Never Ending Firearm Debates

by Hap Rocketto

There are several never ending debates in the shooting world. The first is the .45 ACP verses Nine Millimeter for self defense argument. This is probably the hoariest of all. In itself it may be responsible for the deforestation of thousands of hectares of Brazilian rainforest to harvest the pulp wood necessary to provide the innumerable reams of paper used to rehash this controversy.

Basically the two camps divide along these lines, bigger is better is the claim of the .45 camp whose main voice is the late Jeff Cooper. The nine mil folks say the more the merrier because a 9mm pistol usually caries 14 rounds to a 1911s seven. According to Dave Barry, the only reason that the metric system has any hope of catching in the United States is the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.

Another discussion centers about what is the best home defense weapon, a pistol, a rifle, or a shotgun. The pistol is convenient to store in your bed stand but takes a lot of practice to use effectively. The rifle is easy to use but cumbersome and had far too much penetrating power making occupants in adjacent rooms, or even houses, just a vulnerable to damage as an intruder. The last is a shotgun, my personal favorite. Nothing says stop, turn around, and leave my home like the no nonsense sound a 12 gauge shell being chambered.

A third is a two part question that swirls around earning Distinguished Rifleman designation. The first has to do with the seemingly increasing ease by which service rifle Distinguished is earned and the second is a comparison of service rifle and smallbore Distinguished.

I take a stand here because I am an old curmudgeon who began hunting service rifle Distinguished with an M1 on the 5V target. In those days shooting pants and mats were not allowed, the aiming black was smaller, the rapid fire time limits were 50 and 60 seconds, you had to load from the body, carried your gear in a shooting stool, and all of the rifles used 30 caliber ammunition issued on the line. Shooters chasing Distinguished now have it much easier, a situation which is richly evident by the fact that there are a host of youth of both genders who wear a Distinguished badge but are still months away from even qualifying for a driving license learner’s permit.

Because I came of age in the “Wooden Rifle and Iron Men” era I enjoy the right to lord over the 22 caliber Distinguished shooters. I do so because when I was coming up I had to suffer the withering sarcasm of the Distinguished shooters who earned the Badge with the Springfield ’03 and shot a 1,000 yard stage to boot! They laughed at our 10 karat Distinguished Badges because theirs were 12 karat, with an occasional 14k Badge, and said we had it easy because our rifles loaded by themselves.

I am sure the present crop of Distinguished, who use a small light rifle with little recoil, will beat up the next generation because they will be using hovercraft instead of the old tried and true range carts, won’t have to worry about wind, reloading, and recoil because of the new laser service rifles, and will not have any sense of the camaraderie found in the pits because of the universal use of electronic targets. They will brag about their four digit serial numbered gold filled Badges and scoff at the sprayed plastic six digit Badges the youngsters hope to earn.

There is another realm of Distinguished and that is smallbore. The National Rifle Association awards Distinguished status for shooting position and prone. The rules for getting this award are simple. You need to end up in the top ten percent of all competitors, Distinguished or non-Distinguished to earn a step. You need four steps and one must be at the Nationals. The discussion is which is ‘harder’ to get, service rifle or smallbore.

As a rule service rifle shooters look down upon the smallbore award which I find interesting as nowadays their rifles are also smallbore. Having earned both Badges, it is my experience that smallbore is harder to get because you are always shooting against Distinguished competitors to break into the top ten percent, not just non-Distinguished, as in service rifle.

Personally the toughest of the three is Distinguished prone because prone shooters are like wine-they getter better with age, prone Distinguished shooters never miss Perry, and, because they never seem to die, they just keep on showing up at the Nationals. Ergo, the Distinguished ranks never diminish but rather the population increases.

We are all mortal and I am pretty sure that even real old prone shooters eventually die when they get to ages of a Biblical proportion. However, I am convinced that their relatives keep bringing the mummified remains to Perry and plop them on the firing line where they still seem to come out on top, keeping me from earning my final prone leg. The heirs and assignees get away with it because, given the nature of prone shooting, it is often difficult to tell whether a prone shooter is alive or dead until it is time to change targets or rush to the challenge window.

What is harder? What is easier? The answer is succinctly summed up in the words of an old Infantry master sergeant who was asked his opinion of a discussion over an obscure philosophical point that occupied two fresh from college second lieutenants. One of the shave tails turned to the 30 year veteran of three wars, who left school in tenth grade to fight the Axis, and asked if the metaphysical argument or the teleological argument was most appropriate to the discussion. Shifting his quid he squinted and opined laconically, “Well, El Tee, I don’t rightly know but I suspect it all depends if you be on the outside lookin’ in or the inside lookin’ out.”