Category Archives: Hap’s Corner

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT… It took my brother Steve years to establish a rifle team at the high school where he taught physics. One of the strongest arguments offered by his opponent on the Board of Education was emotional: … Continue reading →

  A Distinguished Scout… I enlisted in the Connecticut National Guard to shoot on the rifle team and actual military duties were the furthest thing from my mind. Assigned to Company C, First Battalion, 169th Infantry based in Middletown, Connecticut, … Continue reading →

640 hits or 36 Hitless, Sort Of The Same Thing… ​The 26th of May was a sunny start to the Memorial Day Weekend and I was wielding my power washer while adhering to, depending on your literary bent, either Voltaire … Continue reading →

  RANDLE’S RHODE ISLANDRIFLE RANGE RELATIONSHIP… Rhode Island is a small state, to be absolutely accurate it is more than just a small state, it is the smallest state. Despite its diminutive size, it is but 48 miles from north … Continue reading →

  HAP, JAKE, TOMMY, AND MALCOLM… During the 2017 Roberts Trophy Match we took a side trip to visit a few of the historical spots that dot the bucolic English country side. Heading west from Bisley we soon arrived at … Continue reading →

ITS TOMMY THIS AND TOMMY THAT….. Life, like a busy main street, is full of intersections. Outside of my family, shooting and aviation are my main preoccupations, with Red Sox baseball and America’s Cup yacht racing following. Recently three of … Continue reading →

  LIKE A FIDDLER ON THE ROOF… Few sports are more traditional than the shooting sports. We have been doing things the same way for a long time and the traditional way of doing things borders on sacred to many. … Continue reading →

Monophthongs, Diphthongs, And Firearm Terminology…   My daughters, like most of their contemporaries, are avid Harry Potter fans. At one time the English edition was published in advance of the United States edition. Before the practice stopped I ordered English … Continue reading →

LIKE FRED AND GINGER, WE WERE CHEEK TO CHEEK… When I was a kid, growing up in the shank of the 1950s, there were two great debates that filled miles of column inches in New York City’sDaily Mirror, a tabloid … Continue reading →

SHOOTING’S CARROLL HARDY… My shooting running mate Shawn Carpenter’s favorite sports teams, outside of rifle teams that is, are the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots. In fact, he is responsible for bringing me back to baseball after … Continue reading →

PARTS IS PARTS ANDPIECES IS PIECES… From my perspective the 2019 NRA National Smallbore Rifle Prone Championship may best be distilled by a novel, a TV ad, and a book of the Bible. The first is Frankenstein; or The Modern … Continue reading →

Roman Slings And Pains… I have always been amused by the M1 cultists that post on the CMP website. After obsequiously knuckling their foreheads to the CMP staff they gloatingly post long lists and photos of surplus firearms they have … Continue reading →

  Forrest, Mama Was Right… Those of a certain age fondly recall Charles Schultz’s Peanuts comic strip. Every year, Linus Van Pelt, the strip’s resident intellectual and theologian, holds vigil in a pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin to … Continue reading →

Chekhov’s Rifle… Back in 2016 the, newly appointed Editor of Shooting Sports USA, John Parker,emailed me confirming that I would cover the NRA Outdoor Smallbore Rifle Championships. Former editor Chip Lohman, who had been recently promoted to Deputy Executive Director … Continue reading →

The Wild Bunch… Tickets in hand Larry Small, Stan Wujtewicz, Mike Franklin and I walked up the slight incline from the street level ticket box of the Garde Theater into the lobby. Passing through the double doors we took a … Continue reading →

The Great Western Schism: Two Popes at One Time… We were lounging in Dick Scheller’s room in Olsen Hall after a long day of shooting the All Army Combat Rifle Championships at Fort Benning. We had earned our trip by … Continue reading →

In my dotage I have retreated from serious position shooting. It seems my body is a less flexible, my reflexes sluggish, and my endurance less than it was. Some of this is due to sloth as I really don’t train … Continue reading →

Cholera,CLASS ACTION SUITS,ANDAMMOPRICES… A pleasant day of shooting had ended and we had drawn up our lawn chairs into a convivial circle. As the shadows lengthened the day’s shooting was dissected and the post mortem performed. Soon the talk meandered … Continue reading →

PICKLED PEPPERS, PILOTS, AND PISTOL POTSHOTS… There are two major events that occur on consecutive days in early October each year in the United States. On the first Monday in October the Supreme Court of the United States traditionally convenes … Continue reading →

  When one thinks of a gun toting Roosevelt the instant image in just about everyone’s mind is that of Theodore Roosevelt dropping a Grizzly Bear in Yellowstone or a rhinoceros in the Lado region of British Uganda. But there … Continue reading →

  The Bull Moose and His Connecticut Connections… John Milius’ 1975 film, The Wind and the Lion,is a semi historic romantic adventure very loosely based on the Perdicaris Incident. Like most of Milius’ work it is meticulously researched and, even … Continue reading →