Service Rifle Optic Sight

[Andouille]

Well now, I've observed the whole who-raw whine-fest about sissyfication with equal amounts of amusement and irritation. Once up on a time, you took an issue rifle to the line and fired issue ammunition. Then came the M1903 in National Match version. At first, it was very similar to the "regular" M1903 rifle, but then came better barrels and "C" stocks, which did not get put on "regular" rifles for many years. On my desk is a picture of the 1931 Kansas high power rifle team, with all their equipment. Their equipment consisted of NM rifles, 10-pocket cartridge belts, little straight thru telescopes on really short tripods and most of their shooting jackets had home-made elbow patches rudely stitched into place. The road from "real" service rifle had already become somewhat forked, but you could still see it from there.

Then post-Korea, came the NM Garand and M-14 with their heavy barrels, heavy stocks, glass bedding and trick sights, further blurring the view. Then came the A2 version of the AR, which quickly became a VERY heavy barreled VERY trick sighted float tubed fast-twist poodle shooter firing bullets way heavier than issue with two-stage triggers which were NEVER issue either. These gizmos are now commonly leaded up past 15 pounds and you need a garden cart to haul all your crap (store-bought cordura jacket, big spotting scope, scope stand, stool, cooler, etc) from the parking lot down to the 200-yard line for roll call, cursing your luck every step of the way that you got squadded on Viale instead of Rodriquez.

Anyway it appears to me that, we haven't really had a "real" service rifle at any of the "big" matches since about 1920, give or take a year or so. And for some time now, we are allowed a hooded rear sight with a lense, and the new adjustable what's-it thingy has been approved for NRA/CMP competition.

So anyway I had to tell all of y'all all of that so I could tell you this. What I was wondering was, all you so called "serious" shooters, those of you bashing the rules committees and especially the new guy who was hired to make things a bit more relevant, who by the way has more than just a little experience on the two-way range, I just really have to wonder how may of y'all are using a lense in YOUR rear sight at the same time you're whining about the new rapid fire start from position rules. Because I really don't see much difference between the two. Like any other sport, high power has its own rules. We may not like the rules, but there they are, and we all have to live with them. If you don't like the rules, perhaps you should campaign for a place on the rules committee and set things right, or move on to something else like bowling, or maybe match rifle.

Once upon a time, experience and practical improvements gained at the "big" matches trickled down to the troops and interested civilian shooters. We haven't had much of that, other than the DMR program, for quite a long time, and the DMR program is more more tactical than most of us are used to nowadays. Maybe it's time we changed some of that, and got back to shooting something like a "real" service rifle and shoot it like the troops actually shoot these days, than what we're doing now. Personally, I hope the new match, which by the way is a test match by invitation only, catches on and shakes things up and brings a whole bunch of new folks into the game. How that could be a bad thing, is beyond my feeble imagination but I guess some of you will be along promptly to tell me how to get my mind right.

[Jim in Salt Lake]

Change is uncomfortable, change is inevitable. I just want to play the game. I'm 57 and that front sight is getting pretty hard to see. My son shot his first high power season last summer and I shot with him, we had a blast and went to Camp Perry for the first time. If the rules change, I'll do my best to adapt and compete to the best of my ability, as long as I can do so effectively.

There were several matches I shot where I was guessing where the bull was at 600. I tried 6 o'clock hold, center mass, using the corner of the target frame, you name it, if the light wasn't right, I was guessing. After the season was over, I was convinced my only option was match rifle and I was preparing to spend the $5K for a new rifle and other associated gear and reloading supplies. Got a tip on the new SR Microsight and ordered one. Last weekend, I tried it out at 600 and it worked well enough I came home and canceled a match rifle order. The one lens rule is keeping me in service rifle, without it, I would have left and happily gone to a match rifle to keep shooting.

It doesn't bother me that "service rifle" really isn't what is actually used in the military. These matches were started to increase the level of marksmanship in our country with the benefit to the military when their need arises in time of war. I don't care what you're shooting, it comes down to sight alignment, natural point of aim, position, trigger control, etc., you know the drill. If you develop the skill with one rifle, it's going to transfer to another.

We shot with an 18 year Marine at Perry one day. He explained how they put their team together, you make it by shooting your way up through matches at different levels. Your time on the national team is limited (a year I think, don't remember exactly) and then you're rotated back to the fleet with the expectation you will bring what you've learned and your experience to your fellow Marines. Again, my opinion is that skills learned with a "service rifle" will make you a better marksman with an issue rifle.

