GUNS Magazine March 1956 - Jeffersonian

TARGET RIFLE SHOOTING
than half the young fry inducted these days have never
had a shooting iron in their hands.
Why this deterioration from a country proudly bred
of riflemen, to a situation that finds our 19-year-olds
traveling from cradle to induction and never once with
a gun in hand?
The reasons are multitudinous but among others is
the utterly uninteresting, unglamorous, dull and stultifying
target game we play.
We are belly-whopper shooters. We get down on
the old navel and wallow around in the dirt and wear
callouses on our elbow. The belly-flat position is called
the "prone" and it is supposed to be good clean fun.
Actually a more strained and unnatural pose could
scarcely be dreamed up. It takes a long time to master
and many a sore muscle in the learning.
Whether with big bore or the peewee .22, the bellydown
position is a must. If Mister Gallup polled the
16 million shooters of the nation tomorrow he'd find
more interest in the Thursday afternoon camel races
of the Shah of Yemen than in either of our target-shoot
games.
In all honesty, big bore target panning in this cen-
Unnatural prone position used by shooters
in National Matches is hard on shooters,
takes away from glamour of shooting and
has contributed to lack of interest in target
game. Value of formal prone position for
military purposes is considered negligible.
Use of hunting rifles only for target
shooting is proposed by author Askins,
former match champion, who uses
Model 9!2 lever-action Savage in field.
Lever action is most popular hunting
gun, but mainly bolt action rifles are
used by National Match competitom.