On rifles and shooting

I participate in the National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio every year and I've obtained a number of my shooting rifles and ammunition from the Civilian Marksmanship Program.



These are M-1 Garand rifles, most of which came from the CMP. There are two Winchesters and two International Harvesters on that stack, along with one Harrington and Richardson. Two of the Springfield Armory models appear to be unfired since their late 1960's rebuilds. The Springfield Armory model on the far left has a serial number of 208xx, indicating that it was made in 1939. That gun was originally a gas-trap model but alas, it was rebuilt into a "regular" Garand long before it ever came to me. It now sports an LMR 1953 barrel so it's obviously spent quite a but of time in the service and seen some use.

The one that I use for competition is a Winchester-made gun that came with a practically new Danish VAR barrel. I got that one in 2000 at Camp Perry when the Danish guns were first being sold. At that time, you lined up to go into a hut where the CMP armorers were handing out rifles from big crates containing 100 guns each. The rumor had gone down the line that there were Winchester rifles in the crates and as Winchesters are fairly rare, everyone going in was naturally asking for one. Of course this had the armorers a little frustrated after a while, so when I got there and casually asked if they had any Winchesters, the guy in front of me finally snapped and yelled: "OK I've had it! Everybody listen! The Winchesters are few and far between! We've only seen a couple so everyone needs to stop coming in here asking for one. We're offering Garands, period." Then he looked at me and said: "If you want a rifle you can buy THIS one!" Then he reached into the crate and grabbed a rifle at random. He handed it to me and I saw the logo on the reciever: "Winchester".

Of course I yelled "Whoa--a Winchester! Thank you!" and everyone back down the line started saying "They do have Winchesters in there!" The armorer was as shocked as anyone and not happy because now even more people were going to be asking for them.

That rifle turned out to be a good shooter, and at the 2001 National Matches it won me a silver medal in the John C. Garand match. That score: 273-7x.
(273 out of 300, 7 hits to the X ring at 200 yards).