October, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
587 
were kept rustless and bright, but the tam¬ 
pions remained in the muzzles year in and 
year out. 
T HE ridiculousness of all this popinjay 
business struck the clear headed Win¬ 
gate very forcibly. He did not open 
a campaign of talk reform; he simply got 
a team licked into shape and then began 
twitting other officers into accepting a 
challenge. Of course he was a steady win¬ 
ner and it was almost like taking candy 
from an infant on the part of Captain 
Wingate. The Guard just at this time 
were furnished with an outfit of new rifles. 
The Remington Co., of Ilion, N. Y., landed 
a contract to furnish the entire Guard of 
New York State with a new weapon. It 
was thoroughly up to date, in the shape 
of the .50 calibre breech loader. It burned 
a big lot of black powder, made a tremen¬ 
dous noise, sent its big bullet with more 
or less accuracy, and some of them were 
very mulish in the capabilities as kickers. 
It had a good safe breech action, too, with 
a back door bolt which once shut compelled 
the charge to exit at the muzzle. It was 
in many ways a champion fool proof arm 
and on riot duty ought to have brought 
quick results. 
When special officers were later on 
named to look after the rifle practice of 
the various units it was soon discovered 
that the weapons varied greatly in the ac¬ 
curacy of their work. The writer well re¬ 
calls how Captain Robins, who became in¬ 
spector for the Seventh Regiment, put case 
after case of neatly polished arms to test 
before he was able to get twenty out of 
1,200 that he was willing to put into the 
hands of his selected shooting squad. The 
work of Captain Wingate drew the atten¬ 
tion of Forest and Stream, a journal read 
by practical sportsmen, many of them 
officers at Western army posts, who recog¬ 
nized the importance of marksmanship and 
the rank absurdity of spending millions 
upon a band of shooting men—so-called— 
who could not shoot and made no con¬ 
certed effort to learn how to do so. The 
quickest way to get results was to hold 
with which it could be entirely missed by 
a good percentage of the shooters surely 
justified Forest and Stream in turning on 
its whole power of sarcasm. Even at the 
start the excessive calibre of the arm 
chosen and its haphazard sighting device 
fully justified scoff- 
ers in styling it the 
“gas pipe,” as it was 
generally named. It 
was one of the early 
endeavors of Forest 
and Stream to get a 
change of some sort 
in the -weapon. 
a team. Of course Wingate won, that was 
a foregone conclusion. He did not jubi¬ 
late,. but a good deal was printed about it 
all over the country. But best of all, the 
Ordnance Board woke up to the importance 
of weapons of precision and marksmen. 
T 
valuable accom- 
T ' u • W:<:: 
Reproduction of old wood cut showing details of 
mechanism of gun rest used in Forest and Stream tests 
the pretentious man of arms up to ridi¬ 
cule and Forest and Stream succeeded in 
doing so by merely printing the scores and 
sending them to other papers all over the 
country to copy. They pointed a moral. 
The target then in use at the longer ranges 
was a slab six by twelve feet with a bull’s- 
eye a yard in diameter, and the certainty 
HE National 
Rifle Associa- 
t i o n was 
formed. Interest in 
marksmanship grew, 
and not only military 
men, but civilians as 
well, saw the possi¬ 
bilities of it as a 
means of sport and 
plishment for the nation at large. 
With the National Rifle Association be¬ 
hind him the Captain, who had become 
Colonel and General by virtue of his sev¬ 
eral positions in the promotion of official 
rifle practice, reached out to bring the 
country under the influence of the asso¬ 
ciation. There were Units of the National 
Guard in other states, and, on paper at 
least, they extended over the whole coun¬ 
try. The nearest regular army post was at 
Willetts Point, Long Island, occupied by 
a corps of engineers. They took readily 
to the new exercise and by using the con¬ 
venient range at Creedmoor as a practise 
ground, readily became the first shooting 
body and the most skilful one in the whole 
United States army. Challenges began to 
go out inviting the guard of each state to 
send its best team on for a competitive 
trial shoot; challenge trophies were put 
up and the various states were shamed 
into making some sort of an effort. For¬ 
est and Stream represented the sportsmen 
of the country and called upon the so-called 
military shots of the vari¬ 
ous sectors to come for¬ 
ward. Henry Hilton, of A. 
T. Stewart fame, put up a 
three thousand dollar 
“Hilton Trophy” as an in¬ 
ternational prize, intend¬ 
ing to coax the Canadians 
from over the border, 
where there was a grow¬ 
ing feeling that a military 
man ought to be a marks¬ 
man on the side. 
Col. Wingate was am¬ 
bitious. The regular army 
stood aloof, and almost 
sneered at what was going 
on, and so, to strike high 
up he sent a challenge to 
West Point. The challenge could not well be 
overlooked, for Forest and Stream with the 
dailies had a volume of badinage ready 
to let loose. Riflemen all over the country 
were waiting for them. In those days 
shooting at West Point was a novelty, and 
when the challenge was accepted there was 
some lively hustling in the getting up of 
The old gun rest, telescope and screens that were used in the 
first Forest and Stream tests on the Creedmore range 
.kjjbs 
PPM 
T 
•HERE is another little episode of just 
about this time, and while it is hardly 
fair to tell it at the expense of that 
same Ordnance Board, it really is a vital 
part of the history of that period. To ex¬ 
pedite this hobby, or dream, of co-ordinat¬ 
ing the man and the gun, Capt. Wingate 
had prepared a primer of rifle shooting, a 
sort of kindergarten course in making each 
bullet find its billet. It was very simple 
and very clear, although written by a law¬ 
yer, and when the Ordnance Board wished 
to show its up-to-dateness and there came 
a popular call for a regular army manual, 
it simply had Uncle Sam reprint the bro¬ 
chure, leaving the name of Wingate off 
the title page, and rushed it around to the 
army posts. A while later at one of his 
pleading seances with the board, Wingate 
incidentally called their attention to the 
fact that the little book was copyrighted 
and asked them about it. There was con¬ 
sternation among the generals, colonels, 
majors, etc. Capt. Wingate was a sphinx, 
but they knew he was also a lawyer, and 
well versed in copyright law. Well, he 
kept them on tenter hooks for a time, and 
then was more than generous. Rifle shoot¬ 
ing had grown, and there was really need 
for a more up-to-date manual, and Win¬ 
gate was the man for its writing. He 
said he would prepare such a new edition, 
thoroughly up-to-date, and that it might 
be published as a Federal document, only 
he insisted that his name should this time 
honestly appear on the title page, and so 
the art of rifle shooting got another boost 
on its conquering way. 
To make a long story short, Wingate 
won every match he fought—all save one, 
and thereby hangs another tale. Wingate 
had already found out that his men were 
superior to the weapon officially placed in 
their hands, and being military men they 
did come into the “any rifle” class. It 
was useless to go to the Ordnance Board 
with conclusive argument. But there was 
another way to get at it. Col. Wingate 
brought about a match with foreign mili¬ 
tary teams, and the one essential require¬ 
ment was that “service” weapons were to 
be used. It was a direct test between the 
American arm, vised and approved by the 
