by Hap Rocketto
One of the great weights that have been lifted from my shoulders since I retired from the National Guard and left the All Guard Shooting program is the need for excuses. It seemed you always had to have a good reason, read that excuse, in hand, to cover a poor score or performance. The competition at the top is always tough and if things go wrong sometimes you cannot blame yourself or you will loose too much confidence. Therefore, it is amazing how many barrels go bad, triggers get gummy, and bad rounds turn up when you are having trouble. All of your friends nod wisely in agreement, tell you it was a tough break, and then salt the excuse away to use if the occasion arises for them. Since I am now paying my own expenses, I don’t have to answer to anyone but myself. I am a hard enough critic anyway and I can’t fool myself.
Christy Mathewson, one of the greatest baseball players ever, once said that, “You must have an alibi to show whey you didn’t win. If you haven’t one you must fake one. Your self-confidence must never be undermined. Always have an alibi, but keep it where it belongs-to yourself.” This is good advice
The need for a good excuse usually keeps the gunsmiths pretty busy on the armorers’ vans that support the major military teams. If something is not going right, the usual solution is to “take it to the van.” Self-confidence must always be maintained, even if means having perfectly good equipment examined.
Civilian shooters know that tax dollars support these moving machine shops, and therefore believe that they should also have access to them. It is part of the traditional relationship between military shooters and civilians. Civilians pay the taxes and in return, the military leaves its brass. I guess gunsmiths think the same way because I have never heard of a civilian with a problem being turned away from a van. Maybe they can’t help because “we don’t set up our guns this way”, but they always try. Many are the six packs of beer dropped off at a van as a thank you when an apron-garbed military gunsmith successfully solved a civilian’s rifle problem.
The military teams also runs clinics as part of this symbiotic relationship. Once, at a Marine Corps Highpower clinic the instructor was discussing the effects of wind on the bullet at long range. After going over wind values and the method to determine the wind’s value he gave a hypothetical wind condition and had the students determine the windage they would put on the rifle. He then said they had released the shot and when it was disked the spotter was a nine o’clock nine. He then asked, “You’re a High Master on the Marine Team. Your first shot at 600 yards is not the X you called. You know you doped the wind correctly and broke the shot perfectly. What would you do next?” He was waiting for one of the obvious answers such as checking to make sure the condition did not change or to insure that you had clicked on the correct windage.
An eager hand popped up in back and the Marine acknowledged the shooter and asked for his solution.
“Gunnery Sergeant.” replied the self-confidence and well-informed shooter. “ If I were a High Master on the Marine team and I shot a nine that I knew should be an X the first thing I would do would be to take my rifle to the van.”
