Forums.NitroExpress.com

For years I have been competing with a bolt gun in high power rifle shooting, a part of which is rapid fire, in which the shooter is required to start in a standing position, with the rifle loaded but the bolt open. As the targets appear, the shooter assumes a sitting or prone position (depending on range) and fires five shots, then reloads, using a stripper clip and fired the remaining five shots, all in a period of 60 or 70 seconds. The same target is used at both 200 yards sitting and 300 yards prone, with a 7" "10" ring and a 3" "X" ring (for breaking ties).

I have determined that as a rule it takes me 12 seconds to get in position, settle down and fire the first shot, and ten seconds to reload and fire the sixth shot, leaving 38 or 48 seconds to fire the entire string, that is, 3.8 seconds per shot at 200 yards sitting, or 4.8 seconds per shot at 300 yards prone. Since I like to allow a few seconds at the end of the string to compensate for any difficulties, in actual practice it is more like 3 and 4 seconds per shot, most of which is spent recovering from the previous shot and aiming. Only metallic sights are allowed.

In the course of identifying the best rife to use in competition, I have fired virtually every bolt action I could get my hands on, including Springfields, Mausers, Enfields, SMLE's, Remington 40X's and Winchester Model 70's, both pre-War, pre-64, and post 64, as well as such exotics as the original Newton, the Mannlicher-Schoenauer, and the Styr CISM. For ease of action and perfection in feeding, I have never found anything to match the pre-War Model 70 Winchester. Once, when I fumbled a clip reloading and had to load the cartridges from the mat, I had only 8 seconds left when I started to shoot. Even so, I managed to get them all off and all were in the 13" black at 200 yards.

My .505, which is built on a P14 Enfield action, is another smoothly operating rifle. I once put four shots into a Cape buffalo as it ran past me at a distance of about 30 yards, three of which were in a group which could have been covered with a playing card. It seemed that the more I shoot that rifle, the slicker it gets.

One of the competitions at the National Matches involves the use of unaltered military bolt rifles, and in it the most frequent rifle used and the rifle inevitablely used by the match winner is the 1903 or 03A3 Springfield, although, in my opinion, it is nowhere nearly as smooth as a Model 70.