0176 Imperial College Rifle Club
Having had some experience of rifle shooting at school, I joined the Imperial College Rifle Club.
This had very suitable premises, underneath the City and Guilds building. When the great exhibition was on, in 1851, a tunnel had been built all the way from South Kensington tube station to the exhibition; so that pedestrians could walk along it without having to go out in the rain. By the time I arrived at Imperial this public subway ended by the Science Museum. However the disused tunnel which remained ran under Imperial College and we had a 25 yards rifle range set up in part of it. The facilities were very good, with people able to shoot on two levels, so we could support anything up to eight people firing rifles at the same time. Best of all, unlike the very primitive rifles used at school, we had proper professional target rifles.
That's where I spent many happy hours, trying to improve my skills. The idea was that you should be able to hit the centre of the target, which was not much bigger than the bullet itself - just a few millimetres across - at a distance of twenty five yards. With ten targets on the sheet, and 10 points for the centre and nine for the next ring, it was difficult to get a score of more than 90. Having said that, I eventually was able to reach fairly consistent score of 93-94. Others, in the College first team used to be able to score a ton – 100 -- I never did!
But it was nothing like the shooting I had been used to. We used single point slings. This meant that you put a very tight strap around your upper arm, connected to the sling point on the rifle. The strap was tied so tight that it effectively cut off your circulation, like a tourniquet, and your arm became rock solid as the blood flow stopped. Thus, when you'd finished shooting, and released the strap, your arm hurt like hell as the blood rushed back into it!
The rear sights were the key element. We each bought individual sights, with holes which were designed to match our own eyes. Aiming the rifle correctly meant that the image of the small target, 25 yards away, had to exactly match the hole in the rear sight. In this way, you could see if you were on target by the fact that the sight was blacked out. It was nothing like any shooting gallery at a fair!
I don't know why other people went shooting then, or now, but I did it to relax. You had to concentrate on the target for up to half an hour. After some practice, I found I was a relatively good shot. As a result I became captain of the Imperial College C Rifle Team, and we travelled all over London competing with the other colleges; wandering around tube trains with rifles slung over our shoulders, something which would have resulted in our arrest these days!
My most important venture, though, was the Courtman Cup. This was the rifle championship fought over by the three IC colleges. C&G had almost all of the members of the college first rifle team, and had won the cup for as far back as anyone could remember. RSM never came anywhere near and neither, for that matter, did RCS. But I persuaded the sports committee of RCS that it was worth having a try. In particular, I persuaded them to let us use as much ammunition as was needed. Thus I selected a team which was quite inexperienced but keen to win. Most important, however, was that I had them down on the range, every lunch hour, practicing for a number of weeks. We got through boxes and boxes of ammunition, but eventually the team members were consistent in their scores. Like me these were only consistent around 93-95; but they were consistent.
When the day came, therefore, the C&G team sauntered onto the into the rifle range and proceeded to take life very casually. My team, on the other hand, got down and achieved a better than normal average of 94. As usual a number of the C&G team members recorded good scores, but some of them had a very bad day. The net effect was that we, RCS, won the trophy - for the first time a long time. But this was down to my management, as team captain, rather than shooting skills!
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