Marksmanship with the M1903 in WWI?

[Maury Krupp]

Actually, that would be Tyler Rico from Tucson, Arizona who went Distinguished at not quite 13 1/2.

Tyler is the youngest (so far) but he's far from the only Junior to leg out before or since. Check the stage at Camp Perry each year; lots of young eyes and limber bodies standing up there.

It's not just the "younger guys" who are slaves to optics either. Go to any range on any given day and about all you'll see are guys with clones of the Hubble on their rifles banging away at 100yd. Ask them why and you get some BS about being too old to shoot irons.

Tell people, including most shooters, that you shoot 600 or 1000yd with iron sights, that you know guys in their 70s and 80s who do the same, and they look at you like you've got two heads.

Maury

[Griff Murphey]

I agree it is a lot of work to shoot well with iron sights after a certain age. It is hard in many cases to find a good optician or ophthalmologist to set a shooter up with an optimum prescription.

Even so a clean sight picture on an SR or MR does not mean a marksman can effectively use iron sights to humanely hunt big game or shoot steel plates set out in semi camouflaged positions as in three gun competition.

I have been lucky as my distance vision in my right eye has improved noticeably in the last decade. I was very nearsighted in my youth and at age 64 can now shoot iron sight bullseye very well with no optical correction, but for three gun and hunting, I really need a scope. Left eye remains great for reading and close work.

In youth I envied the old Army sergeants who could shoot rapid fire bare eyeballed in the rain. Well, they don't allow that any more.

High power scopes will mess up your target acquisition!

[ChrisATX]

Tell people, including most shooters, that you shoot 600 or 1000yd with iron sights, that you know guys in their 70s and 80s who do the same, and they look at you like you've got two heads.

Shooting irons taught me that I simply don't understand using optics at the 100 yard line.

Last week, for example, there were three other gentlemen on the line. One was decked head to toe in 5.11 shooting a brand new M14... scoped. The second was switching back and forth between ARs and some kind of generic Remington 700, ALL on sleds. Then there was a retired gentleman, former Army, former Wildcatter, another scoped M14, all synthetic. When I went to retrieve my target, they came downrange to check theirs as well.

M14 guy's placement was all over the place. He shotgun patterned his zero-style target. Sled dude was grouping, but no clovers (he was using factory ammo, so he wasn't working up loads).

The wildcatter walks over to my target and exclaims, "100 yards with irons? I like the sh$t outta that!" He asked me what I did for a living, I told him I was a research scientist over at the university. He said "get the hell outta here, really?? Where'd you learn how to shoot?" I told him.

Naturally, after that, the other two gentlemen got curious and came over, and stayed quiet... the looks on their faces was pretty great though.

11 shots, 100 yards, slinged up, elbows to the bench.




I have positively no doubt in my mind that if a well-trained rifleman with an issues M1903 could see it, he could hit it.

[Herschel]

The guys who shoot scope sighted rifles are likely the same ones who drive vehicles with automatic transmissions. I am 76 years old and my deer rifle is a 1903 NRA Sporter with iron sights. I am not totally retro as I carry a smart phone and drive a car with auto trans.

[mwt]

Proper deer rifle
http://tinypic.com/m/i1fozk/2