Category Archives: Hap’s Corner

by Hap Rocketto While not quite at the level of Galahad’s quest for the Holy Grail, Jason’s search for the Golden Fleece, Rama’s mission to recover his wife Sita, or Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Junior’s hunt for the Lost Ark … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto Each Friday morning a group of we gray bearded rifle shooters meet at the club to shoot a postal match. Ernie Mellor, Charlie Adams, Dave Vinkler, Steve Rocketto, and I spend the morning blasting away at the … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto  Quite often seemingly harmless individual events occur in just the right order and place in time and geography to create catastrophe. This condition serves well for the definition of an accident-a string of incidents when taken individually … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto  There is a fundamental difference between shooting disciplines. It is not in the equipment or the course of fire but rather the way the shooters look at nature. This major division splits the pistol and rifle people … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto I was trying to tidy up my smallbore shooting kit and came across some really interesting artifacts. A shooter’s carrying bag is a midden heap and an archeologist delight. So, besides the mat and jacket, I came … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto When I first began filling out what seemed like a never ending series of card stock 10 ½ by eight inch DA Form 1344s, the official name of which is “Entry and Score Card for NBRP Individual … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto After shooting together for several days at a long ago Interservice the three of us who shared the point sat in the Quantico pits during a lull in the shooting and, for want of a better topic, … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto  When Frankie Valli sang out ”Grease is the word…” in the title tune of the eponymously named musical movie I don’t suspect that he was thinking about the triumvirate of rifle lubricants and preservatives so well known … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto IT WAS AN INTELLIGENT THING TO DO… The dust covered box had lain in a corner of my basement as untouched as the inner most burial chamber of an Egyptian pharaoh’s pyramid for what seemed like the … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto Each year I organize the Precision Shooting Magazine shooting teams during the smallbore prone phase at Camp Perry The match always begins at 12:30 and did again this year, but not before some Marx Brother like antics … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto The rich history and engaging characters of the shooting sports is both an ignored and unplumbed sea upon whose surface we cruise as we shape course from one match to another. It has oft been said that … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto Even though a half of a century has passed I remember clearly Miss Moore’s ninth grade English classroom on the third floor of the Chapman Building of the old New London High School. The sharpest memory well … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto I married into a Rhode Island family that is loaded with male sports fans. Baseball, basketball, football, soccer, golf, hockey, tennis, lacrosse; you name it and their huge plasma TVs blare it forth almost 24 hours a … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto When I was a young lad working for my rich Uncle Sam on what seagoing folk called “The Gray Funnel Line”, we were never allowed out of doors with our heads uncovered. The only exception was attendance … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto About a year ago, during my annual physical, my doctor had me step on the scale, something we both dreaded. I am a science teacher and I won’t go into the semantics of mass verses weight and … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto  Over the past several months I have been engaged in writing a history of the Black Hawk Rifle Club, a 75 year old shooting organization of which I am a member. One of the recurrent themes was … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto I am not much of a pistol shooter and I prefer rifle but I have shot a little .45 and that means I have to reload. I am not much of a reloader either and I prefer … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto The study of United States history is one of my great pleasures and the more obscure and mysteriously obscure the greater my enjoyment. I revel in the trivial minutiae of our nation’s rich past. For example do … Continue reading →

by Hap Rocketto Their names ring through history with a musical quality reminiscent of a New England college carillon on a crisp fall afternoon. The East India Company, The Hudson Bay Company, and The London Company all formed by bourgeois … Continue reading →