Happy New Year

Sunday Sermon

I found this photo quite evocative on more than one level. It was posted on the Shiloh forum by rmulhern who titled his post "Good Companions." He referred his readers to "Luke 22:36." As I read it, the particular scripture is Jesus telling his apostles that if they have a purse and, presumably something to put in it, they should also buy a sword in order to keep it. If you happen to have a copy of the Old Book laying around the house, you can look it up yourself and let me know what you think. If you don't have a copy, my bet is that you still find the photo evocative but maybe in a different way.

Global Warming 2

Evidence is accumulating supporting the fact of global warming. I have posted on the subject before and I hope that I have reached a receptive audience. It is well known that H4227, H108, and all of the black powders are particular offenders in regards to creating high amounts of greenhouse gases when ignited. Many of you who read this blog will undoubtedly remain unrepentant and will shamelessly persist in your assault on Nature and the Environment. Others may wish to continue their pursuits that have cost so much time and effort but would not wish any harm to posterity. For those who care, I have decided to consider selling "offsets" to balance your ecological sins. This is such an admirable program, that I have also decided to extend it to those who offend good marksmanship. This program we will call "re-entry." Checks can be made out to "Cash" and I will take care of the rest. Prices negotiable. Sleep well.

2008 Match Schedules

I have posted the schedules for ASSRA, ISSA, and the Grand Junction folks here. As I get them, I will put others up such as the matches at Promontory, the Cody WY matches, and, of course, the popular and prestigious matches at the Crow Seeps Cattle Co. With careful planning, I am sure that you can make them all. Tentatively, our matches will be the second Saturday of the month but we may want to work around some of the others.

Old Shatterhand

A couple of the most famous rifles in Germany were the arms carried by a German adventurer known only as "Old Shatterhand" and his frequent companion, Winnetou, an Apache chief. These gentlemen were the embodiment of the cardinal virtues. They were strong, courageous, kind and just. The rifle in the picture was reportedly made by the finest gunsmith in St. Louis and carried the name "Silberbuechse" or Silver Rifle. The other was a Henry repeating rifle that, in this case, was famous for its accuracy and number of rounds carried in its magazine. The adventures of these men were recorded by Karl May (1842-1912) and published in Germany. They were wildly popular and May earned a fortune from his writings. Only later did May confess that he himself was Old Shatterhand and possessed the rifles and many artifacts of the Old West at his home near Dresden. You can see them today along with many other things at his former home, now a museum.

Of course, his success brought out the disparagers, the skeptics, and those of limited "willing suspension of disbelief." May persisted in his assertions but the fact-checkers eventually found that he had never been in the West and had obtained his guns and artifacts clandestinely. Nevertheless he remained immensely popular in Europe and had fans as diverse as Albert Einstein and Adolf Hitler. His books are reported to have sold over 2oo million copies, are still in print today, and have been translated into thirty languages including your own. His stories have been made into sixteen or so movies starring the likes of Stewart Granger and Lex Barker.

So, Western fans, why haven't you ever heard of him? I first became aware of May at a bookstore in Germany where his tales were displayed along side of those by Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour. Apparently they are difficult to translate with any degree of justice to his writing. It has been tried, however. A couple of years ago I read "The Treasure of Silver Lake" part of which takes place here in Utah. It is an episodic tale that brings our heroes across the West and into fortune. I see that another translator, a woman from Tasmania, is publishing more of them in English and they are available at Amazon. I would also hope that someone, one day, will also translate his other works besides the adventure stories as May was not your ordinary guy.

Eye Test

Honor Targets

Honor targets are mementos of an occasion that are peculiar to shooters, particularly schuetzen shooters. The tradition goes back hundreds of years in Germany. The collection in Schwaebisch Hall dates from 1727 only because a fire in the city burned all of the "old" ones. The subjects commemorated vary from club matches, births and birthdays, weddings, individuals, historic events, to whatever catches the fancy of whoever is paying the bill. Portrayed on the targets are the honorees, landscapes, historical events or persons, game animals, Freudian naughtiness, and again, whatever moves the artist or the person donating the target. It seems strange to honor an individual or a wedding couple by shooting at their portraits, especially if you remember the fuss made a few years ago when Bill and Hillary were so honored. I saw a target once illustrating the visit to a town by one A. Hitler. Considering how sensitive he was to criticism, one can see that there was a completely different point-of-view.

