Some 95 years ago this summer. Could you imagine if this were at the modern National Matches?
Original Caption: “National Rifle Matches, Camp Perry, Ohio, Aug. 25 – Sept. 14, 1930. Typical combat firing – with gas masks.” Note the M1903 Springfields with ladder sights and what look to be KTM (Kops Tissot Monro) Model 1919 (M1) gas masks, the interwar standard.
Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-95390-108 National Archives Identifier 405231277
1908 California rifle team at Camp Perry, Ohio. The site of the National Shoot. 5×7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection via Shorpy.
When Camp Perry opened, the Krag Jorgensen rifle was still king of the range. It was not until 1908– as shown in the above photo– that enough of the Model 1903 rifles were available that they could be set aside for use in the National Matches.
Of interest in this photo from Perry in 1907 is the use by the shooter in the foreground of a Pope sight micrometer, attached to the rear sight elevation leaf. Harry Pope’s micrometers, unlike most of the several varieties that were made and sold, were intended to be left in place while the rifle was being fired. Photo via American Rifleman
At the 1907 National Matches, the rifle ranges accommodated 160 targets for shooting out to 1,000 yards, while the revolver targets (the M1911 was still a half-decade away from making an appearance at the match) numbered 5 each at distances of 15, 25, 50 and 75 yards.
US Army Rifle Team at the 1911 National Trophy Team Matches. Photo via Springfield Armory National Historic Site
Today the National Matches are a great deal more diverse and draw a slightly larger attendance, but one thing that hasn’t changed in the past 100 years is SAFS.
The Department of Defense first conducted the Small Arms Firing Schools (SAFS) as part of the National Matches at Camp Perry in 1918 and Federal law continues to require the annual course– which now instruct nearly 1,000 pistol and rifle shooters each year in firearms safety and fundamental marksmanship skills.
The current token entry fee of $45.00 ($30.00 for juniors) provides SAFS shooters with classroom instruction, field training, live fire squadded practice session, entry to the M16 EIC Rifle Match, as well as ammo for the course. The winner gets a plaque. The top four get medals. All get a t-shirt, a lapel pin, and a memory to keep forever as their very own experience in the National Matches.
From CMP:
The Small Arms Firing School (SAFS) is a two-day clinic that includes a safety training and live fire portion (30 rounds) on the first day and an M16 Rifle Excellence In Competition (EIC) match on day two. The course of fire after five sighting rounds for the M16 EIC match consists of 10 shots slow fire prone in 10 minutes, 10 shots rapid-fire prone in 60 seconds, 10 shots rapid-fire sitting in 60 seconds and 10 shots slow fire standing in 10 minutes, all fired from the 200-yard line.
The two-day Small Arms Firing School (SAFS) is a two-day clinic at national matches, which often sees military instructors impart their knowledge to 1,000 or so budding marksmen. (Photo: CMP)
The program is designed for beginning marksmen or those looking to earn their first EIC points, which are earned and applied toward receiving a Distinguished Rifleman Badge.
The Civilian Marksmanship Program’s National Trophy Rifle Team Match at Camp Perry goes back to 1903 and was commissioned by Congress and President Teddy Roosevelt back when the CMP was part of the Army’s Department of Civilian Marksmanship. Shooters fire at 200, 300 and 600 yards in standing, kneeling and prone positions with a service rifle.
It’s 50 shots in four stages:
Stage One: Competitors have 10 minutes to shoot 10 shots from 200 yards away in the standing position.
Stage Two: Competitors have 60 seconds to shoot 10 shots from 200 yards away in the sitting or kneeling from standing position.
Stage Three: Competitors have 70 seconds to shoot 10 shots from 300 yards away in the prone from standing position.
Stage Four: Competitors have 20 minutes to shoot 20 shots from 600 yards away in the prone position.
Here is the target.
The maximum (perfect score) for an individual taking part in the match is 500-50x, meaning you hit the “10” mark 50 times, and all 50 were in the “X”.
Last month Marine Sgt. Antonio DiConza, 25, broke the longstanding (set in 1985) nearly-perfect record of 499-28x, chalking up an amazing 500-15x.
DiConza, left, with his Pershing Trophy
Now keep in mind that the 1985 record was set with an M14 (M1A) while the new one was with an M16 (AR-15).
No pizza box for this guy.
“I told myself, ‘You know, I just shot 19 10’s and a few x’s – just shoot another 10. It’s not that hard. Relax,’” he said.
Maj. Hession’s rifle served him well in competition for over 30 years, then was loaned to the British to help Londoners from learning German in WWII. (Photo: National Firearms Museum)
Canadian-born U.S. Army Major John W. “Jack” Hession was a rock star of the shooting world in the 1900s but when Britain needed rifles in World War II, he sent his very best, only asking it be returned after things quieted down.
Hession, born in 1877, was an Army ordnance officer assigned to inspect weapons for the military at Remington Arms and later at Winchester and his cartouche inspector’s mark is well-known on martial guns of that era.
Besides his day job, he was a master long-range and small bore sharpshooter who competed in the 1908 London Olympics, set a world record for an 800 yard shot at Camp Perry the next year by shooting 57 consecutive bulls-eyes (that’s fifty-seven), winning the Marine Corps Cup in 1913, picking up the Wimbledon Cup in 1919 and 1932, and so on and so forth.
In all, he participated in 500 major competitions in the course of his life and is remembered as an excellent marksman to this day.
Well in 1940, with the British Army losing most of its equipment in the evacuation from Dunkirk, an urgent call was sent out for arms to equip the new Home Guard being prepared to resist a German invasion. With that, in November 1940 the National Rifle Association’s American Rifleman magazine ran an ad placed by the American Committee for the Defense of British Homes asking for guns to be donated as often and as soon as possible.
And in response, Hession sent his match-grade M1903 Springfield. Built in 1905, the bolt-action .30-06 had a 30-inch barrel and Stevens scope installed. A trophy and veteran rifle that had served him well, it was adorned with brass plates denoting its use in dozens of competitions.
Before it shipped to the UK along with over 7,000 other weapons collected, Hession added one more plate, one that simply read, “For obvious reasons the return of this rifle after Germany is defeated would be deeply appreciated.”
Hession himself, then in his 60s and retired from active duty, remained at his civilian job at Winchester and helped the war effort from there.
Sometime after Hitler was crushed the Hession rifle did come back home.
While the great rifleman passed in 1961, novelist Robert A. Heinlein, famous for Starship Troopers, later picked up the gun and even mentioned a similar ‘1903 in his work, Number of the Beast and it eventually ended up in the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia where it rests today.