Shooting Legend Robert K. Moore Passes
The shooting world lost another legend April 12, 2013 with the passing of Robert K. Moore at the age of 101.
The Washington, Pennsylvania rifleman was one of a quartet of Moore family members, G. Wayne, Bertie, and Charlie, that dominated smallbore shooting in the Keystone State, and nationally, during the 1940s and 50s.
“Bobby” Moore began his shooting career in 1937 and became a mainstay of the Frazier Simplex Rifle Club that rolled to numerous team and individual titles. Moore was an accomplished prone and position shooter who earned the National Rifle Association Distinguished Rifleman Position award in 1977, 20 years after he first joined the 1600 club. He was a member of five United States Dewar Teams, serving as coach in 1959 and captain the following year.
A National Record holder, Moore won the 1952 National Indoor Four Position Championship, the first year that the C. B. Lister Trophy was awarded for that match. He took home the Critchfield Trophy as the National Prone Champion in 1958 and two years later was the national civilian outdoor position champion.
After having taken possession of many of the national championship indoor and outdoor individual and team smallbore trophies he was, in 2005, honored by the Frazier-Simplex Rifle Club who presented the NRA with the Robert K. Moore Trophy. The Moore Trophy is awarded annually at the National Outdoor Smallbore Rifle Position Championship to the high senior. That year Moore was on stage in Hough Auditorium to present it to the first recipient, another shooting legend, Fred Cole.
As impressive as his individual and team honors might be Moore’s true legacy to the sport of competitive smallbore rifle shooting is the many young shooters who he mentored. The likes of Barry and Dean Trew, Dave Cramer and All American Tommy Santelli were much influenced by Moore, who they affectionate knew as “The Old Man.”
We are diminished.
I knew Bob Moore reasonably well. He used to have people over during deer season to see how their day had gone. His eyesight had failed him by that point in time but he certainly knew his guns and always had some good stories from before I was born to share.