Sport: The Brave Bull’s-Eye

From the Lake Erie shore east of Toledo rose a droning peep-pop of small arms. Occasionally, the peepers’ chorus was lost in the bullfrog boom of a heavy Army artillery piece sullenly bellowing from a nearby ordnance depot. Then, for nearly a mile along the lake front, the small-arms drone, insistent and incessant, was heard again. Last week, with something of the sound of mock war, the National Rifle and Pistol Matches were in full crackle at Ohio’s Camp Perry. More than 1,300 sharpshooters, the deadliest of U.S. deadeyes, plunked slug after slug through the hearts of the targets.

Hundreds of spectators, mostly husbands, wives and children of the shooters, watched, off and on, in passive silence. The contests, all scored by relentless addition, had no climaxes. No one cheered. Many sat with eyes glued to mounted telescopes trained on the targets. Each evening, cease-fire came with the slowly fading light. Life for everyone at Camp Perry, by noisy day and quiet night, was a pleasant summer bivouac. They slept on cots in Perry’s concrete-floored hutments (billeting: $1 a day), ate cafeteria-style in a big mess hall, stole off to the beach, a stone’s throw from the steady fusillade. Off the range, they talked trigger-happily of their guns.

The Point Barrier. One of the National’s top events is its men’s pistol match. Firing 270 rounds portioned equally among pistols of three calibers (.22, .38, .45), each marksman must blaze away in tests of slow fire (one shot a minute), timed fire (five shots in 20 seconds) and rapid fire (five shots in ten seconds). Target distances range from 25 to 50 yards. With each bull’s-eye counting ten points, a total score of 2,700 is possible—but fantastically improbable. In some 50 years of National pistol contests, only nine men have ever shot 2,600 points or better. Seven of them have turned the trick only once.

The other two men, both at Camp Perry last week, are the nonpareils of pistoldom. Army Master Sergeant Huelet L. Benner, 35, who teaches pistolry to West Pointers, has broken 2,600 more times than he can recall, holds the official U.S. record of 2,644. Ex-Marine Major Harry Reeves, 44, now a pistol professor (as a lieutenant) for Detroit’s police department, has cracked the point barrier some 30 times. His most amazing performance: a brilliant (but unofficial) U.S. record of 2,649 points.

The Steady Squeeze. As they have ever since 1940, Benner and Reeves monopolized this year’s match despite their crack rivals. After a day’s shooting, -they were tied. Next day Policeman Reeves finished up 14 points ahead of Benner. But on the final day of the match. Reeves was a candidate for a hospital bed. With a fiery strep throat, full of fever (104°) and penicillin, he dragged himself to the range. At noon, he still held a thin lead over Armyman Benner. While the others ate lunch, Harry Reeves flopped in his hut. Shuttling between his cot and the range all through the sweltering afternoon, Reeves was a shaky, sweaty wreck. But in each critical instant of firing, he aimed surely, squeezed the trigger steadily, guided his bullets by instinct, if not by sight. His 2,606 points beat Benner, who slipped to 2,595—a level only a handful of pistol-men can ever hope to attain. Harry Reeves’s two daughters rushed up to buss him for winning his fifth National title. Harry smiled, but he felt shot.

In other Camp Perry events:

¶ Mrs. Margaret Culbertson, 38. a California kindergarten teacher, plugged her way to the women’s pistol title with a hot 2,434 points.

¶ In the National small bore (.22) rifle match, marksmen shooting with the help of wind-sniffing coaches, improved ammunition and a host of gun gadgets reached monotonous near-perfection. To break up ties, an “X” ring, a one-inch circle, is marked in the two-inch bull’s-eye used at 100 yards. Smaller “X” rings are used on smaller and closer targets. When riflemen tied on points, victory went to the one who placed the most shots in the “X” ring. Small-bore winner: John J. Crowley, 43, a researcher for the Winchester Repeating Arms Co., who tied two rivals with 3,197 points of a possible 3,200. Crowley was given the title for having plunked 255 of a possible 320 shots into the bull’s pupil.

¶ A 20-man U.S. small bore rifle team, trying to capture the Dewar International Trophy, had its work all cut out. In June, the British team, which won the trophy last year, set a world record of 7,977 points in a great bid to keep it. Early one morning last week, the Americans commenced firing. They resoundingly smashed Britain’s record, racked up 7,984 points of a possible 8,000. In the 800 rounds it fired, the U.S. team missed the bull’s-eye only 16 times, drew fairly respectable nines on those shots.