TARGET SHOOTING

Southland Times, Issue 18770, 19 March 1920, Page 6

TARGET SHOOTING

AN OLD QUESTION REVIVED. RECONSTRUCTED CHAMPIONSHIPS. Whether the best possible results are being obtained from the Dominion Rifle Association Championship Meetings as far as encouragement to rifle shooting is concerned, was a question of frequent debate amongst contestants at the recent meetings. Rifle championship competitors may roughly be divided into two schools—those who uphold the importance of Service matches (which, roughly, are the practices in which all soldiers are required to pass) and those who support a continuance of things as they are, and as they have been. Among the strongest advocates for the Service matches were the military representatives who were competing, and one or two who shot last year at BLsley. At Bisley the King’s Prize is a Service competition. Some opinions were obtained from a noted marksman. “As far the encouragement of the young rifle shot is concerned,” be said, "the meeting is of little use. Money, I understand, is contributed by the Government for (his purpose out of the Defence vote, the intention being to encourage young men to become good rifle shots; but we don’t get value for 4 the money. At present rifle shootists come together chiefly to carry out practices which are not conducive to good Service shooting, and there is no system laid down to encourage experienced riflemen to take an interest in territorials and cadets.” Boys, he added, could be trained in their Service practices from year’s end to year’s end; and yet it was possible for men to come to these matches and not enter for the Service championships at all. They could get so much Government money to assist them to compete and yet, so far as the country’s requirements in these matters were concerned, give nothing back. TRAIN THE BOYS. “What should be advocated to overcome this? Train the boys to shoot; give them every facility to learn actually to shoot and become marksmen. At present this is not being done. The cadets are only taught the theory of musketry, and are put on a range at 25 yards, and that is practically all the shooting they get. A great number of territorials have come up from senior cadets during the past five years who could not shoot from a rifleman’s point of view. Give these boys the chance of winning a championship which will spread a halo round the head of the best shot, and it will draw cadets to the rifle range. Every lad will want to ‘have a go at it.’ Take, as an example the four boys from the Hamilton High School. Those lads beat, the best New Zealand shots in a practical Service match, in which resource and rapidity of aim were required, and what brought it to pass? Simply that last year one of their number did well at Trentham, and at smaller gatherings in the north, and his companions emulated his example. That boy had done more for his school, and probably for cadet rifle efficiency, than the expenditure of any amount of money, or lectures by sergeant-majors. He had drawn the admiration of his fellows upon him. Now his school possessed the fame of producing the best team of 4)arp-shoot-ers in the Dominion. Have a championship for cadets such as would encourage youth to go to Trentham, and in the course of ten years there would be a younger generation who could shoot, instead of as things were at present. These championships as we now had them were good sport for certain old rifle shots, but they were virtually useless from the defence-of-the country’s point of view.

THE SERVICE MATCHES. “Take the service matches, the only events of real value. The matches were drawn up in accordance with service conditions, and were the same practices which the British Army—the Old Contemptibles in-cluded—-were required to shoot. Yet at the Trentham meeting the series was treated in such a way as to take from the competition all interest. The whole service series, except the final championship event, was got rid of in one day to make way for the long-range bull’s-eye shooting. This disgusted men with long-service shooting. Carry out the Service condition as laid down and make it more interesting. Cut out at least half of the bull’s-eye shooting, and give more time to the Service matches. That was the only way men would be taught real valuable war Service rifle shooting in the defence of their country. Have bull’s-eye shooting, but let it be secondary to the real thing. The defence authorities should run the Service matches, and they would then be able to practise what they preached.”