by Hap Rocketto
There are a few of Lee Marvin movies that I very much enjoy, in part because he was an excellent actor and in part because of the story line. The Professionals, Heck in the Pacific, Cat Ballou, and, of course, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are films which come to mind. The last because it features the line that inspires my writing, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
I recalled a lesser film of Marvin’s after an internet discussion on Shooters Journal that meandered its way around shooting equipment and just how did the greats of the old days of smallbore shooting, like Bill Woodring, Bill Schweitzer, or Dave Carlson, manage to win so often and so well with what we consider primitive rifles and mediocre quality ammunition.
The movie is The Emperor of the North Pole in which Marvin plays a Depression era hobo called A#1 who is willing to put his life on the line to become a hobo legend as the first person to make a complete ride aboard the train of the sadistic railway bull, a hobo term for a railroad policeman, Shack, played by Ernest Borginine. Along the way a pesky greenhorn, who titles himself Cigaret, played by Keith Carradine, attached himself to A#1like a remora. The intertwining story lines of A#1 riding the train as Shack attempts to throw him off and the irksome Cigaret’s claiming he is as good as the veteran A#1 culminate in a line which sums up the arguments given on Shooters Journal.
The discussion opened with Jim Morrison wondering what type of custom equipment, what accessories, what type ammunition, and shape bullet Bill Woodring used in winning three consecutive national prone championships, a never repeated feat.
German Salazar chimed in with a little historical perspective, something which is sadly missing in today’s world of technolust and gizmology, to say he had nothing more than a 52B and Winchester Super Match ammunition. All of it was pretty much standard stuff for the day.
Art Jackson remembered that Bill’s only peculiarity was that he favored Vaver sights. As a Winchester employee Bill probably had a pretty good rifle which had been mated to a particular lot of ammunition at the plant. The records of the premier barrel maker of the day, Eric Johnson, show no record of Bill purchasing a barrel. Although it seems that Bill’s wife Kay, the first woman to earn International Distinguished, had bought two Johnson barrels to install on her Ballard. So much for family loyalty to the employer, although I suspect Kay had plenty of good Winchester Match ammunition at her disposal.
I eventually wrote that it was not the archer, but the arrow that made Woodring successful. My brother Steve opined that at any national prone championship there are about 20 competitors who are serious challengers for the title. Each is equipped with the best rifle, sight, and ammunition combination possible. All their rifles are tack drivers, the ammunition shoots knot holes, and the shooters are supremely confident in both equipment and self. Ken Benyo believes, rightly so, that having top notch equipment allows for mental relaxation because a solid rifle – sights – ammo combination gives confidence allowing one to focus on shot execution. This is the power behind the top shooters; it is the ‘juice’ that drives the engine.
The person who executes 640 nearly perfect record shots is going to step onto the stage to pick up the Critchfield Trophy, but not because of the equipment because all of the top shooters’ equipment is, for all intents and purposes, equal. The victory comes as a result of two things. The first and foremost is being just a fraction more mentally sharper than the competition. The second is having just the tiniest bit of luck to keep from shooting in the pick up or let off that happens right after coming off of the scope and starting to execute the shot.
For a new shooter, on the other hand, it is all about equipment because most begin shooting with inexpensive or well used rifles, jackets, scopes, and find that it is pretty easy to progress to the point where they are shooting better than the starter equipment. Once they invest in top quality gear they will still progress but much slower and then begins gizmology-trying to buy an X with a piece of equipment. In reality a plateau has been reached that can only be overcome by what I might term “heart.”
Simply put heart is that intense investment in the mental game that allows you to squeeze out the last possible X from your gear. It is knowing one’s self so well that if a shot goes astray it is easy to recognize if it was a mental lapse or a failure of equipment, and failures in equipment at that level are rare. This is the point where one realizes that Xs are not bought, but earned.
This brings us back to The Emperor of the North Pole. In the end A#1 wins out over Shack but gets quickly annoyed with the cocky punk Cigaret, who is a mere hanger on, bragging about what “they” accomplished. An exasperated A#1 finally tosses him off of the top of the train into a river running next to the track calling back at him, “You had the juice, kid, but not the heart and they go together.”
The moral of the lesson is that anyone can buy the juice but you need the heart to earn the Xs.
Hap, no truer words were ever spoken about that topic – nicely put.
German