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