A RIFLE SHOOTING ENTHUSIAST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10304, 8 November 1911, Page 2

A RIFLE SHOOTING ENTHUSIAST.

Lieutenant Wallingford, who was lately appointed musketry instructor to the New Zealand Forces, is a great believer in the sub-target machine as a means of instructing tho youth of a nation in marksmanship. Speaking recently upon the matter of learning to shoot, tho lieutenant said:—"Ascompared with when I learned to shoot it la much easier now. The officers who are responsible for building the soldiers' rifles at the present day know that the less punishment a man gets when he fires the shot, the more rounds will he fire, and firo them ever so much better. in the old days lam very much afraid it was artillerymen who were responsible for the soldiers' rifles. They never'seemed to take into coneidration the human element, and therefore the rifle was built for a machine to lire it. Things are different now. We find that tho rifle is produced by men who make its peculiarities their life study, and so we get, as compared to years ago, accuracy, safety, less punishment for the firer, more rapid shooting, and less to carry. Besides this, we have so many devices for teaching the young idea. Why, I know a college that turns out excellent rifle shots who have simply the subtarget machine to teach this part of their education, with just two practices during the summer term at the miniature range of a few miles away. Then we have the portable sub-target machine that enables anybody to get practice without going to the range, and without fear of hitting anybody. This is a splendid little machine, which I take advantage of to get practice if I haven't the opportunity of firing on the open range. Tho air rifle is another device for teaching to shoot, and shoot quite accurately up to fifty yards. Then we have the miniature rifle firing a rim fire cartridge of .22 calibre. The Australians seem to know tho value of this rifle. lam told that the boys there fire away some hundreds of millions of rounds annually. Well, I can now understand hmv it is that when I was in Australia in 1907 one saw so many young shots. Age for age Australia was ton years younger than we were, and it was simply wonderful to see the number of men who could safely be called a crack shot. One can go to Bisley and after writing down thirty or forty names, it would be 'hard to find any more cracks. In Australia one could easily run into two or three hundred." .