RIFLE SHOOTING

Southland Times, Issue 23306, 16 September 1937, Page 9

RIFLE SHOOTING

(By

BULLSEYE)

There will be no club shooting at Otatara until Saturday, September 25. Major P. MacKenzie the well-known Wakatipu marksman suffered a sad bereavement recently in the loss of his wife. Mr MacKenzie and his family will have the sympathy of all Southland riflemen in his sad loss.

The Queensland King’s Prize was won last month by W. J. Harris of the Wodonga Club, Victoria, after firing off a tie with W. Hogarth, of the Clifton Club, Queensland. The shoot off was an exciting contest. Hogarth opened with two bulls for sighters which were compulsory and did not count in the score, while Harris started with an outer and a bull. It looked, a sure thing for Hogarth till the third shot when he got a miss and finished with 17. Harris kept well on the target and made 22. The range was 900 yards. Harris has been shooting for a number of years and is one of the leading shots of Victoria. It is a coincident that during the last three years a tie has occured on each occasion for the Queensland King’s Prize. That fine New South Wales marksman, J. Feltham of the Marulau Club, who won the New South Wales King’s Prize four years ago looked like winning in Queensland but fell back in the final stages and finished sixth. He, however, won a match at 300, 500, and 600 yards with a score of 102. MINIATURE CLUBS Some of the miniature clubs are still shooting and several possibles have been compiled recently. The successful marksmen were:—M. J. Sheehan (R.S.A.), R. Barclay (Mataura), W. Aitken (Tuatapere), A. Pomeroy (Invercargill), J. J. Lawson (Tuatapere), F. Penman (Boys’ Club) and S. L. Wall (Invercargill). The United Trading Company’s Cup, which is competed for annually between the Wyndham, Mataura and Pukerau Miniature Clubs, was won this year by Pukerau. Mrs C. S. Constable, who is the best woman shot in Australia, recently won the championship of the Melbourne Postal Institute Club, and the No. 1 aggregate and was second in the No. 2 aggregate. This was a wonderful performance for a woman, as the Postal Institute Club contains some of the finest shots in Victoria including R. W. Gunn who won a couple of King’s Prizes. Gunn won the New South Wales King’s Prize in 1930 with a record score. Mrs Constable will be a competitor at the big meeting in Sydney next February and will have to be reckoned with in the shoot for the five hundred guinea King’s Prize. A number of miniature marksmen have sent away for new .303 Lee Enfield rifles for the purpose of shooting on the open range. This will mean that more targets will be in use than formerly. It will also mean that there should be many more entries for the Southland championship meeting this year.

In reference to the Southland Rifle Association’s annual championship meeting, it is to be hoped that it will be fired at its proper venue this year. The association has been unfortunate in the matter of weather for two or three years, and last year the meeting was fired at Garston in fine weather, but the entry was worse than ever because of the distance many competitors had to travel. The weather was also fine in Invercargill last year, and had the meeting been held at its usual time at Otatara, there would probably have been a better entry. When the meeting flourished with plenty of entries the date was never shifted from Boxing Day and the following day. Last year it was held at New Year time and there is no doubt that the many counter-at-tractions at that time must affect the entry. If a good programme is compiled to cater for both A and B grade shots and the old date strictly adhered to, there is no reason why the association should not have a very much increased entry at Otatara this year. HIGH VELOCITY RIFLES The Canadian Government of National Defence has been conducting experiments with high velocity rifles and has now carried its research to a muzzle velocity of 6000 feet a second.

Our Lee Enfield has a muzzle velocity of 2450 feet a second. Both rifles and ammunition have been developed in their own laboratories;- but the original ideas on which the experiments have been based are to be found in the German Haljar sporting rifle which has been on sale in this country for some years. The high velocity bullets used in the Canadian experiments are very light, but they have a smashing effect on armour plate which is out of all proportion to striking energy at it is usually understood. General A. G. L. McNaughton, Chief of the General Staff, exhibited some hard steel plate struck by an ordinary .303 mark VII bullet, and by the experimental light bullet, both having substantially the same striking energy at ■the plate. The effect of the mark VII was negligible. The light bullet had smashed its way through the plate. The light bullet was not designed with a steel core for armour piercing but had a normal aluminium tip and was built in exactly the same way as the mark VH. “When we get these high velocities,” said Major-General McNaughton, “we get a smashing effect on armour out of all proportion to the striking energy, and we are getting to a point where the rifleman is again on a parity with the armour which will be present in front of him in the field. It shows most emphatically the importance of the rifleman as part of our defence forces.”