Targets are generally round from about a foot to three feet in diameter and are painted on wood. Keep in mind that there is no law governing or limiting the imagination of the artist. Around the outer circumference is often found the club name, the date, the occasion, the winner, who donated the target, and sometimes the names of the shooters. Quite often the shooters mark their hits, sometimes with little conical pegs, and sign their names on the back of the target. During my latest in-depth research expedition, I observed a target that was not meant to be shot but rather to be hung in the schuetzen house. It was to honor the local volunteer firefighters whose representatives were present at that banquet.

Traditions vary about the use of the target. In our club, we shoot a "King Target" each match, a shot at a regular target, sign our names to the hits and present it to the best shot. In some clubs in Germany, an honor target at a schuetzen fest is shot to determine the Schuetzen King for the year, an honor that may entail certain social responsibilities. At more mundane occasions the honor target is presented to the winner or the honoree(s) or hung in the schuetzen house or a favorite pub.

The Way

It seems there are a lot of misapprehensions about "Schuetzen" so I thought it appropriate to add my own. I am often asked if our sport is the same in Germany. The answer is, of course, yes and no. The German Schuetzen Union was organized in 1861 to, among other things, to improve marksmanship both as a skill and a science-just like our NRA a decade later. Our sport loosely replicates the firearms and techniques of the zenith of Schuetzen just prior to WWI. The German branch of our sport has had a couple of major road bumps along the way but remains dedicated to the original purpose. This means, of course, that old single shot rifles are deemed passe', which, in a practical sense, they are. So, to answer the question: no, they have progressed beyond shooting with antiques, for the most part. However, it just so happens that there is yet some lively competition widespread in Germany with odd looking rifles with hooked buttplates, shooting plain-based lead bullets, off-hand at distant targets. The difference is that they are muzzleloaders. It is interesting that one of the makers of these guns refers to them as Schuetzen rifles. The term has emigrated to the US and now back to Germany. So, what about shooting with the Aydts and Martinis that are the models for our rifles? It is still done although I am not sure that the matches are DSB sanctioned. There are some matches, mostly in southern Germany and Austria, that not only keep the tradition alive but also the style. A competitor must not only shoot an appropriately traditional rifle (or Zimmerstutzen) but must also dress appropriately. The schedule for these matches can be found at the website of Josef Albl, an artist woodcarver of Oberammergau. So the answer to the original question is also "yes, sort of."

Well do they?

This has been circulating on the internet but I thought that I would add it here so that the question might be finally put to rest.

Gedenkbuch

One of the more interesting things that I was able to see and browse through in my travels was a copy of the Gedenkbuch or Memory Book for the third German Bundeschiessen that was held in Vienna in 1868. It was a bit of a challenge in that the publisher neglected to print an English version and also used a type face that takes a little getting used to. That being said, the writing was plain and straight forward-as far as I could tell. The book is the "after action" report of the shoot.
The third Bundeschiessen attracted over five thousand competitors to shoot from one hundred sixty positions. This was not a small undertaking and required planning not only for conducting and scoring the matches but also for housing, feeding, transporting, and caring for the other needs of the participants. This seems to have been done with a great deal of intelligent thought and attention to detail. For example, it specified the kind, quality, and cost for a meal.
It is useful to remember that these gatherings were inspired by a growing desire of the German people to be united politically. This had been taking place even while planning for the festival was going on. Austria and Prussia went to war in the summer of 1866, just two years before. Prussia thumped the Austrians pretty well, inflicting casualties at a rate of about seven to one using their new secret weapon, the Dreyse breech-loading needle rifle. Prussia then simplified government administration of the German states that had been allied with Austria by doing it themselves. Nevertheless and surprisingly so, the mood at the Bundeschiessen seems to have been brotherly and not focused on the past.
The actual matches, and there were several, were held at 175 and 300 meters and were shot off-hand. For example, the Wehrmanns-scheiben was fired with something like a service rifle. The rules specified no set trigger, no hooked butt plate, and no patched bullets. The target was at 300 meters and was about three feet tall and half as wide. I neglected to record the scores but there seems to have been some fine shooting. The winner of the rapid fire target (300 meters, three minutes) won with a Peabody single shot-way ahead of the Winchester repeaters.