I've been shooting highpower since '87 and started with an M1, then an M1A until work travel stopped me for 10 years. When I started back up, I bought an AR15 and was real happy with how much less it cost than that M1A, to buy and to shoot. Change, change, change....some good, some not so (I miss standing to sitting/prone in the NRA matches) but you adapt and roll with the punches. Because when you get right down to it, the game is just too much fun and the people are the best.

[Maury Krupp]

As PhillipM pointed out so concisely above, it's not, and never has been, about “combat” or “two-way ranges.”

It's not, and never has been, about what's “current” or “relevant.”

It's not about what today's Army does or doesn't do.

And it's certainly not about twisting the discipline of highpower rifle competition into something else until it's no longer what attracted current shooters in the first place. Especially not in some mis-guided attempt to "increase participation."

It is (or is supposed to be) about learning to shoot the rifle.

It's about learning the hows and whys of sight alignment, sight picture, trigger squeeze, NPA, BRASS, and a dozen or more other things necessary to drill the X-ring from 200 to 1000 yards.

It's about a course of fire and scoring system that is focused on the ability to drill that X-ring and not on speed or movement or reaction time or any other non-X-ring related abilities.

That's why the USMC still uses KD shooting, from standard positions, with iron sights, a sling, and a coat as its primary instruction in marksmanship. Because the ability to precisely and deliberately place shots in the center of a target is the core upon which all other applications of marksmanship depend.

The use of heavy barrels, float tubes, half or quarter minute sights, and the rest are all unimportant. If the rules changed to require rifles without any modifications but still required me to align the sights, assume a good position, and do the other things that form the core of this discipline I'd do that. Oh wait, that's pretty much what an "As Issued" match does.

I have no quarrel with any of the “Action” shooting disciplines. I’ve shot them in the past and enjoyed them at the time. I'm free to return to them if I again feel a desire to shoot at pop-up targets from 7 yards or move between firing points, or adopt ad-hoc firing positions, or do any of the other things that form the core of those disciplines. But if or when that happens I won't be insisting that the current participants start shooting from 600yd with a post front sight, sling, and hardback coat.

When the people who are bent on “improving” or “increasing participation” in highpower rifle competition can show me their Distinguished Rifleman’s badge or President’s 100 brassard I may start to take them and their ideas seriously.

Until then leave my discipline alone.

Maury

[Danny]

Thanks Maury,
You did a lot of talking for me there, too, and you didn't even know it!

Danny

As PhillipM pointed out so concisely above, it's not, and never has been, about “combat” or “two-way ranges.”

It's not, and never has been, about what's “current” or “relevant.”

It's not about what today's Army does or doesn't do.

And it's certainly not about twisting the discipline of highpower rifle competition into something else until it's no longer what attracted current shooters in the first place. Especially not in some mis-guided attempt to "increase participation."

It is (or is supposed to be) about learning to shoot the rifle.

It's about learning the hows and whys of sight alignment, sight picture, trigger squeeze, NPA, BRASS, and a dozen or more other things necessary to drill the X-ring from 200 to 1000 yards.

It's about a course of fire and scoring system that is focused on the ability to drill that X-ring and not on speed or movement or reaction time or any other non-X-ring related abilities.

That's why the USMC still uses KD shooting, from standard positions, with iron sights, a sling, and a coat as its primary instruction in marksmanship. Because the ability to precisely and deliberately place shots in the center of a target is the core upon which all other applications of marksmanship depend.

The use of heavy barrels, float tubes, half or quarter minute sights, and the rest are all unimportant. If the rules changed to require rifles without any modifications but still required me to align the sights, assume a good position, and do the other things that form the core of this discipline I'd do that. Oh wait, that's pretty much what an "As Issued" match does.

I have no quarrel with any of the “Action” shooting disciplines. I’ve shot them in the past and enjoyed them at the time. I'm free to return to them if I again feel a desire to shoot at pop-up targets from 7 yards or move between firing points, or adopt ad-hoc firing positions, or do any of the other things that form the core of those disciplines. But if or when that happens I won't be insisting that the current participants start shooting from 600yd with a post front sight, sling, and hardback coat.

When the people who are bent on “improving” or “increasing participation” in highpower rifle competition can show me their Distinguished Rifleman’s badge or President’s 100 brassard I may start to take them and their ideas seriously.

Until then leave my discipline alone.

Maury

[Kirk]

My Service Rifle match AR is near to needing a new barrel. I guess when I have it rebarreled, I'll add front gas block/front sight base with a bayonet lug, a breaching suppressor & a handguard with rails. Can you use real bayonets for the CQB component or, since it's electronically scored & you really are at close quarters on the line, a rubber one? Can night vision sights or MeproLights be used for the midnight match or will they allow lights?

