Creedmoor and the International Matches

by David Minshall

INDEX

The NRA in America
Creedmoor Range Origins
Amateur Rifle Club
The Irish Challenge
Challenge Accepted
Rifles
Rifle Championship
of the World
American Centennial
America vs Great Britain
Long Range Demise
Military Matches
NRA Decline

Amateur Rifle Club

Contests and rifles during the first year were almost exclusively military and confined to members of the militia or men shooting with their rifles. The few "any rifle" competitions were offhand at 200 yards. Public support afforded of Creedmoor as long as it remained a military institution was slight. The first season, however, witnessed the formation of a small club of enthusiasts, an offshoot of the parent association, which was destined to create a revolution within a single year.

Colonel George Wingate with a few other clear-sighted individuals organized the "Amateur Rifle Club" of New York City in 1873. It was designed to cultivate the use of the sporting rifle, and to develop marksmanship as an amusement, with no ulterior military purpose. The Club fired their first match at the Creedmoor Rifle Range on 12 July 1873. There were twelve entrants and shooting was at 500 yards. The winner was J. Bodine of Highland, N.Y. A noted crack shot in his neighbourhood, he used an English made muzzle loading match rifle by George Gibbs of Bristol. While the Club's inaugural match may have gone unnoticed by many, the names of John Bodine and another competitor, Henry Fulton, were to be on the lips of the nation a year later.