24 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January, 1922 
TURKEY SHOOTING MATCHES 
THEY ARE ALWAYS A POPULAR MEANS OF REVIVING IN- 
TEREST IN RIFLE, TRAPSHOOTING OR HUNTING CLUBS 
A REFERENCE to the subject of 
turkey matches is usually quite 
enough to enliven almost any 
gathering of rifle or shotgun 
shooters; for there is a certainty that 
some of those present will help to do the 
carving on our great American bird. 
A few years ago, Thanksgiving, 
Christmas and New Year’s turkey 
matches were almost as much a part 
of the year’s program in many towns 
and rural communities as the Fourth of 
July baseball game or the annual parade 
of the firemen. They were the big days 
for every American boy of fourteen or 
forty who owned a rifle or a shotgun, 
and who could produce the money neces- 
sary for the entrance fee. 
When the H. C. of L. hit the price 
of turkeys, geese, ducks and chickens 
a few years ago, it had a tendency to 
put a crimp on the holding of turkey 
matches ; but since prices are beginning 
to approach a more possible level, there 
is reason to expect that this good old 
sport will soon be much more popular 
than ever before. Turkey shoots arc 
always a certain means of reviving in- 
terest m any rifle, trapshooting or hunt- 
ing club by which they are conducted. 
The old-fashioned turkey matches, as 
I have known them, were divided into 
two general classes — the rifle matches 
and the shotgun shoots. For some rea- 
son or other, pistol or revolver turkey 
matches never seemed to receive much 
attention. 
Turkey matches with rifles have been 
a common form of fall and winter sport 
since before the time of Boone and 
Crockett. The earlier contests were 
By HENRY ELLIOTT 
conducted before the days when bull’s- 
eye targets were common ; the marksman 
used muzzle-loading, flint-lock or per- 
cussion-lock rifles and shot at small X’s 
or V’s cut in blocks of wood. The usual 
distance was from 40 to 60 yards, the 
range depending upon whether the rifle- 
man shot offhand or from a rest. 
The man who placed his bullets closest 
to the center of the cut in the block won 
the turkey, goose or possibly the quarter 
of beef or the hog that was offered as 
the first prize in that event. Sometimes 
five or ten shots were fired at a block, 
and the degree of excellence of the 
scores was determined by what was 
known as string measure ; that is, each 
shot was measured from the center of 
the mark on the target and the distances 
added together. The one having the 
smallest distance for the result was de- 
clared the winner. 
In some matches the riflemen shot 
at the head, or head and neck, of the 
turkey, which was allowed to stick out 
of the box or crate at a range of pos- 
sibly 100 yards, and the first man to 
draw blood got the bird. 
These contests were exciting for the 
shooter and, undoubtedly, doubly so for 
the turkey, and were oftentimes quite 
profitable for the promoter. They flour- 
ished all over the eastern and mountain- 
ous sections of the country, where a 
large proportion of the population ex- 
isted largely by the aid of the rifle. These 
men had a pardonable but nevertheless 
considerable pride about their skill with 
the rifle, and consequently many of them 
welcomed a chance to display it; the 
turkey matches offered an opportunity. 
HE passing of time has had its effect 
upon the methods used in holding J 
turkey matches, as well as upon other | 
sports, and now these events are usu- j 
ally conducted in a different way, better [ 
adapted to the use of modern arms and I 
ideas of shooting. The bull’seye target 
has generally replaced the cross on a 
block of wood or the head of a turkey. 
Each man shoots fivfe, ten or twenty-shot 
scores, as the conditions and facilities 
allow, instead of trusting his luck to 
the result of a single shot, for breech- 
r 
The target 
loading repeating rifles have greatly in- 
creased the number of shots that can be 
fired and scored in an afternoon. The 
sling has replaced the muzzle-rest, and 
the spotting telescope the marking boy. 
But the general idea still remains. The | 
best shot with the rifle usually wins, f 
which is as it should be. i 
The man who began his rifle-shooting i 
life by reading Cooper’s Leather-Stock- \ 
ing Tales and is finishing it with the L 
Springfield rifle and metal-cased bullets | 
still feels the same thrill of excitement f 
and complete satisfaction as he wins and I 
picks out his trophy that was felt by 
the coonskin-capped backswoodsman of t 
a hundred years ago. It doesn’t make f 
a bit of difference whether the bird is ^ 
won with a muzzle-loading Hawkins at 
40 yards, a .22-caliber bolt-action at 100 i 
yards, or with a Springfield at 1,000. 
The effect upon the shooter is the same. ■ 
Turkey shooting has produced just as L 
much sport for the shotgun shooter. The I 
most common method of conducting | 
shotgun shoots for turkeys in years gone [ 
by was to allow the marksmen to shoot f 
at wooden blocks, each of which con- 
tained one or more X’s, the centers .of 
which were equivalent to the bull’seyes 1 
on a rifle target. The man who placed . 
a shot closest to the center of the X '! 
was the winner. These shoots were j! 
always exciting and interesting, even j 
{Continued on page 45) '■ 
On the firing-line at a turkey match 
