January, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
35 
“DIGGING IN” SOMEWHERE IN NEW JERSEY 
HOW THE ESSEX SCHOOL OF MUSKETRY MADE A TARGET BUTT THAT COST 
ONLY ENERGY AND WHY THEIR RIFLE RANGE WILL BE RUN ALL WINTER 
By CAPTAIN ROY S. T1NNEY 
B ACK in the Jersey hills lives Pop 
Young, a sturdy old chap of sixty sum¬ 
mers who is still in the prime of life, 
a man rich in health, energy and friends, 
a sportsman and a gentleman of the old 
school. Pop has two boys and he took time 
to grow up with them, taught them to love 
and appreciate the big open with all it 
means to us Americans. Pop’s formula is 
“red blood and gun powder” and it works; 
both his sons are living examples of that 
fact. Also Pop is serving his country in a 
manner others should emulate. He is 
Executive Officer of the Essex School of 
Musketry and when he told us he planned 
to run the outdoor range all winter, an un¬ 
usual proceeding, vye asked reasons for this 
radical departure in the shooting game. 
“It’s this way,” said Pop as he carefully 
polished the bore of his old Ballard rifle, 
“a military rifleman must possess sterner 
qualities than just being able to shoot 
straight, he must be able to do that certain 
thing under conditions approximating those 
found on the battlefield. The men who 
made this country didn’t worry much 
about the weather and they who will 
save it must be made of the same 
stuff, otherwise we will be called upon 
to pay the Kaiser’s war debt. My 
suggestion is to eliminate that am¬ 
bitious person entirely and that can 
only be accomplished by delivering 
hot lead when and where it is needed, 
regardless of the season or the tem¬ 
perature. That’s why we must turn 
our rifle range into a sort of war¬ 
time country club where the boys can 
spend their week-ends and get a sam¬ 
ple of the real thing. They must 
dig trenches, build butts, shoot, cook 
their own ‘chow’ and when night 
comes bed down in their shack like 
they would ‘somewhere in France’— 
rough work that soils the hands and hard¬ 
ens the body. Getting away from bath¬ 
rooms and steam heat for 
two days a week does a lot 
of good and warm clothes 
and blankets will make them 
comfortable. Also winter 
work shows who are the real 
men and how many molly¬ 
coddles are cluttering up 
the range and wasting our 
time. This war will be won 
by red blood and gun pow¬ 
der and the sooner people 
realize that rifle shooting 
is a man’s game, the better 
for all concerned.” 
. One beautiful October 
morning, we were suddenly 
confronted with three dis¬ 
tressing conditions: We 
needed a new pit and target 
carrier, the state of the ex- 
checquer precluded any im¬ 
mediate expenditures, and 
we required the butt that very afternoon. 
It was a case of produce a new pit or 
stop shooting. Whereupon two engineers, 
two business men and a lawyer proceeded 
to solve a problem in applied mechanics. 
N these days of hammerless guns, 
smokeless powders and rimless cart¬ 
ridges, one is apt to take radical im¬ 
provements in the shooting game as a 
Front of butt with target in position 
matter of course, but just the same, we 
feel that our costless target butt is an ac¬ 
The writer scoring the same target with pencil 
complishment. And as “digging in” has 
become the primary tactical operation of 
Target back “in battery”; position of last hit is being 
indicated by the disk 
all armies, it is no more than fitting 
that the military riflemen should be properly 
introduced to this unromantic, yet very 
important feature of the fighting game. 
Engineer No. i, alias Franco, received 
the hatchet, a handful of nails, and orders 
to rustle some wire and an old board. 
Engineer No. 2, alias Lil Arthur, took 
charge of the excavating squad, i.e., two 
business men, and the lawyer was issued 
the mattock and told to break out a strip 
of sod some three feet wide and ten feet 
long. The business men plugged away 
as became future captains of industry. 
The lawyer, like all fat men, perspired 
profusely and cussed considerably, while 
Lil Arthur bossed the job, wielded a 
shovel and saw to it that the other tools 
were kept moving. In two hours the four 
impromptu tarriers had produced a trench 
some four feet deep, throwing out the 
earth on the side toward the firing line, 
making a substantial cover somewhat 
higher than a man’s head. 
In the meantime Franco had made a 
target frame about six feet long and two 
feet wide and begged some wire from a 
neighboring hotel. This wire was passed 
over two uprights, cut from some 
nearby saplings, and run three feet 
above and parallel with the further 
edge of the trench, the ends being 
securely pegged down. On this 
crude suspension the target frame 
was hung horizontally by two bent 
nails. Presto, the job was done. A 
complete pit and target carrier had 
been produced by five amateur me¬ 
chanics in less than 120 minutes, with¬ 
out expending one cent of real money. 
A light stick and an old target was 
made into a disk for spotting shots, 
and a handkerchief answered for a 
powder flag. The shooting com¬ 
menced on time to the minute. 
Now consult the photos. The first 
shows the front of the butt with 
target No. 1 in position. 
In the second the writer is in the act of 
scoring target No. 1 with a 
pencil, and by drawing this 
target into the pit he has 
exposed target No. 2 to the 
firing line. 
The third shows target 
No. 1 back “in battery” and 
the position of the last hit 
is being indicated by the 
disk mentioned before. 
The procedure is this: 
The men on the firing line 
shoot in pairs. The man on 
the left shoots at target No. 
1 which appears on the left 
side of the parapet. The 
man on the right fires on 
target No. 2 which appears 
on the right side of the em¬ 
bankment. A bullet strikes 
target No. 1, the marker 
draws it onto the pit by slid¬ 
ing the frame along the 
wire, and thus exposes target No. 2. He 
scores the shot with a pencil and disks the 
(continued on page 49) 