Seriously, technology and times change. How many rules now are optimized for the .45-70 Springfields? The 5/5 & 2/8 rules for mandatory reloads in rapid fire stages go back to 1903 & 1937. I am glad to see electronic scoring introduced. I hope it will 1. be accurate & 2. speed up matches. Since virtually 100% of all match shooters in Jan 2011 are set up under the old rules, there is a lot of inertia to overcome. It will take years before all this electronic stuff to become commonplace. I just hope they will soon allow my 82W laserifle on the line. The one time I used it in a match, I was disqualified because the target burned too fast for the the pit crew to score.

[remus]

I think that the military armorers are the originators of the present national match rifle. They are the ones who put on special natl match sights, float tubes, heavy barrels, tiriggers, adinfinitum. The civilian shooters had to adapt their stuff to be somewhat competitive with these people. The rules committees said that these improvements were allowed as long as the service rifle looked like a service rifle. I remember being on an army team in the 1960's my military issue m14 had a match trigger, match sights, glass bedded action and match barrel. I am sure that the old 03's and m1's were modified by the military armorers to shoot better too.

I don't see that the civilian NRA had much to do with initiating these modifications, all they did was allow civilians to use the same modifications that the military was putting into their "service" rifles for competition.

I am a distinguished shooter and the only thing that I hope is that the CMP which is now ministering that program does not bastardise the rules on rifles in a way that will cheapen that award. Standing to sitting, standing to prone, I hope it remains part of the course of fire. I don't think acog type sights will be a benefit to anyone shooting in a EIC match and hope they aren't permitted in the future.

Iron sights rule. I

[PhillipM]

The view 900 miles from Camp Perry

At 42 I'm new to competition shooting and all I have is an "as issued" M1 built by JohnF from this board. My parents both shot skeet pro in the NSSA when I was in diapers. Skeet are all fine and dandy but I really fell in love with old service rifles. Until Jouster popped on the scene around 1998 I never knew anything about Perry or National Matches nor what either meant.

I'm a dedicated civilian, but my best friend, same age as me, joined the Mississippi National Guard in 1987. He has been in law enforcement his whole life since we graduated high school in 1986 and has no more a clue about national matches than I, other than what I've told him. He is a serious shooter and knows I am too, he won't take bets against me. The point is here we are, one with a life long military career, he's up for E-9!, and me a lifelong enthusiast, never knew National Matches or Camp Perry even existed till we were middle aged. Now we are old fat guys and I just wonder what I could have done had I known. (don't worry, I'm on track now I know the path!)

A few weeks ago I finalized a deal on a low number 03 by phone and as it wound up he was near the seller's home in his travels he picked it up for me. When I picked it up after a bit I assumed a standing position and he told me how wrong that position was. He said the most stable position is hunched forward square with the target! I demonstrated the standing position and showed the bone on bone structure to which he said how old is my information, and I told him it goes back about 1900. He then asked if anything new had been done in the last few years and took my 03 and showed me a squared up hunched stance that resembled something off the cover of a video game. In relationship to football he pushed me in standing position related to his position and told me how unstable standing position was.

In short, a decorated combat veteran up for E-9 thinks standing position is dumb and current training is best. The only thing I could defend my position with was "This is how the Army Marksmanship Unit does it" and that gave him pause. I figure the pause was for he'd never heard of the Army Marksmanship Unit and that messed him up. His blank stare (hard to get from an E-8 not to mention a cop) was proof he had never heard of the AMU.

...I just talked with a vet about 30 years old that knew there were marksmanship matches but not the path to get there.

I've a friend,my age, Nathan Mathern, that went to Marine scout sniper school that knows NOTHING about the national matches. He spends his off time riding four wheelers (quads) in the mud. He knows there are matches but not how to get in or what the prize is. What a waste of talent!!!!

Of my friends I'm the only one that will jump in and shoot any match, probably because I've never been in the military. I don't care, I'm not scared to make an idiot of myself, I just want to know.

I'm new so take my advice with a huge grain of salt, but if you want some excellent shooters to join the ranks, spend as much time PROMOTING THE SPORT as you do griping about minutia!!!! As a new guy I don't have any weight but I think the guys from the M14 days should recruit kids as often as they decry black rifles. A stupid Wii is the the sport of choice because olders have not passed down traditions.

When can we start shooting targets in the comfort of our living room on a screen while wearing 3D goggles? Electronic targets are getting us there PDQ!