James White is a WWII Marine Veteran, NRA Instructor, Former ORA President, and Distinguished Marksman. He served the ORA for many years and began the Sharpshooter. This is from his collection of writing telling about the beginning of his years as a NRA instructor teaching kids gun safety and marksmanship in the school gym. This was certainly a different and more receptive era for firearm education and the shooting sports.

 

In 1954 I bought a Winchester Model 52 rifle. The rifle came with iron sights. I began shooting it at 50 feet at NRA 50 Ft. 12-bull targets at the Duncan armory.

I shot with a P. L. “Static” Willson. I began to call the 52 my “Static Eliminator.” Static Willson was a NRA Certified Rifle instructor. After I met the requirements, he recommended me, and I became a Certified Instructor. Static and I began to teach, mostly boys, but some girls, from ages 12 to 18, how to shoot the rifle club’s .22 rifles. We used a NRA six session course that included shooting and a written examination at the end. At the completion of the course they could shoot every week during the school year for qualification awards.

In 1957 Static and I shot a demonstration on the gym floor at the high school with the student body watching from the balcony. Glen Waters, the high school principal, was worried more about damage to his gym floor than anything else. We measured 50 feet from where I shot, to a metal bullet catcher I had designed that rested on a rag rug. While I got into a prone position and shot ten rounds, Static narrated, describing what I was doing. In later years we might have been arrested for our demonstration.

After Static retired, I continued to teach. I would teach two sessions of around 10 students per course each year and run the Junior Club. I did this for 25 years until my job made it where I couldn’t always be available. I still have a metal box that has a qualification card for more than 500 students I taught during those years.

After the students were through shooting each week, I would shoot 40 shots and sighters, ten shots each from the prone, sitting, kneeling and standing positions.

I seldom cleaned the bores of either my 52 or the club rifles. Using good ammo, unless the bore is damaged from too much cleaning, the waxy residue left after each shot protects the bore. At least that’s my experience. My 52 has digested a bunch of rounds and is still an accurate shooter.

Early on I found that a slight hesitancy in my 52’s trigger affected my standing and kneeling. Shooting prone and using standard velocity ammo, when a cartridge had a thin rim I would sometimes get a shot that was almost a “nine,” usually at two o’clock.

I began shooting outdoor prone at 50 and 100 yards. Firing from 100 yards on our old range was due east, which made staying in the two-inch ten ring difficult when there were gusts from a strong south wind. I learned how to “hold off,” using “Kentucky Windage.” I started off shooting standard velocity ammo, but my 52 liked Remington Match. Some lots of the standard velocity ammo we bought from the CMP or its predecessor shot almost as well as match ammo in my 52.