- Holds United States quick-draw record
- Not just fastest with a six-gun... fast, accurate and deadly. In the early 1960s he led a very nervous writer and photographer from a California gun magazine through an active rattlesnake denning area occupied by hundreds of rattlers. Each time a snake threatened them he quick-drew and fired. He never missed. The party eventually emerged at the other side unbitten.
- "Gun Coach to the Stars" Thell Reed has coached everyone with a gun from Steve McQueen to Russell Crowe, Gene Hackman, Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Val Kilmer, Jeff Bridges, Edward Norton, Don Cheadle, Sharon Stone, Sam Elliot...
- Worked very closely with Ben Foster on the film "3:10 to Yuma" to turn the mild mannered actor into the blood thirsty pistoleer Charlie Prince.
- Fastest Gun Alive... Thell Reed was dubbed this by Colt after winning the title in a live ammunition quick draw competition.
- World Champion Live Ammo Quick Draw Artist
- Good friend of actor Girard Swan.
- In 1959, the Petaluma Argus-Courier named then 15-year-old Thell Reed - who grew up in Downey - as one of the world's fastest in guns. The claim came after he drew and fired a .38 pistol in 8/100 of a second, meaning he "could draw and kill a Billy the Kid while he started a blink," the story said. Thell went on to become the bodyguard and "drinking buddy" of Evel Knievel, The Times said 1982. He also worked as a trick shooter on a Gene Autry road show and once made $50,000 at a one-on-one Texas shootout.
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