Tag Archives: civilian marksmanship program

CMP got 8,000 M1911s. Guess how many order packets they received?

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The plan to transfer some of the Army’s stockpile of vintage M1911 pistols to the public via the Civilian Marksmanship Program has been met with a big response.

On Tuesday, the federally chartered non-profit corporation tasked with promoting firearms safety and practice announced that they had received and were processing 19,000 packets submitted for a chance to acquire one of the classic .45ACP handguns. That’s more than twice the number of guns in the CMP’s warehouse.

And they may not be getting any more.

More in my column at Guns.com

Whistling up 90K M1 Garands

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CAMP AGUINALDO, Philippines - Joint Armed Forces of Philippines and U.S. team conducting M1 Inventory, 2017

CAMP AGUINALDO, Philippines – Joint Armed Forces of Philippines and U.S. team conducting M1 Inventory, 2017

The backstory on how six divisions worth of M1 Garands got repatriated from the Phillipines, where they have seen hard service since the 1950s in some cases, back to the U.S. to be sold through CMP in Anniston. Contrary to what a lot of people think, CMP actually had to spend a small fortune to get these vintage weapons back CONUS.

“It goes almost without saying that accurately accounting for and transporting approximately 90,000 small arms from the other side of the globe is challenging under any circumstances. Throw in termite infestation, monsoon season, and asbestos contamination, and you will have a recipe for disaster.”

More here.

Language added to NDAA to speed up 1911 transfers to CMP

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An Alabama Congressman has managed to pass an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act out of committee aimed at moving surplus Army pistols to the public.

In a statement from his office, U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican that represents the Anniston area in Congress, announced his amendment to the NDAA has moved out of the House Armed Services Committee and is headed to the floor. The measure is designed to speed up the now two-year saga of transferring a stockpile of 100,000 surplus M1911 .45ACP handguns from Anniston Army Depot to the Civilian Marksmanship Program.

More in my column at Guns.com

Sellier & Bellot’s .30-06 150 grain M2 ball

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On a recent visit to the CMP’s operation in Anniston, where green ammo crates were once stacked 30 feet high in a warehouse that could hide a Wal-Mart, the organization now only has about 20,000 rounds of surplus ammo left on hand, and that figure is rapidly falling.

What they do have in quantity is a loading they have worked with S&B to develop, a new man M2 FMJ doppelganger loaded to military spec.

Given 100 rounds to T&E, I hit the range to see how they worked, and the “ping” was with me.

More in my column at Guns.com

When it comes to captured enemy weapons, the Army never throws anything away

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I recently had the chance to tour U.S. Army’s Museum Support Center at Anniston Army Depot, the keepers of the flame for military history in the country.

The 15,200-acre installation in North Alabama was established in World War II and overhauls both small arms and vehicles for the Army. A longstanding tenant on the sprawling base, based out of Building 201, is the Museum Support Center, operated by the Center of Military History. The CMH maintains an immense collection of 650,000 historic items across 228 sites including 57 large museums that are a part of the Army Museum Enterprise. Items not yet on display, waiting for a public home, or are excess to current museum needs are stored in the “Army’s attic” in Anniston.

In secured storage at the MSC are 13,000 live weapons of all sorts, ranging from 13th Century Ottoman gear to guns captured recently in Afghanistan…and they were gracious enough to roll out the red carpet for me:

More in my column at Guns.com

Inside the CMP, and the word on M1s coming back from overseas and possible 1911s…

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To see just what the non-profit has on the shelf, I visited the Civilian Marksmanship’s South operations in Anniston. Co-located near the Anniston Army Depot — which is actually in nearby Bynum — and stores much of the Army’s stockpile of guns and items not needed for current operations, the CMP has a series of warehouses dotting the rolling hills of the area.

Unfortunately, most of them are nearly empty.

While now-retired CMP boss Orest Michaels told me back in 2010 the organization had 125,000 M1 rifles on hand including complete rifles, stripped receivers, and welded drill rifles, the group is coy about just what the numbers are today after several years of brisk sales and surging interest in U.S. martial rifles.

As Jim Townsend, CMP’s business development officer, walked me through a tour of their largest warehouse, he swept his arms over a large expanse of empty floor space and said, “When I first started here, this whole side of the building was full of M1s.” Repurposed crates that once contained M1s returning from allies in Greece and Denmark now hold everything but.

Repurposed crates that once contained M1s returning from allies in Greece and Denmark now hold everything but.

Why keep the empty space?

Check out my column at Guns.com for the answer.

Disneyland for Shooters…

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I recently had the opportunity to visit the immaculate ranges used by the Civilian Marksmanship Program to support public firearms training.

The CMP is a federally-chartered non-profit corporation tasked with promoting firearms safety training and target practice. It originated as the Office of the Director of Civilian Marksmanship in 1903 under orders from Congress to improve the country’s marksmanship skills to minimize training in case of war.

Split off from the U.S. Army under the Clinton-administration in 1996, it still conducts training courses and holds shooting competitions and clinics nationwide but draws its primary source of funding through the sale of surplus firearms to qualifying members of the public which were donated to the organization by the Army.

With an eye to see just what all those M1 Garand sales have helped pay for, I visited the CMP’s Alabama operations to get a better idea about what they offer the public:

How about a covered 54-positon 600-yard range with targets at 100-200-600, all electronically scored with a monitor at your station…

15 different clays stands on golf-course quality grounds..

Olympic-quality 10m airgun ranges set up for 80 competitors at a time– also with electronic targets

It’s almost like they are into civilian marksmanship training or something…

More in my column at Guns.com.

Some 86,000 surplus M1s could be coming to CMP from the PI

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This is my favorite work of Rafael Desoto. The Garand is great

The Civilian Marksmanship Program advises the Army could soon hand over a large stock of historically significant M1 rifles.

A post on an M1 Garand collectors group on Friday mentioned a group of loaned rifles coming in from the Philippines was being processed by the U.S. Army for shipment back to the states. Mark Johnson, CMP’s chief operating officer, confirmed that a large group of rifles may indeed be headed home and wind up in the organization’s hands.

”There are 86,000 or so M1’s hopefully coming back to the Army,” said Johnson. “We hope to see them in the future.”

More in my column at Guns.com

Every Marine a Rifleman (and some even more so)

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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.

cmp 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.

Marine.smashes.31.year_.old_.National.Trophy.Rifle_.Team_.Match_.record-1

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.

More in my column at Guns.com

The Army’s surplus gun pipeline may be fixing to run dry

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m1_lede

Last week the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed the 2017 defense authorization act– but hidden inside its pages is a section that could destroy the military’s current stock of surplus rifles and pistols.

The Senate’s version of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act authorizes some $602 billion in spending and despite President Obama’s threat to veto the annual policy measure over issues including a ban on closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison, saw widespread support, passing 85-13 last Tuesday.

While many have noted the measure includes such items as requiring females to register for the draft beginning in 2018, others have been lost in the almost kafkaesque layers of the bill.

In short, within 90 days of the bill becoming law, the Army would transfer almost all of the surplus guns it held at Anniston to Rock Island for meltdown. The only exceptions would be for up to 2,000 M1911 pistols and 2,000 M14 rifles that could be donated to military museums for preservation.

This could mean the death knell for surplus guns for CMP, the 1033 Program which supports some 8,000 local police agencies, and the Ceremonial Rifle Program which provides guns for veterans’ groups such as the VFW and DAV.

More in my column at Guns.com

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