Shooting times

Pork Rind, 14, was just two when he pulled his first trigger. 'We like to start them young in the American west,' his father says. Photograph: Caroll Taveras

The youngsters battle it out. Photograph: Caroll Taveras

Texas Marshal, eight, is a local Colorado boy. His father, Nitro, says learning to be a shooter teaches his son responsibility, as well as safety, which, he says, they take very seriously in cowboy fast draw. Photograph: Caroll Taveras

Babalooey, the world champion in the girls' teenager class, was wielding her first firearm at five. She graduated from her dad's handguns to shotguns, then took up rifles to go dove hunting in the countryside around her home in Phoenix, Arizona. 'We make great dove nuggets,' she says. Photograph: Carroll Taveras

Coby 'Spud' Coffman, nine, is the Billy the Kid world fast-draw champion in the eight to 12 years category. Blond-haired under a white cowboy hat, he was given his first gun at seven, when he started hunting jack rabbits in the fields in Idaho. Photograph: Caroll Taveras