Bob Munden - Record Controversy

Record Controversy

The Guinness Book of World Records listed Bob Munden in the 1980 and previous editions as the "World's fastest gun", but stopped publishing the record in later editions so that the book could be approved as a reference source for school libraries. This led to controversy over the records that Munden claimed to hold and have held in the past. Munden's critics have argued that his records are not sufficiently well documented to be valid, and that he currently holds no official fast draw world record. Fast Draw includes multiple events, each with its own world record. The record with the shortest time is single shot open freestyle (using a light-weight gun) held by Ernie Hill, of Litchfield Park, Ariz., with a recorded time of .208 seconds. Munden has received skepticism mostly due to the absence of both written evidence of his records, and for the absence of his supposed 3,500 trophies. After the advent of digital timers, the world records were reset because the older analog timers were less accurate. Munden claimed to have held many of these older records, with a fastest Walk and Draw Level time of 0.15 seconds that he claimed was the fastest shot in history. In a video clip online he's heard telling the time to 1 3/4th hundreds of a second, that he shot during the opening of the Guinness World Record Museum in 1975 in the Empire State Building in NYC.) According to the World Fast Draw Association, the official documentation of these older records has been lost, but in the vintage section of the film Bob Munden: Outrageous Shooting on DVD, Munden is seen setting one of his world records.