Between Scylla and Charybdis

by Hap Rocketto 

We were swapping jokes between relays at the Rhode Island Prone Championship and one that got a big laugh was about a golfing fanatic priest who had called his monsignor to tell him that he was ill and would be unable to serve Sunday Mass. The errant cleric knew that everyone would be at church to hear his superior preach and, as a result, the local course would be empty. He then slinked to the links to shoot a solo round. During the game the divine knocked in not one, but three, holes in one and finished some six or seven strokes below the course record! His joy quickly turned to ashes when he realized that the Deity had both blessed him as a golfer and cursed him for his falsehood as a priest. He had the best day of golf in his life but could tell no one.

Still laughing we were called to the line and after the preparation period had begun the range officer abruptly called a cease fire and commanded all of us to open our bolts, insure our chambers were empty and to ground our rifles. It seems a tyro’s target had come adrift and the range officer was going to give the youngster a chance to go down range and fix it. It was something he did not have to do because hanging your target correctly is a shooter’s responsibility under NRA Rule 18.5. However, it was both within the range officer’s rights, according to NRA Rule 10.7, and the compassionate thing to do. While the youngster galloped down and back to the targets my mind drifted to thoughts of an incident when NRA Rule 18.5 ‘Responsibility in regards to targets’ was bent, if not down right broken.

The rule requires that you frame your target properly. That means it must be hung right side up. That doesn’t seem like too difficult a task but with most targets being symmetrical it can happen. Years ago the position phase at Camp Perry was fired in four positions on the A-23 target. There was an A-23/3 for team matches with three bulls in a vertical column, it looks like the A-25 100 yard target, but is seldom seen these days. All Guard teammate Lance Peters was sighting in during the standing stage of the team match. He had fired five tens in the sighter and had decided to go for record. As he prepared to shoot his first record shot he noticed, to his horror, that he had hung his target upside down! The five shots he thought were his sighters were actually five shots for record in the second record bull of the three-bull target. He was now faced with a terrible problem. If there were a crossfire on his target the scorers would line up the target with the backer and find that they did not match. He would either be disqualified or loose 50 points. Either would be a disaster.

Lance thought how he might solve his dilemma. His only option was to shoot in the same pattern as the first five into the second bull down. It seemed simple enough. Except that in order for the backer to look right he would have to shoot the shots in a mirror image the first target! He had shot another perfect record target standing, just backwards. It was a bit like the old Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers line. Fred was a great hoofer but Ginger did all that Fred did, except backwards while wearing heels.

Lance composed himself, checked his loading block, and very carefully shot five tens exactly where he wanted them. He had fired two perfect bulls standing. This is an amazing feat under any circumstances but this incident was special. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy this spectacular shooting feat he realized he was not yet out of the woods. The backers would still not line up unless he shot yet another five shots, in the same pattern, in the final bull that was the sighter! After drawing himself up to his full six and one quarter feet, taking a deep breath, and murmuring a short prayer he squeezed off five more tens in the final bull. He had now shot a trio of perfect bulls in order to get credit for two.

Several of us had been sitting behind the line casually spotting the team’s shots. When it dawned upon us what Lance was up to, and up against, we became glued to our scopes. In absolute awe, with bated breath, we watched the quiet drama that was being enacted in front of our eyes. The collective force of our sigh of relief after the last shot almost blew the towering Peters off of his feet.

We had witnessed an absolutely unbelievable shooting exhibition. This was the stuff of legend. Most of couldn’t have done it prone, let alone standing, and were bursting to brag to everyone about Lance’s deed. However, there was one catch. If we told the story we would be admitting to violating the rules and would be disqualified. Worse it would have meant that Lance’s astounding display of shooting prowess would have been for naught. We were forced to keep it to ourselves. The world is a just place and, probably as an act of Divine Intervention, Lance did not receive a crossfire and we did not place in the match. We were caught between Scylla and Charybdis, in other words, a rock and a hard place, just like the priest in the joke