to do it that way, however I got a look that would melt stone from my no-foolishness-allowed-during-an-exhibition dad! Plus my deviation would always result in a reduction in swimming pool privileges at the end of the day and he knew that would punish us boy in the worst way!” Herb Parsons also made people of all ages feel good about being an American and this is a key to his persona as well. Love your country, love your family, love your gun – it was a message that had staying power! It’s one thing to shoot well and be safe doing it, but Parsons took it a step further and urged his audiences to love America as well and serve it when called. And surely he did as he advised: No sooner had the rumbles of World War II started and he was in uniform and in front of our fine troops showing fighter pilots/gunners how to lead an aerial targets via shooting skeet and teaching infantry soldiers target acquisition and how to carefully squeeze the trigger to achieve hits. And every once in a while he’d start throwing targets up in the air and dazzling them with some good southern shooting. It is hard to imagine how much confidence he instilled in the soldiers! Parsons demonstrated his Winchester firearms in front of as many as 7000 soldiers at one time during World War II. Remember too just what Parsons was doing out there before and after the show: He was a gun salesman. He wanted to entertain, but like all firearms reps HE HAD TO PRODUCE SALES. His goal was for the local gun shops in the area of his performance to ORDER MORE WINCHESTER GUNS AND AMMO. Parsons had a rigorous sales quota – in fact a memo from Winchester dated in the 1930’s – the middle of the Depression – demands that he be responsible for selling seven (7) Model 42 .410 pump guns PER DAY! Quite a tall order for a .410 product during hard times when everyone was shooting 12 ga.! The era of Herb Parsons’ exhibition shooting/firearms promotion/sales 1930-1960 was the GOLDEN era for Winchester firearms. This time was when the premier gun craftsmen were making superbly over-engineered rifles and shotguns that today command thousands of dollars on the secondary market. Think of them: M12, M21, M42, M52, M61, M71, M94, etc. All of these classic firearms – the Black Diamonds, the Super Grades, the Pigeon Grades, the Grand Americans, etc. – all of these were shot and toted by Herb Parsons as the “best of the best”. And it turns out he was right! The guns he shot in front of the huge crowds are now some of the most sought after iron and wood! From the news stories and the “buzz” came the calls from Hollywood and Herb Parsons used his shooting expertise to train some of tinsel town’s most famous movie stars. “Winchester ‘73” with Jimmy Stewart was a movie of a famous Winchester lever and the company was only too glad to produce a pair of “1 of 1000” 1873’s AND lend their greatest shooter to the project. In that popular film, Parson stood in for Jimmy Stewart and shot his Model 71 through a thrown washer for the cowboy crowd. As the dust settles and the greats recounted, Herb Parsons will rein as the “King of Shooting”. Why? Not just his great shooting – much of which has been equaled or bettered by today’s shooters with highly modified guns – but his legacy of promoting a man and his son TOGETHER in swamps, the mountains and the woods. His efforts in the war to prepare men who went into danger, the love of the outdoors and the sense to equate a good man with a good gun and hence a Good American was paramount to his very being. Parsons came to epitomize the thought that shooting and being good with a gun was a way to being a better man and father and that has stuck with the people of this country. Now more than ever as we hear liberal talk about taking away firearms and “gun control”, we call on persons like Herb Parsons to explain just how valuable our Second Amendment really is…
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