Pistol Champ

photos & story by Seth Dahl

Twenty years ago Judy Woolley

became the first professional woman shooter since the great Annie Oakley of the 1880s.

After establishing herself in Montana as an accurate competition shooter in the late eighties, Judy heard of a new spot opening on the Smith and Wesson shooting team specifically for a woman and, with her husband's help, decided to try for it. Winning all seven shooting events and demolishing the competition, Judy earned the spot on the Smith and Wesson shooting team in 1990. For four years Judy shot professionally around the country at various events and competitions.

Charlie Woolley taught Judy how to shoot when they were still dating. "I kinda like you and I'd like to understand the language that you're speaking," Judy confessed to Charlie one day. "How about you teach me how to shoot and I'll teach you how to sew and play piano." Charlie learned how to play piano and sew and Judy learned how to shoot, falling in love with it instantly.

She shot different firearms in various competitions including handguns, rifles and shotguns. Judy won many events during her professional career. including the World Speed Shooting Championships twice and the Masters Dress Rehearsal. She was awarded the Chevy Truck Shooter of the Year Award, in its inaugural year.

She was the first woman ever allowed to compete at the Buckmasters Invitational in Alabama and took second overall to the dismay of all the male competitors. "At the end of the first day I was in the lead position which made it a little tougher to be there, but I blew a shot the second day and came in second place," Judy remembered.

During the last few years of her professional shooting career, Charlie suffered a brain aneurism while hunting alone and Judy's shooting put food on the table as well as paid for his doctor bills.

In 1996 Judy took a job at the Smith and Wesson Academy as a shooting instructor, working there for three years. Today she still instructs locally and one to six times a year travels to Arizona for Babes with Bullets, a national organization that operates shooting camps for women.

It was in the mid-eighties when Charlie and Judy got married and moved as far away as they could from Massachusetts's large population and gun laws, buying land in Montana and building a home.

Twenty minutes north of Plains, Montana nestled near the top of a draw and surrounded by timber, the Woolleys call home a cozy log cabin. Inside the cabin the ceiling hangs close to your head. Rifles are stashed in the corner like recently ditched coats. In the center of the north wall the room opens up to the second floor ceiling. The chimney by the wood stove is surrounded by deer heads, coyote pelts and a bear skull. At the base of the wood stove sits squash from the garden. Next to the steps that lead upstairs to their bedroom, three vats of homemade wine sit, ready for winter sipping. A bullet, with a loop through its casing, hangs from a rope attached to the ceiling fan. Freshly roasted garden tomatoes covered in basil fill the air inside the small cabin.

Out the back door and down a short trail takes one to their toilet. "Accuracy first, then speed!" is written on one of the outhouse walls, a shooting pun left by a former handgun student.

The Woolleys use their land as a tree farm and down their long driveway towards the top of the draw sits neatly cut and stacked piles of wood. Beyond that sits their shooting range. Five white circular steel challenge targets are spread out in a staggered pattern as ponderosa pines, firs and yellow tamaracks tower around the dirt hills. Hundreds of thousands of rounds have been shot here in preparation for competitions over the years. "I was always jealous of all those people in the South practicing when it was 75 degrees out and I had to shovel a path to the range to be able to shoot," Judy recalls.

In recent years their shooting range has been used to instruct people on handgun safety. Both Charlie and Judy are known in the Plains community for their knowledge and expertise in firearms and are called on at times to help.

Charlie gives handgun instruction to the Sanders County Guard, which is a local group of citizens that meet once a month in Plains. They are on call to keep the peace if all the police officers in Plains have to leave town for an emergency.

Charlie also owns old World War II rifles and still shoots them competitively at the Noxon Rod and Gun Club, taking second in the October 2010 competition.

Charlie and Judy Woolley have revolved their lives around the Second Amendment and the shooting sports they love so much. While Judy was competing, Charlie was modifying and fixing weapons and coaching his wife. Charlie remembers helping Judy prepare for her matches by figuring out her trouble spots. "We'd get the times and consistency where she wanted it and off she goes again."

Shooting has given Judy and Charlie a chance to travel to every state and meet new people. Shooting enabled both a chance to pursue their passion and to make a living at it, leaving an impression on the shooting sports history along the way.

Now with deer hunting season underway the handguns have been replaced with 30.06 hunting rifles and the steel targets moved. The sound of Judy's .38 Super Colt hitting steel plates is no more as it's time to sight in rifles and fill the freezer for the winter.