INDEX. Rigby muzzle loading and later breech loading long range match rifles were famously used by Ireland in international shooting competitions against America.
Archives
The Science of Long Range Shooting
It’s 1879, and since the 1874 International Match at Creedmoor there have been a lot of changes. Edwin Perry shares, in his Third Edition of Modern Observations on Rifle Shooting (1880), some of the major changes / advancements at Creedmoor in just a short 5 years. When it comes to bullet alloys, much of what has been passed around on the internet as fact about the advent of harder alloy bullets is, frankly, nothing but conjecture. And what has been passed off as fact is in effect WRONG. Very hard alloy bullets, were in vogue by 1879 for long range competition and were sold by Sharps and Remington. Factory ammo was no longer used by any of the big name shooters. Most had, after careful study, found that their own reloads had much better performance on the long range targets. Make no mistake about it, rapid advances in long range shooting were going on, and much of it we knew little about, until now.
Breech-loaders V. Muzzle-loaders
On Saturday, July 31st, a very interesting competition took place in the presence of Major Sir C.S.Paul Hunter, Bart., between Corporal Bainbridge and fourteen picked men of the battalion using long Enfield rifles and three men using the Soper direct-action breech-loader.
The Woe’s of Corporal Peake
The year 1868 saw Corporal Peake of the 6th Lancashire finish 30th in the First Stage of the Queen’s Prize. This was enough to secure Peake £15 in prize money and advancement to the Second Stage where the top sixty riflemen were issued with Whitworth rifles to compete for the honour of the Queen’s Prize and its £250 prize money. The competition took place on Tuesday 21 July, during which Peake fired the then highest recorded score in the event. When news of his winning achievement spread he was carried off accompanied by a band and feted by his fellow Volunteers. The celebrations were however short lived.
Sir Henry St. John Halford
It was in connection with rifle shooting and the volunteer movement that Sir Henry was best known. At the beginning of the movement in 1860 he took command of a company of the Leicestershire volunteers. In 1862 he became colonel of the battalion. In 1868 he resigned, but resumed the office in 1878, and held it till 1891, in which year he became honorary colonel. In 1886 he received the order of C.B.
Wimbledon & the Volunteers
Mention Wimbledon today and tennis will be the sport that springs to mind; in the latter part of the 19th Century however, the foremost sport would have been rifle shooting. From 1860 until 1889 the National Rifle Association (NRA) held their annual rifle meeting on Wimbledon Common, with attendance in the thousands… and that was just the riflemen! So who were these riflemen and what were they doing at Wimbledon?
Death of Sir Henry Halford
We record with a regret which will be shared in many circles, and particularly amongst those who have taken an interest in the development of rifle-shooting in this country, the death at Wistow Hall, Leicester, yesterday, after a long illness, arising from a heart affection, of Sir Henry St. John Halford, of Wistow.